Audi 2015 Annual Report Download - page 63

PROF. DR. ELGAR FLEISCH
Born in 1968. Professor of Technology
Management at the University of St. Gallen
and of Information Management at the
ETH Zurich. Elgar Fleisch completed his
studies in Business Informatics at the
University of Vienna in 1993 with a disser-
tation on the topic of artificial intelli-
gence. The focus of his research is on the
convergence of the physical and digital
worlds into an Internet of Things, and the
implications of this phenomenon for the
business world and society.
words, the digital transformation is not
only making it necessary to come up
with new management methods, but
is also resulting in the creation of new
business models.
Can you explain more precisely what
this means for Audi, Mr. Strotbek ?
STROTBEK : Take this example. One cen-
tral question used to be : How much will
we earn from a vehicle ? But in the future,
how we handle our customer relations
long-term, and what the resulting busi-
ness model is, will become increasingly
important. In other words, new indica-
tors – such as margin per customer – will
come into focus. That will create a need
for the appropriate tools for financial
evaluation. The Finance department will
increasingly have to step into the role of
internal business partner and participate
actively in the development of these
business models from an early stage.
FLEISCH : In tomorrow’s world, where we
will be paying more attention than ever
to mobility services, I will have to mea-
sure and manage things at a highly gran-
ular level, so that new business models
can be refined faster and more situation-
ally. And remember, we are always talking
about specific, regional customer groups.
Just because something works in Beijing,
you can’t assume it will be well received
in Berlin or Los Angeles ; conditions and
customer preferences vary from place
to place. The diversity of these regional
mobility marketplaces needs to be
reflected in very eective analytics.
Finally, your personal opinion : What
do you associate most closely with the
buzzword “digitalization ?”
FLEISCH : The issue that perhaps in-
trigues me the most is that people all
over the world have an appetite for
European hardware products. There is
exactly the same appetite worldwide for
American IT services. Those two worlds
are now converging, and I think its ex-
tremely important for the captains of
industry to take that really seriously.
There is a great deal at stake for Europe.
STROTBEK : The opportunities aorded
every day by digitalization are immense.
But they obviously go hand in hand with
major challenges. We are tackling them
boldly and actively, and still delighting
our customers with premium mobility in
the digital age.
“Digitalization speeds
up processes to the
benefit of our customers.
So flexibility and agility
are the order of the day
for us.”
Axel Strotbek
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