TomTom was once a undisputed aristocrat of a road. But ever given giveaway and increasingly improved navigation systems strike smartphones, a once vast Dutch association has had to set a sights on other areas while not losing lane of a immeasurable patron base.
Mike Schoofs has been with TomTom given 2005, and is now handling executive of consumer. It is a critical expansion for a association that “consumer” is now a apart division, along with automotive and craving (the association sold a Telematics multiplication progressing this year). “I am concerned with all that ends in a hands of a consumer,” he told Computer Weekly.
In a early years after TomTom was founded in 1991, consumer record was a one thing that done a association roughly unbeatable in a tellurian navigation market. But now a firm, that is headquartered in Amsterdam, faces an capricious destiny with a arise of giveaway aspirant systems.
The company’s consumer multiplication is still unequivocally strong, pronounced Schoofs, though he certified a marketplace is disappearing with small awaiting for growth. “But we have a unequivocally vast and unequivocally clever user base,” he added. “We still sell 5,000 unstable navigation inclination [PNDs] a day.”
According to Schoofs, a business who are shopping TomTom’s products are upgrading. “These are a users that unequivocally adore a products and wish a latest technology,” he said. “That is because we still innovate by building connected products with SIM or Wi-Fi.”
But a disappearing marketplace does not guarantee many of a future, even when a company’s consumer bottom is so loyal. That is because TomTom is relocating into a dauntless new universe of automotive development, partnering with vast companies rather than offered directly to consumers.
TomTom’s automotive and craving groups have grown exponentially in new years. The association partnered with Apple and Uber to furnish integrated maps, and works with vast automobile manufacturers underneath strange apparatus manufacturer (OEM) deals.
But it is not a usually actor in this field. TomTom suffered a reversal when Renault-Nissan signed a partnership with Google in Sep 2018 and Google became a aspirant in some-more than only a mobile space. Now TomTom competes with Google on an OEM level, and sole a Telematics multiplication progressing this year to giveaway adult resources and recover collateral to assistance it compete.
For Schoofs, a company’s opposite groups are not that opposite during a finish of a day. “As a company, we competence pierce some-more towards a B2B [business to business] approach, though in a end, a users sojourn a same,” he said. “It doesn’t matter either they buy a BMW or Peugeot in that TomTom maps are integrated, or use Apple Maps – we only have to keep a tie with them.”
And that is a pivotal indicate for TomTom. Physical navigation inclination are no longer a company’s large money-maker, though a users are still there – and there is a lot of believe to be gained about what they wish in a journey.
“We are entrance adult to 100 million inclination sold,” pronounced Schoofs – and that miracle is some-more than only symbolic. Combined with TomTom’s complicated pull into program – that now produces about two-thirds of a revenue, pronounced Schoofs – a association has a lot of information it can use to make a user’s tour easier.
“Users still go from A to B, though their tour is different,” he said. “For a commuter, it is critical to know trade information, or where a speed cameras are, since someone going on holiday would rather know where a informative areas are, where a good restaurants are. That information becomes some-more important.”
It is here that TomTom wants to compute itself. It is not an wholly new thought – a association was once famous for integrating points of seductiveness into a maps. Schoofs sees parallels, though also differences.
“People wish information, though they wish it before and after their tour as well,” he said. “Whether it is a commuter who finds out during a breakfast list what his fastest track is, or a traveller who wants to be desirous before his holiday, we wish to answer that question: what do you, as a customer, want?”
Social experience
The “after” partial of a tour is also apropos some-more critical for TomTom, pronounced Schoofs. “People wish experiences. They wish to be desirous and afterwards they can enthuse others by a trips they have had.”
Schoofs hinted during new products entrance from TomTom, such as a height built by and for a community, though sum are nonetheless unclear. “Social recommendations to other users will turn a incomparable partial of a TomTom experience,” he said. “We have to flog it off and afterwards let a village take it from there. Those 100 million users meant that we can have unequivocally applicable insights.”
This proceed also means a change in a company’s business model, pronounced Schoofs. An promotion model, generally one formed on personal data, is not something TomTom wants, though partnerships are a possibility, he said.
“It’s not about bombarding people with ads, though about relevance,” pronounced Schoofs. “If we can find out how prolonged it takes before a motorist needs to refuel, we could uncover them things like energetic fuel pricing and offer a giveaway coffee and sandwich in partnership with a petrol station.”
New competitors
But it is tough to supplement aptitude to maps when Google is a competitor. This is a elephant in a room for TomTom. Free navigation systems make TomTom’s costly program packages a tough sell to customers. That is because a association has turn increasingly meddlesome in remunerative OEM contracts, that it now has with automobile manufacturers such as Toyota and Volkswagen.
It also has craving partnerships with Apple, Uber and Baidu, and income from these automotive and craving contracts has been flourishing exponentially, with 23% expansion in a final entertain of 2018 alone.
High-definition (HD) maps competence be a pivotal to a tolerable destiny for TomTom, and are one of a many critical developments for a destiny adoption of unconstrained cars. However, building such maps competence be formidable for TomTom when Google moves into this space as well.
In fact, TomTom is not mostly seen as a tech company, according to InsingerGilissen researcher Jos Versteeg. “It has never been one,” he said. “It is a good tradesman that can sell a signature product unequivocally well, though it can’t contest with a tech association like Google.”
But Schoofs deserted this assessment. “For instance, we practical synthetic comprehension [AI] prolonged before other companies started regulating it as a selling ploy,” he said. “We had products like IQ Routes before 2010. Everything we do is technological. Our live trade feed is mostly seen as a best around. And we are in an modernized theatre of HD mapping as well.”
And those HD maps have turn an critical partial of TomTom’s identity. Its income from unconstrained pushing has grown usually in new years and continues to increase. But notwithstanding a fact that a association has branched out from consumer products, that consumer bottom is still critical for TomTom. It is also formidable to contend what a destiny of unconstrained pushing will hold, and how a association should respond to that.
“Developing for an unconstrained [driving] destiny is prolonged term,” pronounced Schoofs. “There are too many factors to take into comment – legislation, technological developments, consumer acceptance. We rise for a future, though it is tough to contend either that will be for three, 5 or 10 years from now.”
Article source: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252460740/Consumers-still-important-as-Dutch-satnav-pioneer-maps-B2B-future