Leverage viral growth inherent in mobile peer-to-peer telematics to strategic advantage

Telematics, defined as the vehicle features and services made available through a wireless connection to data or other resources not onboard the vehicle, provides one of the most promising areas of innovation and value creation in the automobile market today. However, up to now the US market has only experienced successful telematics businesses in the quazi-insurance field of Safety and Security. In contrast, Consumer Telematics, defined as the confluence of consumer electronics and vehicle telematics, presents a much more exciting market opportunity. In spite of this, inadequate bandwidth, poor usability, fragmented standards and excessive cost have together created sufficient barriers so as to deter any automakers from entering the market. In this thesis, we argue that the viral growth inherent in Wi-Fi class mobile peer-to-peer (mP2P) telematics presents an opportunity for an automotive OEM with significant marketshare to transcend these barriers, and thus capture significant value from this up-to-now elusive market. To do so, we analyze the proposed business through the filters of technology, value chain, applications and market dynamics in order to craft a comprehensive strategy for entering the market and insuring sustained return through its maturation. The technology analysis both presents the potential benefits and limitations of mP2P as well as likely competitors and substitutes. It suggests that mP2P has a sustainable cost and bandwidth advantage over other architectures. Our examination of the Telematics value chain indicates that the wireless connectivity and IP backhaul segments of the chain are predisposed towards commodization and thus should be outsourced in a manner that retains flexibility to switch carriers and even technologies as the market

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Bue, Erik C. (Eric Christophe), 1973-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Charles H. Fine and David Reed.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Mechanical Engineering.
• Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34747

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34747