Suche
Mein Konto
You are freed from the burden of property”
Subscribe instead of buying: They say the future belongs to the subscription economy. But does that also apply to automobiles? The automotive industry asked Frank Föge, Country Manager for Germany and Austria at Zuora, a specialist in subscription management solutions.
You are freed from the burden of property”
Automotive industry: Zuora offers software for processing subscription models and preaches the change to the subscription economy. What are their advantages?
Frank Föge:From the customer's perspective, you are simply much more flexible, you can constantly change products and services and adapt them to your changing needs. Plus, you're freed from the burden of ownership, if you will. Ownership goes hand in hand with things like maintenance or loss of value. As a company, you get a 360° view of the customer and have an ongoing relationship with him or her. You can constantly query data, not personal data of course, but data about usage. At Zuora, we recognized early on the shift from product-centric selling to customer-centric selling. This will affect many industries and areas.
This already works wonderfully for things like software or streaming services like Netflix. But do you think the same will happen with cars?Isn't this an emotional product that you want to own? I think you have to differentiate. Firstly, between generations, older people are probably more interested in owning a car, younger people often see it more pragmatically. And then you also have to differentiate within the product segments. In the high-priced segment, ownership will probably remain: you want to own a Porsche or Maserati, it's a status symbol. But with a small car, which you only see as a tool to get from A to B, things are different.
However, car sharing models from major manufacturers such as BMW and Daimler have not been particularly successful so far, to say the least. How do you explain that?I used Car2go regularly for four years. They have devices on board that record data and know when you are going where. But how often do you think I was actively contacted? Never! So they forgot to use this data. You have to think this through and develop new business models.
Will the car subscription of the future be offered by the manufacturer, by the dealer or by car rental companies?Anything is conceivable, I think different players will emerge. In any case, retailers need to reposition themselves and are more likely to focus on the subscription area than the manufacturers. But you just need a certain size to implement something like that.
Do you have customers who are already successfully implementing a subscription model of this type, and what does that look like in practice? Yes, the AMAG Group, the largest car trading and leasing company in Switzerland, has launched a new business model with its car subscription service Clyde. The user takes out a subscription for a specific vehicle with Clyde. The subscription has two main advantages compared to conventional leasing contracts: Firstly, practically all car-related services are already included - from maintenance, wear and tear and tires to insurance. The only costs other than the subscription fees are the fuel costs. Secondly, the term of the contracts can be flexibly adjusted. After three months, the user can cancel the subscription or easily exchange the vehicle model for a new model, as often as they want.
For example, he swaps a convertible for a family van?Yes, exactly. If the vehicle no longer meets current needs because personal circumstances change, the subscription can be canceled or exchanged at short notice. Clyde even offers motorhomes for the holiday months, which can be replaced with cheaper cars the rest of the year.
The stronger customer loyalty then also plays into the hands of the providers' workshop business, right?Yes, this is of course positive for larger chains or authorized workshops and opens up new opportunities. For example, you can also use demonstration cars, employee vehicles or returns from leasing contracts for the subscription fleet. However, things will be difficult for individual independent workshops. But of course: Basically, an entire ecosystem of services is created around the physical product, which makes things all the more interesting. Depending on customer requirements, various services can then be activated. As is already the case with offerings in the areas of software or media – the two pioneering sectors of the subscription economy.