Mercedes 1999 Annual Report Download - page 20

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FRONTRUNNER
14
For example, together with debis IT Services as its software
partner, the Mercedes-Benz Sales and Marketing Organization
is working on the Digital Sales Channel project to develop an
e-commerce platform for vehicle sales at DaimlerChrysler.
DSC integrates various features of vehicle sales (initiation of a
new or used vehicle sale, leasing, financing, insurance, part-
exchange etc.) and also includes customer-relations elements.
Moreover, says Torok, the company can now pursue the value
chain and apply its cutting-edge automotive technologies to
much greater effect because development costs can be spread
over the combined sales of the corporate brands. In the future,
this will show up as another quantum leap in the company’s
competitive advantage.
CALIFORNIA DREAMING. The future always seems closer in
California, land of the leading edge. Here, DaimlerChrysler re-
searchers are engaged in several major projects, partnering
with other leading automakers, fuel providers and power-gen-
eration companies in the development of fuel cell technology;
analyzing the start-up culture of Silicon Valley; considering the
impact of the San Francisco lifestyle on the way its people live,
work and innovate.
And that’s just California! Be it fuel cell or information tech-
nology in Palo Alto, telematics in Berlin, drive systems in
Stuttgart, communications in Bangalore, India, electronics
in Shanghai, or vehicle dynamics at the Chelsea Proving
Grounds in Michigan, DaimlerChrysler surveys and creates
the future from a global vantage point, researching, design-
ing, and manufacturing vehicles, systems and services that
will define transport in tomorrow’s world.
Nowhere is the view from that global vantage point more
acutely appreciated or applied than in the offices – in Palo
Alto, Berlin and Kyoto, Japan – of Eckard Minx’s interdiscip-
linary Society and Technology Research Group (STRG).
Its task is to provide an early-warning system for the
DaimlerChrysler Board of Management on changes in the
business and social environment, and customized research
to individual clients within the group. STRG monitors con-
sumer behavior, investigates knowledge/information trends,
transportation and patterns of human settlement around the
globe, and takes a view that currently extends as far as 2020.
It’s an important link in DaimlerChrysler’s quality chain.
Quality companies need quality information.
PUTTING THE BEST TO THE TEST. Vehicle
development and testing facilities in Auburn Hills (above),
Papenburg (above right) and Sindelfingen. In both
Germany and the US, the company has established
facilities and practices that are bringing engineers and
designers into a single marketplace where they can more
easily exchange information, test new ideas, and take into
development those that survive their rigorous testing.
Supported by digital information and flexible human
resource allocation, the company is rapidly shortening its
product development times — a vital element in the
company’s competitive armory.