Creating and Appropriating Value from Connected Vehicle Data

As vehicles become connected to the internet and start collecting data, automotive OEMs become owners of a new asset, vehicle data, that can potentially be valuable. For this new potential value to become realized, a process of value creation where data is turned into something useful for somebody is needed. For OEMs not to let all value slip into the hands of other actors in the connected vehicle ecosystem, they also need to find ways of appropriating it. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to investigate how value can be created from connected vehicle data and how automotive OEMs can appropriate this value. The study was performed in an exploratory and qualitative manner, where semi-structured interviews and industry reports were important sources of empirical data. With a deep understanding of the automotive industry, NEVS, an automotive OEM, provided a great source of primary data. The case of the automotive industry was compared with cases of how data has been used in other industries, revealing many “do's and don'ts”. The comparative cases, together with research on how data can be made valuable and more general theories on value creation and appropriation, were used to analyze the case of the automotive industry. Customizations, collaborations, and new ways of organizing the business were identified as important in creating and appropriating value from data. The thesis concludes that automotive OEMs can appropriate the value of data by improving internal processes such as product development to lower the costs and/or create better vehicles; by enriching their vehicles with data-enabled services that improve the user’s or owner’s experience of the vehicle, giving OEMs additional revenue sources and/or strengthening their competitiveness; or by selling data to external actors that can benefit from connected vehicle data. Creating value from data require automotive OEMs to adopt more flexible and fluid processes. This includes looking beyond the resources of the own firm, by collaborating with both customers, suppliers, and competitors. Doing this can provide the company with new competencies and insights, that in combination with data can increase its competitiveness. Collaborating becomes an important part in creating value for companies outside their current value chain too, where automotive OEMs will need to package data in ways that make it attractive