Challenges in the Development of Mobile Online Services in the Automotive Industry - A Case Study

Today’s automotive companies face new opportunities but also new challenges. With the development of new technologies, cars are increasingly integrated into the life of their owners for example by connecting their smartphones with their cars. This enables the development of new services for the owners of cars, e.g. monitoring of driving behavior. These so-called mobile online services demand an iterative and user-centered development and automotive companies have to align their processes with these demands. However, the necessary transition for that is difficult because automotive companies are often rigid in their structure, resistant to change, and still focused on the manufacturing of cars. Although mobile online services have become increasingly important for companies, there is, so far, only limited research in this field, especially about the challenges in the development of mobile online services. Therefore, we conduct a case study in a project that develops mobile online services to manage vehicle fleets in an automotive company. By using interviews, we investigate the challenges the project faces and the means that the project already implements to address these challenges. Our results show that the automotive company considers mobile services rather as a by-product and is still more focused on the manufacturing of cars. That is expressed by the number of external employees and a missing user-centric development that already starts in the manufacturing process.