Impact of Digital Transformation in the Auto Repair Industry

How digital technology integration contributes to the enhancement of the automotive repair industry? Examines Automotive & Engineering Consultant Prabhat Khare through this article.

“When wireless (read digitalization) is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, we shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance.”

- Nikola Tesla, 1926

It was the early 20th century when automobiles started becoming a critical part of human society replacing all other modes of transportation. The market was booming and starting with Duryea in 1895, there were at least 1900 different companies in America itself, producing over 3,000 makes of American automobiles. Due to these large numbers of automobile manufacturers who all were trying hands-on a new technology which was at a very nascent stage in those times and any dissatisfied customer always resulted in the loss of business for any manufacturer in no time. It was at this moment the need for service became an important factor for their survival.

And it was at this point that the Model T was introduced by Ford in 1906, who has summarised by his philosophy of selling the Ford Vehicles in his book “My Life & Work”, wherein he states very clearly, “A man who bought one of our cars was in my opinion entitled to continuous use of that car, and therefore if he had a breakdown of any kind it was our duty to see that his machine was put into shape again at the earliest possible moment. In the success of the Ford car, the early provision of service was an outstanding element. Most of the expensive cars of that period were ill-provided with service stations. If your car broke down you had to depend on the local repair man – when you were entitled to depend upon the manufacturer. If the local repair man were a forehanded sort of a person, keeping on hand a good stock of parts (although on many of the cars the parts were not interchangeable), the owner was lucky. But if the repair man were a shiftless person, with adequate knowledge of automobiles and an inordinate desire to make a good thing out of every car that came into his place for repairs, then even a slight breakdown meant weeks of laying up and a whopping big repair bill that had to be paid before the car could be taken away. The repair men were for a time the largest menace to the automobile industry. Even as late as 1910 and 1911 the owner of an automobile was regarded as essentially a rich man whose money ought to be taken away from him. We met that situation squarely and at the very beginning. We would not have our distribution blocked by stupid, greedy men.”

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