What does "driving a car" even mean nowadays? Which kind of driving experience will still be attractive to future customers? And how is that going to affect the digital and physical customer experience?
Lead by the guiding principle "Radical Change Meets Mobility", six bachelor and four master teams developed future visions for Mercedes-Benz Consulting. Their work was supervised by the design professors
Lars Grau,
Tanja Schmitt-Fumian,
Thomas Stegman and professor
Dr. Brigitte Kleinselbeck, who initiated the project.
Quicker, better, more eco-friendly
"Rethink urban mobility" – this was one of the tasks presented to the master students. How could a car, a cityscape or driving behaviour, in general, look like in the future? It took eight weeks to interview potential customers, develop scenarios and carry out different workshops in order to come up with a wide range of results: self-driving cars, car-sharing models, or new systems for the secure retention of customer data were only a few of the created ideas.
In addition to that "Robots Do The Test Drive" was the topic bachelor students dealt with intensively. Will robots replace humans? The option of creating your dream car while comfortably sitting on your couch and idea of virtual consultants where only a few of the creative future visions the students came up with.
During the final presentation, the students presented not only their results but reflected on the process of developing the solutions. Mercedes-Benz Management consultant Robert Häusler, Senior Manager Sales Performance René Baumann and Consulting Manager Raphael Saupp were thrilled:
"I’m very impressed by the presentations. The ideas aren’t just good but excellent, which helped us gain a lot of new ideas and aspirations for our future."
Raphael SauppMercedes-Benz Consulting |
www.mercedes-benz-consulting.de/en/ Senior Manager and Head of Customer Management