What is AWS for Automotive, and How Will CDPs Fuel 2022 Digital Acceleration?

What’s in store for the auto industry in 2022? Almost certainly, the digital transformation that started accelerating in 2020 and 2021 will continue to make inroads into all facets of the automotive industry. The recent announcement of AWS for Automotive is an indication of how important auto customer data has become in all aspects of the auto business—from development, to production, through sales and marketing, to maintenance and repeat business. And AWS Partner Treasure Data, an enterprise customer data platform (CDP), is also at the vanguard of the digital transformations of automotive businesses.

What Is AWS for Automotive?

AWS for Automotive is an initiative featuring services and solutions from AWS and AWS Partners. The initiative makes it easier for automotive customers to select the right tools and partners for their highest-priority workloads across the automotive ecosystem. For customers looking to accelerate deployments with solution-specific support, AWS for Automotive also identifies dedicated AWS automotive industry specialists, AWS Professional Services teams, and leading AWS Partners in each solution area.

How Auto Giants Use Data for Everything from Marketing and Sales to Product Design

The COVID-19 economic crisis has vastly intensified the auto industry’s embrace of digital channels and ecommerce as a way of boosting new car sales and aftersales functions. This change, which was already underway pre-pandemic, has accelerated during the pandemic, and many observers say that some of these changes will probably persist post-COVID.

“While virtually all stakeholders say that dealership experiences will long play a prominent role in the sales process for many consumers, the rapid expansion of activity on digital retailing channels over just a few months has many rethinking which touchpoint—online or in-dealership—will represent the real centerpiece of tomorrow’s auto buying experience,” says Michael Harrison, the Winterberry Group’s leader for its marketing consulting practice.

Data has become the high-octane fuel of these quickly evolving new ways of doing business. Already, Subaru has used high volumes of data from its CDP to make its advertising more targeted and efficient and unify the pre-dealership and in-dealership customer experiences. Later, the company even used the insights gained from its CDP to redesign some features to be more dog-friendly, once its data analytics revealed a high percentage of Subaru customers are dog lovers. And Isuzu has used its CDP and customer data to increase conversion and continue the personalized customer experience through the sales process and beyond, to service and even repeat vehicle sales.

Similarly, Maruti Suzuki, India’s leading car company, recently began using CDPs to keep customers engaged and motivated to visit its dealerships, increasing the rate at which prospects jumped from Maruti Suzuki websites to their local dealerships, easing a typical problem for many car companies.

Automakers worldwide are deciding that to stay ahead of the competition, they need to prioritize customer data initiatives—stitching data together, connecting all the dots, and keeping their consumers’ personal information secure.

“It feels very futuristic, but the future is here. All of that is based on data,” said Angela Zepeda, CMO, Hyundai Motor America recently told attendees at Reuters Automotive Retailing 2021.

With the customer data available through a CDP, auto companies can understand what people want in their cars, and then deliver that experience back to them. That is the future of innovation—both throughout the entire shop-buy-own cycle, as well as for the product itself.

To watch the full CMO panel session at Reuters Automotive Retailing 2021 on how leading OEMs are modernizing marketing with data, click here. To learn more about how Treasure Data CDP is reinventing the car buying experience, visit our Automotive Solutions page.