In collaboration with Deloitte Digital, students from the 4th semester of the Bachelor’s program in Digital Business designed and implemented technical solutions that will help car manufacturers improve customer experience and brand awareness.
About the project
The automotive industry is currently undergoing a big disruption. New and innovative companies are entering the market, making it difficult for traditional car manufacturers to stay competitive in an increasingly digitalized world, where customer expectations are shifting. Furthermore, great uncertainties exist when it comes to delivery times due to supply-chain issues and a shortage of workers and resources.
That was also the starting point for our students of the Bachelor’s program in Digital Business who were divided into three different streams – marketing, sales and customer service – to analyze and improve the whole user journey. Additionally, the communications team kept track of the progress, conducted surveys and interviews, and summarized the key findings in blog posts.
Marcus Riedler, Partner Consultant at Deloitte Digital, talks about how to keep the customers satisfied along the user journey: “… by keeping the customer informed, giving them all the information they need along the journey – and this is definitely why also a CRM system or a digitalization of the sales service and marketing process is so important.“
Business and technical approach
At the beginning of the project the students participated in a Salesforce training, that Deloitte Digital tailored individually to each project stream, helping students to understand the mechanisms within the tool and how the resulting business concepts could be implemented from a technical perspective. Furthermore, each team needed to take a closer look at the current automotive market and competition.
The project had a very agile approach with frequent meetings with members from Deloitte Digital and FHWien der WKW to discuss the progress and to give useful feedback to the teams.
“… where we have really the best results is, if you focus on the customers, on their needs, on their journey, on every touchpoint…” – Marcus Riedler, Deloitte Digital
In two elevator pitches during the project, the teams presented their results. In the first pitch the focus was on the improved user journey, the second one was about the technical solution design. Each team showed creativity and a deep understanding of the topic and therefore delivered impressive results.
Poster presentation
For the final presentation in June that was held on the premises of Deloitte in the 1st district of Vienna, all teams had to prepare project posters showing the results of their business-technical concept. In an exhibition-like setting, members from Deloitte Digital and FHWien der WKW observed the posters, asked questions about them and were very pleased with the final results. Stefan Nafra, Deputy Head of Bachelor’s Program Digital Business, was very satisfied as well. One of the key learnings from the project is, “that you focus on one solution and pitch it.“, according to Nafra.
Each team had its very individual and creative ideas about how to improve the customer journey. The results ranged from digital tools that will help customers to create their personalized vehicle, community spaces or applications to interact directly with existing or future customers about delivery status, service appointments or additional products.
The students also had a lot of fun with the project and the great collaboration with Deloitte Digital. Not only did they gain a lot of experience in time management, focusing on a solution from a business and technical perspective, and agile project work, but they also improved their teamwork.