The auto­mo­tive indus­try has already been oper­at­ing in a state of flux for the past 10 years as the world has begun to rethink the entire con­cept of mobil­i­ty. New mar­kets are intro­duc­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of own­ing a vehi­cle to indi­vid­u­als for the first time, while oth­ers are matur­ing as con­sumers choose ride-shar­ing and oth­er mobil­i­ty-as-a-ser­vice offer­ings over pur­chas­ing a car for per­son­al use. These trends have been hap­pen­ing all while car­mak­ers must man­u­fac­ture gas-pow­ered, elec­tric, and auto­mat­ed vehi­cles simul­ta­ne­ous­ly to meet con­sumer demands. 

Accel­er­at­ing Change in the Auto Industry

After sur­viv­ing the Great Reces­sion and the gov­ern­ment bailout, the auto­mo­tive indus­try is fac­ing anoth­er his­toric moment in the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Now that the U.S. gov­ern­ment has enact­ed the Defense Pro­duc­tion Act, automak­ers are required by law to pro­duce com­plex med­ical machin­ery they’ve nev­er engi­neered before along with per­son­al pro­tec­tive equipment. 

It’s unclear how long this sit­u­a­tion will go on before work­ers will be pre­pared to return to plants at nor­mal lev­els, or how long it will take for the auto mar­ket to recov­er. But the lessons automak­ers are learn­ing today could lead to new ideas for how to rein­vent pro­duc­tion lines and get inno­va­tions very quick­ly to market. 

What’s on the Map for SAP Auto­mo­tive Customers
The tech­nol­o­gy projects on their road maps may have to change, but there’s no doubt that automak­ers will need to lean on tech­nol­o­gy to get through their lat­est chal­lenges. The top four pri­or­i­ties SAP auto­mo­tive cus­tomers iden­ti­fied in our research for 2020 are like­ly to per­sist, even in a pan­dem­ic: sup­port­ing a glob­al man­u­fac­tur­ing envi­ron­ment, enhanc­ing the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, strength­en­ing cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, and man­ag­ing the sup­ply chain. While they will need to repri­or­i­tize their tech­nol­o­gy work, ASUG believes that SAP auto­mo­tive cus­tomers will not be able to put off fun­da­men­tal projects such as mov­ing to SAP S/4HANA, inte­grat­ing their busi­ness sys­tems, dri­ving busi­ness process automa­tion, and rework­ing plants for elec­tric vehi­cle production. 

Get a Recap of ASUG Auto­mo­tive Research

We encour­age you to learn how your peers are think­ing about adapt­ing for the future of mobil­i­ty by read­ing our 2020 report. It has use­ful insights that remain rel­e­vant, espe­cial­ly in the wake of what the indus­try is learn­ing by retool­ing to man­u­fac­ture com­plete­ly new prod­ucts. You can get an update from oth­er cus­tomers who are man­ag­ing this change right now by lis­ten­ing to our on-demand web­cast, The State of the Auto­mo­tive Indus­try in 2020: A Research Recap. You’ll hear from Kristin Welch of Ford X, Ford Motor Company’s ven­ture incu­ba­tor, on the industry’s new focus on man­u­fac­tur­ing per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment and ven­ti­la­tors through 2020.

Down­load our com­plete 2020 research report, The State of the Auto­mo­tive Indus­try. Don’t miss your oppor­tu­ni­ty to hear about trends in the indus­try from oth­er auto­mo­tive SAP cus­tomers at our vir­tu­al expe­ri­ence ASUG Best Prac­tices: SAP for Indus­tries in Sep­tem­ber 2020.