Help shape the mobility transformation now: How to integrate smart sharing into your business

The range of our mobility offerings and our mobility behavior is more diverse today than ever. The private car sector is facing competition from car and ride sharing providers, which has become part of the modern lifestyle in urban areas for different consumer needs. What’s more, there are the different models of life. A family with children in the suburbs has different mobility needs than a trend-conscious couple or an emerging professional in the inner city. Different consumer demands require tailored mobility services which can already be implemented with the right systems and platform solutions. Subscriptions for cars, peer-to-peer sharing via apps as well as digitized and barrier-free parking are just some of the many options in the mobility sector.

Holistic system

It is clear that mobility should be based on a holistic system that meets four basic requirements:

1. infrastructure
2. automation
3. access
4. customization

The infrastructure for smooth process handling needs to be reliable and secure. A high degree of automation for back-end processes reduces the inhibition threshold for providers and enables easy access for many users. Ultimately, it must be possible to configure the product to treat consumers according to their individual needs.

This allows the entire Subscription2Cash value chain to be covered, from risk and subscription management to billing and collection. Our goal at Arvato is to bundle these components on a European platform and therefore create cost efficiency for companies.

Smooth Customer Journey

For the consumers, this means maximum convenience. Users can conveniently sign up for a subscription online, manage monthly billing in an app, for example, and make outstanding payments digitally if overdue. We enable this with consistent data use and individual customer communication making the mobility offers become as cost-effective and consumer-oriented as possible.

A smooth payment cycle is essential to the success of the product.

It is important to think about payment from the very beginning of the development process.

This is why the likes of US car-sharing providers such as Zipcar or Getaround plan their payment processes in product development which is possible with an integrated platform solution.

Car data is becoming increasingly relevant in the context of mobility transformation. Analyses and evaluations allow companies to better respond to customer needs and thereby monetize vehicle data. In car sharing, a system in the vehicle transmits data such as location, minutes or kilometers driven to a digital interface. This means the provider can process and bill for ad-hoc usage quickly. It also makes it easier to manage the flexible structure of contract details, such as basic fees or usage-based fees.

D2C business

More and more automotive manufacturers are entering Direct2Consumer business (D2C) and realizing how important central data collection and processing is here. For them and especially for consumers, it’s great when the countless small amounts – including those from external partners – are automatically combined in monthly statements.

Once the step has been taken toward an integrated platform, many options become possible in the innovative use of a car – for example, car rental by users to other users. I predict a great future for what is known as the Peer2Peer business in the current mobility transformation. P2P pioneer Lynk & Co. is currently proving that this model is promising at an international level. The company offers a monthly cancelable car subscription with a simple price model. With club membership, the cars can even be driven without a subscription. A nice example of maximum customer centricity .

Let’s recap:

Anyone who wants to offer car subscription models profitably should invest in digital payment systems for subscription management right from the start. At Arvato, we bundle the desired sharing and subscription models on an international platform and thereby enable comprehensive data records to be processed quickly, and the associated bills can of course be processed digitally. With our Mobility Clearing Services solution, we can support both B2B projects and D2C business.

Read more about modern mobility needs and how companies can meet them profitably in our Business Insight “Transformation in mobility and customer needs”.