Reimagining Mobility and its Value Chain

“Shinshu-Dokuso”, which translates to “Creative Pioneering”, is one of the core pillars of the Bridgestone Essence globally. While deeply ingrained in all our endeavours, it also serves as a reminder for us to think ahead of time, anticipate the needs that may arise, and be ready for the future.?At Bridgestone, we aim to enhance people’s ability to move, live, work and play and we do it by always thinking ahead of the curve and innovating.

Evolution of Mobility

Factors such as rapid urbanization, vehicular congestion and the rise in pollution are transforming the automotive industry and the future of mobility. As the consumer becomes more aware and adaptable, there is also a need for smarter, safer and more sustainable options.

These factors are driving Technology, Behavioral & Business shifts in the Automotive industry which will drive the future. And with the right thrust on policies and infrastructure, we are looking at a rapidly evolving future of mobility.

In the current scenario ‘future of mobility’ is characterized by the ‘CASE’ disruption.

The standalone vehicle is now Connected, and the Driver can be replaced by Autonomous driving, Sharing vehicle is coming up as a new trend over owning a vehicle and combustion vehicle is moving towards Electric.

This significant inclination towards CASE in India is also evident in the union budget 2023, highlighting the significant providing 13% reduction in customs duty on Lithium-iOn batteries, making electric vehicles more affordable. The budget has also significantly increased subsidies on EVs to encourage their adoption.?

Sustainability focus impacting innovation in Mobility

Not just environmentally sustainable, businesses today need to find the right balance between environmental consciousness and cleaner business practices that will be profitable and sustainable for the long term. Thus, impacting every aspect of business- like sourcing (Bridgestone’s global goal to reach 100% sustainable materials by 2050), how the product is designed i.e. Sturdo- which gives up to 29% longer tyre life, Ecopia- lowering the fuel consumption by up to 7%?to how the product is being sold i.e., the Pay Per Kilometer Model or Mobility Solutions offerings.??

Consumer behaviour driving retail transformation in Mobility

Over the years, the digital age has influenced every aspect of life and business.?The scope of digitization in business is endless and the infusion done over the years has already generated favorable results. AI and Data mining are the latest trends leading the innovation bandwagon, and they are here to stay. Digitization has not only impacted how businesses cater to their customers and partners but has also formed an integral part of how they perceive the brand.?IoT is also redefining the expectations of new age consumers and propelling the brands’ thrust towards digitization.

Bridgestone India launched the country's first-ever Concept Store that offers a digital-led buying experience like never before. By introducing a range of retail outlets called the Bridgestone Select Plus stores, we offer consumers educational tyre-buying services. Choosing tyres from the said stores allows them to gain an in-depth understanding of each tyre and get a hold of its relevance to the consumers’ driving needs.

Similarly, we have also advanced our technologies by developing an online platform that provides a customized solution for fleet owners with Smartfleet 1.0. As the first comprehensive platform for tyre-as-a-service business, Smartfleet 1.0 takes care of the major challenges faced by fleet owners ranging from enhancing business capabilities to people management.

With digitization already making a space for itself in the marketplace, the global pandemic furthered the process of consumers embracing digital commerce. Brands have been going above and beyond to adapt to a solution-centric model and a consumer-first approach to cater to consumers effectively. One may think that it is a challenge for brands to keep up with the ever-evolving consumer needs and wants, but technology has made it seamless to do so. Having said that, let us see how technology has impacted the industry and go in-depth about the role of AI and data.

Technology stretching the bounds of Mobility

Technology has revolutionized mobility and expanded it beyond just the vehicle. Mobility is now an experience for the consumer and an untapped pool of data for organizations, which can be used to further improve this experience.?Cutting-edge technologies have been paving their paths to even the smallest of businesses as they attempt to develop and upscale their competitive advantages in the marketplace. With the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI), businesses have benefited a lot as AI helps amass enormous amounts of data at a time and process it in real-time, allowing brands to save time and resources.

Many brands in the automotive industry are implementing AI and machine learning in the structure of cars as they introduce self-driving vehicles and AI for driver’s assistance while they upscale their manufacturing processes with its help.

Similarly, Bridgestone has also been a part of this revolution as we introduce our own set of innovative and technical solutions to cater to consumers efficiently.

Innovation is key for breakthroughs in Mobility

Our aim to innovate and encourage the development of an innovative ecosystem led us to one of our biggest initiatives, the Innovation Garage. Set up in Pune, Innovation Garage focuses primarily on developing a plethora of customer-centric solutions by collaborating with internal and external innovation ecosystems. IG also plays a vital role in promoting a culture of innovation within Bridgestone; start-up showcases, ideation sessions, innovation days and numerous other activities are part of innovation culture building.

To tap this external innovation ecosystem of start-ups and get access to them, we have partnered with early-stage Venture Capital (VC) funds as well as various Incubators and Accelerators based out of India to further our goal of developing customer-centric solutions by piloting Proof of Concepts (PoCs) projects with these start-ups.

Furthermore, we took our motive up a notch and introduced the first-ever mobility solutions institute in India, the Bridgestone Institute of Mobility Solutions (BIMS). The foundation of the institute lies in the significance of knowledge sharing and learning, and we also aim to empower and facilitate the stakeholders, employees, dealers and partners of Bridgestone to augment and improvise their knowledge of tyre technology and mobility solutions.?

This approach of nurturing an innovation mindset also extends to our community outreach programs. The Bridgestone Mobility Social Impact Awards identify, recognize and promote sustainable mobility innovations that employ advanced technologies and solutions for social advancement.

Bridgestone India’s Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer, Deepak Gulati says “As an organization, we follow “Kaizen”, or “Continuous Improvement”, which essentially implies that we are perpetually coming up with innovative solutions. However, the rapid evolution of the industry and the world as we see, have also opened immense avenues to think differently. We have the right infrastructure to further cultivate this innovation & scalability mindset and bring those ideas to reality, speedily. Therefore, as organizations, we must tap into this idea pool and innovate the way we approach innovation.”