Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, had a classic view, "First we should focus on effectiveness, do the right thing, and then try to improve efficiency and do things correctly."
This phrase is particularly useful for the automotive industry. Although the general trend of "new four modernizations" in the automotive industry has become a consensus, it does not mean that enterprises in it can easily balance "efficiency" and "efficiency".
In the past 2021, FAW-Volkswagen Audi is undoubtedly one of the car companies with excellent level of strategy formulation and execution. This is reflected in the fact that under various challenges, FAW-Volkswagen Audi still handed over a high-quality annual answer sheet in 2021, achieved new breakthroughs in 6 major levels such as users, products, brands, and services, and achieved a "fuel + electric" dual-line lead.
High-quality development is the result, so why? FAW-Volkswagen Audi's achievements in 2021 are inseparable from the successful implementation of its "gathering momentum and starting new" business strategy, and if the strategy is dismantled, it can be seen that a recurring keyword is "digitalization". Digitalization in products, services, experience and other dimensions, consolidating FAW-Volkswagen Audi as a leader in the luxury car market.
At present, the automobile industry is undergoing far-reaching changes, fuel vehicles and electric vehicles coexist, and digitalization and intelligence have become the focus of competition. In the future, mobility will evolve in the direction of sustainable and intelligent interconnection. As a cutting-edge force in the automotive industry, luxury cars are undoubtedly the ideal carrier for digitalization.
Looking back over the past 30 years, from the first Audi 100 sedan off the production line to the creation of a series of luxury market segments, every step taken by FAW-Volkswagen Audi has created a precedent in China's luxury car market. In the period of digital transformation, how FAW-Volkswagen Audi will redefine luxury has also attracted widespread attention.
Sales volume, brand, service in all dimensions of high quality
What is the high-quality development of car companies? There is no unified answer to this question, some claims focus more on the visible level of product sales and corporate profits, and some claims tend to the intangible level of brand image and service reputation.
2021 is a year of suffering for the automotive industry, with repeated epidemics around the world, shortages of chip supplies, and soaring prices of power batteries. The performance of FAW-Volkswagen Audi at all levels such as products, brands and services in 2021 is extremely gold-rich, which can be called a sample of enterprises with high-quality development.
Following 2020, FAW-Volkswagen Audi once again won the annual sales of more than 700,000 vehicles in 2021, which is inseparable from the support of a strong product matrix, specifically, the annual imported car sales increased by 53% year-on-year, and the four models won the top sales in the market segment. The steady sales performance in 2021 also drove Audi's cumulative sales in China to exceed the 7 million mark, becoming the leading luxury car brand to achieve this goal.
Like sales, FAW-Volkswagen Audi's brand power continues to be strong in the market. In the 2021 brand image survey, the overall perception score of the Audi brand reached the first level of the past 5 years, and the brand familiarity score continued to rank among the leaders in the luxury car market.
Compared with other brand camps, the competition of luxury car brands for service links has always been a white-hot trend, which is about the gold content of luxury positioning, and in 2021, FAW-Volkswagen Audi achieved the top of "after-sales service satisfaction" in the J.D.Power luxury car market for 9 consecutive years, and continued to become an industry benchmark.
The judgment of the gold content of enterprise development cannot be separated from the market in which it is located. As far as FAW-Volkswagen Audi is concerned, its domestic luxury car market is in a period of transition, and it is not a simple thing to win the favor of consumers in the transition period.
New energy vehicles have become a new consumer trend in the domestic luxury car market. In 2021, China's new energy vehicle sales were 3.521 million units, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year. With the further increase in sales, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in luxury vehicles has also increased significantly, reaching 32.7% in December 2021, that is, for every three luxury cars sold, one is a new energy vehicle.
FAW-Volkswagen Audi is undoubtedly keenly aware of this, and in the process of implementing the business strategy of "gathering momentum and starting new" in 2021, it will take new energy as an important potential energy to help enterprises develop with high quality, and accelerate the improvement of the layout of electrified products, platforms and ecology.
In April 2021, FAW-Volkswagen Audi's "S.T.E.P Step into the Future" full electrification strategy was officially upgraded to phase 2.0, bringing two new Audi e-tron and e-tron Sportback models to electric vehicle consumers. At the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show, the official unveiling of the Q4 e-tron marks the completion of the comprehensive layout of Audi's four major electric vehicle platforms (MLB evo, MEB, J1, PPE) products.
Bidding farewell to the primary stage of "oil to electricity", in the new electrification stage, the competition between car companies is largely a technology war and a platform war. Relying on the four major electric vehicle platforms, FAW-Volkswagen Audi has the ability to seize different price ranges and different product categories in the future electric vehicle market, and can meet the various needs of different consumer groups.
The competition on the luxury electric vehicle track not only needs to provide consumers with a luxurious and high-end driving experience, but also needs to provide consumers with more perfect and intimate services than the era of fuel vehicles.
Different from fuel vehicles, how to provide after-sales service for electric vehicles is more testing the ability of car companies. The construction of an electric mobility ecosystem is an important service layout of FAW-Volkswagen Audi in 2021, and the specific achievements include customizing up to 27 exclusive rights and interests for users throughout the year, and achieving a 50% leading home charging installation rate.
Not only electrification, but also diversified and personalized consumer trends have also affected the automotive market. In the face of changes in consumer demand, FAW-Volkswagen Audi has an extremely large lineup of new cars in 2021, and for consumers, it can be said that "there is always a suitable one for you".
These include the new Audi A3 family for the entry-level market, the Q2L mid-term redesign, the Q5L mid-term redesign for the main SUV market, the RS 6, RS 7, RS Q8, R8 for high-end performance car enthusiasts, and the Audi A4 Avant, A4 allroad, A6 Avant, A6 allroad special editions for consumers with personalized needs.
The "user-centric" logic of action
The industry consensus is that for a long time, fuel vehicles and electric vehicles will coexist. Both fuel vehicles and electric vehicles must embrace digital technology, after all, "software-defined cars" are no longer a controversial topic, but are regarded as an objective fact.
The level of digitalization and intelligence of vehicles is becoming a new key indicator affecting consumers' car purchase behavior. "Digitalization" is also a key word behind the high-quality development of FAW-Volkswagen Audi. In 2021, FAW-Volkswagen Audi has built a new digital ecosystem from product to service.
Although the Audi brand comes from Germany, FAW-Volkswagen Audi, as a luxury brand rooted in China, has always attached great importance to localization. In the OTA upgrade of Audi models, FAW-Volkswagen Audi will work with Tencent and other ecological partners in 2021 to provide users with WeChat car version and 7 other Tencent service applications.
In addition to the OTA upgrade, in order to promote the digital level of products, FAW-Volkswagen Audi has also created a leading user customization platform in the luxury car market, covering all domestic models, which can fit the personalized and diversified automobile consumption trend of the new era.
Compared with the product, the digital upgrade at the service level can also greatly improve the user experience. In 2021, FAW-Volkswagen Audi created the Audi Cloud Listening System, which is the industry's leading digital management platform for users, which can help FAW-Volkswagen Audi observe the pain points in the customer experience in real time and achieve the service goal of 100% resolution of customer complaints within 1 day.
In addition, FAW-Volkswagen Audi has also opened up online and offline, thus promoting the digital upgrading of user experience. In 2021, faw Audi APP will be fully integrated and upgraded to version 3.0, and one port can open up all contact points for user travel, and registered users have successfully exceeded 1 million.
Frankly speaking, although almost all car companies are currently promoting digital transformation, many car companies have not really understood the significance of digital transformation. Digitalization is essentially just an instrumental force, and the fundamental purpose is to better serve users and improve the user experience.
It can be clearly seen that the digital layout of FAW-Volkswagen Audi in 2021 is closely centered on the pain points of users' actual needs, and the concept of "user-centric" has always been taken as a guideline by FAW-Volkswagen Audi.
Create a new luxury image in the electric era
Towards 2022, FAW-Volkswagen Audi is ready for both electrification and digitalization. Compared with the vision of "gathering momentum to enlighten the new, moving steadily and farther" in 2021, its new vision of "advancing innovation and creating the future" in 2022 reflects that the transformation has entered the "deep water area".
Among them, in the direction of electrification, in 2022, FAW-Volkswagen Audi will exert efforts in four dimensions: product, marketing, technology and ecology to create a new luxury image of Audi in the electric era.
In the electric era, product is king. In 2022, whether it is for the A-segment car market, which is regarded as an important growth point in the future electric vehicle market, or for the emerging coupe market favored by young consumers, FAW-Volkswagen Audi will launch a layout, and with the listing of new cars such as e-tron GT and Q4 e-tron, the brand's electrification matrix will be fully strengthened.
In the electric vehicle market, innovative marketing models further narrow the distance with users, which is also an important goal of FAW-Volkswagen Audi in 2022. The Q4 e-tron is a major electric model with explosive potential, and FAW-Volkswagen Audi plans to use the car to create a new experience of electric luxury with a new sales model, multi-dimensional co-creation concept and full-journey user rights.
Electric vehicles are different from fuel vehicles, and their after-sales service tests the ability of car companies to serve users. In the case that some luxury brands are still preliminarily building charging stations, FAW-Volkswagen Audi has planned to roll out the layout of core three-electric technologies such as 800V ultra-high voltage charging technology in 2022, with more than 200 super charging stations.
From a technical point of view, the layout of FAW-Volkswagen Audi is cutting-edge enough, and in terms of 800V overcharge technology alone, its DC charging power can reach 270kW, almost double the existing charging power, and it takes only 10 minutes to bring more than 300km of endurance to electric vehicles.
In addition, FAW-Volkswagen Audi will also build more than 150 battery repair centers to achieve 100% battery recycling, and set up exclusive exhibition areas for new energy in more than 500 dealer stores to achieve 100% new energy training certification for dealers.
From the FAW-Volkswagen Audi 2022 plan, it can be seen that its action logic as a first-line luxury brand - in the process of promoting electrification transformation, while paying attention to the breadth and depth of the layout, around the whole life cycle of electric vehicles to create a luxurious life experience for users.
A model for digital transformation in a period of change
As for digitalization, in 2022, FAW-Volkswagen Audi will strengthen from the two dimensions of user experience and internal management. Among them, in terms of user experience, FAW-Volkswagen Audi's action in 2021 is only a "small test knife", and a heavier drama will be staged in 2022. Under the new business strategy of "Yijin Innovation", FAW-Volkswagen Audi will carry out four closed-loop upgrades of insight, experience, equity and operation to improve the user experience.
In terms of user experience, FAW-Volkswagen Audi plans to build a 360-degree online car viewing platform online to make the whole process of the store online and promote the consistency of the user's online and offline experience. And create a richer online service scenario to meet the user's real-time online interaction needs, to achieve multi-touch direct connection with users.
Direct connection with users has always been the direction of many car companies in the business model. The reason why it has not been achieved before is that "I am not willing to do it, but I can't do it either." Today, with the power of digitalization, FAW-Volkswagen Audi can directly listen to the voice of customers and obtain empowerment from customers, which will pioneer the improvement of customer experience.
At the level of fine enterprise management, "digital intelligence" born from the concept of digitalization will become an important support for the transformation and upgrading of FAW-Volkswagen Audi and high-quality development, and will bring innovation to the manufacturing system, channel system and operation system.
So, how to achieve fine management of enterprises with the help of digital intelligence, bringing more efficient and dynamic internal mechanisms? According to the new business strategy, in 2022, FAW-Volkswagen Audi will continue to upgrade the EP (Audi Business Ecosystem Digital Platform) from both ends of its products and operations.
On the product side, in 2022, FAW-Volkswagen Audi will rely on 3 new business areas and 300 new standardized indicators to achieve data full domain. On the operational side, FAW-Volkswagen Audi plans to build a standardized operation and maintenance process to achieve 100% response to user questions, as well as a comprehensive, efficient and agile customer insight system; and will accelerate the improvement of the integrated platform to achieve the integration of private domain operations, and achieve the milestone of more than 6 million private domain users.
It is foreseeable that the upgraded EP business ecosystem digital platform will further break the boundaries and build a large ecosystem that can connect users and vehicles, empower dealers and integrate external partners.
Digitalization has brought countless new possibilities to the car, is the key to winning a new round of competition, and is directly related to the future survival of car companies. Without digitalization as a support, any development vision will be just a "castle in the sky".
Although there are not a few car companies that see the importance of digitalization, only those who run fast can get rid of the fate of being eliminated. And how to run in the right direction and the right fast is not something that every car company can do. In the period of industry change that intensifies the reshuffle, not everyone can afford the cost of trial and error, and the "blindfolded" people can never reach their destination.
Overall, in the digital transformation track of FAW-Volkswagen in 2022, whether it is focusing on the improvement of user experience or reshaping the refined management of enterprises, we can see its clear and specific goal vision, the broad vision of reshaping the large business ecosystem, the courage to innovate internal mechanisms, and the rhythm of step by step.
Faw-Volkswagen Audi shows these qualities in the electrification transformation, which is exactly what is needed to complete a successful digital transformation.
It is worth mentioning that Audi's strong resources in the field of digitalization will undoubtedly be an important supporting force for FAW-Volkswagen Audi in the road of digital and intelligent transformation.
In August 2021, Audi announced its global electrification strategy, announcing that in 2022-2026, Audi will invest 37 billion euros in future model projects, including new energy and digital innovation technology.
It is not difficult to imagine that as a leader in China's luxury car market, FAW-Volkswagen Audi's aggressive posture in the electrification and digital track may make it continue to lead the innovative development of the Audi brand and luxury car market.
Wang Ziyang/Wen