The Record - Issue 19: Winter 2020

73 our products and capabilities to enable sus- tainable solutions. For automotive companies, vehicle designs and how they are used is the fore- most challenge. Electric vehicle platforms drive increased use of in-vehicle software and allow for more software- and data-driven optimisation for maximum efficiency. Fleet management solu- tions can help further reduce carbon footprint for electric and ICE vehicles, and address com- plex aspects such as routing, traffic, predictive maintenance, and driver behaviour. Software enablement can also lower production costs and emissions by using less physical and complex parts, by enabling more efficient processes and gaining efficiency in supply chains, including data-driven circular economy approaches. Multi-modal transport is one of the biggest trends we’re seeing for the future. Moving to mobility-as-a-service solutions such as ride hail- ing and car sharing means less cars being used more often, with commensurate improvements in carbon footprint. What changes have you seen the Covid-19 pandemic bring to the automotive industry, and do you think will be permanent? As with every other industry, it has led to a huge acceleration in digital transformation over the past months. We have moved to home offices and have been discovering different ways of interacting between each other. It has shown people that they are able to do their work in a different way. Weidmüller, a German industrial connectiv- ity firm was able to remotely set up and main- tain industrial machines around the world using the cloud and Microsoft HoloLens Mixed Reality Headsets. A solution initially con- ceived for saving time and travel cost suddenly became critical for business continuity during the pandemic. Lockdowns have acted as behavioural ‘cir- cuit breakers’, nudging people to consider their mobility needs and choices. An update in remote work will accelerate the trends we’ve seen around mobility: more intermodal, more about sharing, and people will really begin to question if they need to invest in a privately owned car. This won’t happen immediately, but the movement towards remote working is here to stay. This is this is a huge challenge for the auto- motive industry. What role would we see deal- erships having? What role do we see for the build-and-sell model? There is no final answer at the moment, but we at Microsoft are there to help. We have the technology and people to really help our customers stay in that business and to change for the better. AUTOMOT I V E