- [Instructor] Blink number six,
Faurecia is just one company that's gracefully pivoted
to success in today's digitally connected age.
Theory is all well and good,
but what does a company that successfully transitioned
to producing smart connected products look like?
One such company is Faurecia
who supplies automotive companies with products,
such as car seats and vehicle interiors,
and in 2015, it found itself in debt and in need of change.
Around 2016, the company put new leadership in place
and read the writing on the wall.
It was time to go all in on digital systems integration
and intelligent automotive cockpits.
After all, the clear trend in cars was digital systems
that connected everything from the ignition
to onboard entertainment.
Faurecia ditched everything else it had been working on
and shifted its funds to include
a 100 million Euro innovation budget.
The changes allowed the company to reduce
its development time from 36 months to just 22.
In 2017, Faurecia began to piece together
its own platform ecosystem by purchasing Parrot,
a French company specializing in providing
car-specific infotainment.
It also entered into a joint venture with Coagent,
which brought in some much needed software expertise.
Then came a partnership with Accenture,
a company that specializes in the internet of things,
the kind of smart connected products
that used to be more or less monofunctional,
car seats for example.
With a focus on R and D
and its own platform ecosystem in place,
Faurecia began to create digitally connected
automotive cockpits that offered a range
of valuable experiences.
These come with a voice responsive assistant
that can adjust the air conditioning, upload videos,
switch to a new music playlist,
make a phone call, and even set a new appointment
in your Microsoft Office calendar.
What's more, the system learns the preferences
of individual drivers.
That means it knows what settings to provide
depending on who sits down and its biometric car seats.
This is just the tip of the iceberg though.
The system also has facial recognition
and a number of safety monitoring features
that automatically respond to drowsiness
and other potential signs of danger.
It's expected that the market for intelligent cockpits
like Faurecia's will be 35 billion Euros by 2025.
Forecasters are saying that thanks to its digital pivot,
the company will gain a 15% piece of this market
and experience an annual 3% growth in its stock value
over the next five years.
This is what digital reinvention looks like,
and today's the day to take the first step.