Showing posts with label Cars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cars. Show all posts

May 22, 2008

Culture Drives Function and Enterprise Architecture

Isn’t it every kids’ dream to own a car? And who can’t wait to take their first driving lessons?

The Wall Street Journal, 29 February 2008 reports that “Japan’s Young Won’t Rally Round the Car.”

“Since the peak in1990, Japanese car makers’ domestic sales have dropped 31% to nearly three million vehicles in 2007.”

Why is this happening?

  • The Internet—“Unlike their parents’ generation, which viewed cars as the passport to freedom and higher social status, the Internet-connected Japanese youths today look to cars with indifference…having grown up on with the internet, they no longer depend on a car for shopping, entertainment, and socializing and prefer to spend their money in other ways.”
  • Preference for electronics—“Young people can borrow their parents’ car and I think they’d rather spend their money on PCs and iPods than cars….trains will do for now.”
  • Green movement—“Many youths worldwide felt cars were unnecessary and even uncool because they pollute and cause congestion.”

Kids’ priorities are changing and with that car manufacturers are having to re-architect the way they design and sell cars.

How is the auto industry responding with new architectures?

  1. New car designs for the Internet generation—these include smaller, eco-friendly vehicles; cars for hanging out together with convertible interior space designed to feel like a sports bar with large touch-screen displays that can be used by the group like; cars with rotating cabins “capable of driving sideways to easily slips into a parking space;” vehicles with “‘robotic agents’ shaped like a head with two eyes that s mounted on the dashboard abd provides driving directions in a soothing voice.”
  2. New marketing for the computer-savvy Drive date videos: “downloads filmed from a drivers perspective, the video lets a viewer go on a day drive with a young, female Japanese model as they drive together along scenic, congestion-free roads.”
The automobile is changing to meet new consumer demands: The cars’ purpose “isn’t to get from point A to point B, but is to provide a social space for the driver and passengers. It doesn’t convey status except the status of being together.”

A lesson for enterprise architects is that function certainly drives architecture. However, functional requirements change along with culture, and the architect needs to be ever vigilant is searching out and spotting new trends, so that the enterprise can be proactive in meeting user expectations. Further technical requirements change based on innovations, and these must be aligned with functional requirements to optimize EA solutions.


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January 8, 2008

Unmanned Vehicles and Enterprise Architecture

Cars that drive themselves, fiction or a soon to be reality?

General Motors believe that new technology enabling unmanned vehicles is the key to their business future; so GM is setting their sights on this as their target architecture for their turnaround.

The Wall Street Journal, 7 January 2008, reports that GM’s new target architecture is to develop unmanned vehicles by 2018.

Chairman and Chief Executive of GM, Rick Wagoner’s “vision of he not-too-distant future, vehicles crammed with cameras, sensors, and radar and navigation technology will be able to brake and accelerate on their own, avoid accidents, and spot congestion.”

Larry Burns, Chief Technologist at GM states “we see vehicles going from being largely mechanical o becoming more and more electronic.”

“Pushing the technological envelope is a key element of Mr. Wagoner’s strategy for turning GM around and positioning the company to compete with Toyota Motor Corp. in the long term. He is convinced being the first with game-changing innovations is the solutions to one of GM’s fundamental problems—battered image.”

While GM’s quality problems have mostly been addressed, consumers still perceive GM to be a stodgy company and have not come back to buy.

Mark LaNeve, GM’s U.S. sales and marketing chief said that “GM believes it must challenge Toyota on technology leadership in order to reverse the negative perceptions of GM and to win back customers who have defected to foreign brands…Toyota right now clearly has a leadership position on reputation, financial results, and many other measures.”

Will this new architecture strategy work for GM?

I wouldn’t bet on it for a number of reasons:

  • Toyota is not standing still while GM retools; in fact, Toyota is already on the leading edge with the Prius gas-electic hybrid, and the Lexus luxury sedan that can parallel park itself.
  • If GM doesn’t deliver on this technology promise, they will have shot themselves in the foot; it’s one thing to be perceived as behind the 8 ball and it’s another thing to prove that you can’t deliver on your commitments.
  • GM has not clearly articulated the business requirement for unmanned vehicles in the consumer market; we are not dealing with the need for unmanned aerial vehicles in fighting the enemy in Iraq.
  • GM’s strategy, as presented, is not coherent; they talk about getting ahead with technology, but have not addressed their inferior position on other issues such as financial results and other measures that GM’s Mark LaNeve acknowledged.

From a User-centric EA perspective, GM has still not caught on to the essence of the Japanese concept of Kaizen—continuous improvement and user-centricity. GM is looking at trying to steal the technology mantle from Toyota instead of incremental and evolutionary improvement time and time again. It’s a philosophy you live by, not one that you steal.


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