INDUSTRY - AUTOMOTIVE

Driving Digital Transformation, Literally

ABI (Audi Business Innovation) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Audi AG that’s redefining customer experience in the automotive industry. ABI teamed up with Modus Create to create AVP (Automotive Visualization Platform), a tool that visualizes the configuration of any Volkswagen car based on CAD data in real-time using Unreal Engine.

OUR WORK INVOLVED

End-to-end platform development
Photorealistic visualization with Unreal Engine
Micro frontends
Architecture consulting
QA automation

IMPACT

30%

cost savings

2 HRS

new TTM

HIGHER

buyer engagement and digital purchases

With AVP, customers can now witness every conceivable configuration of a car as realistically as possible, and Audi can create marketing assets in seconds.

Since its inception in 2013, Audi Business Innovation (ABI) has created ingenious digital solutions to strengthen the sales and distribution processes of Audi AG. It’s one of the pioneers driving digital transformation in the automotive industry.

In 2019, ABI discovered Modus Create in an open-source community, and both teams instantly experienced a culture fit. Since then, Modus Create has worked closely with ABI to solve its strategic challenges with next-gen technologies.

Challenge

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic severely affected all industries worldwide, particularly the automotive industry. Without physical showrooms, purchasing and customizing automobiles became a major challenge for customers.

Additionally, Audi had a high dependency on external service providers to create visual assets for its products. Its 17 different car lines required new imagery and videos every few months.

ABI decided to create a platform that provides an intelligent showroom experience to customers. The platform would combine digital and real-world touchpoints, and offer a cohesive purchasing experience to buyers.

Modus Create’s full-stack product team, comprising product owner, scrum master, UX expert, and full-stack engineers, joined the ABI team to work on the platform.

From a business value point of view, the AVP ensures cost savings of about 30%, and the time to market has been reduced from weeks to hours.

— Lorenz Schweiger, Head of Business Development and Strategy for the AVP

Innovating with AVP

By following an integrated one-team model, the team designed, engineered, and released a revolutionary new platform for highly automated 3D visualization — Automotive Visualization Platform (AVP).

AVP is a cloud-based toolset that develops 2D and 3D imagery, emulating multiple photographic angles to provide automotive customers with a more intelligent showroom experience. AVP comprises Render Studio Pro & Creative Studio, which offer a multitude of customization options such as pre-defined camera angles, environments, and a free navigation camera.

Both Modus Create and ABI teams included a diverse group of technologists skilled at asynchronous, remote work, which simplified collaboration. Additionally, the team added a crediting system & implemented an analytics board in Tableau, to help ABI track the platform usage across markets & make data-driven decisions for the future.

Visuals generated by AVP

(Source: Audi Business Innovation)

Impact

AVP quickly became one of the flagship products of Audi Business Innovation. It sparked innovation not only at Audi but also at its parent company Volkswagen AG.

Enhanced purchase experience

More than 1,000 dealers already use AVP’s visualization in 27 markets worldwide.

AVP allows buyers to experience every conceivable configuration of a product/car as realistically as possible. Through kiosks in physical showrooms or in Audi’s digital showrooms, users can fine tune hundreds of options to see what their dream car would look like. The photorealistic visualization greatly simplifies the purchase experience, as users don’t need to visit specific stores to find their configured model.

Global marketing support

Did you know that several images and videos during the launch of Audi’s e-Tron GT and Q4 e-Tron models were created by AVP? For example, this promotional video of e-Tron GT was completely real-time rendered with AVP.

“Before AVP, you would have to fly to different environments with a crew and take several photos. Now, you can do that all in a movie-level 3D rendering space,” says Patrick Sheridan, CEO, Modus Create.

Reduced costs

AVP significantly reduced ABI’s expenses on third-party SaaS tooling.

Spread of innovation

AVP’s success has attracted interest from other groups within the Volkswagen Group. For example, ABI plans to deliver about 100 million images each year for Lamborghini alone.

With our entrepreneurial thinking, product and IT expertise for customer-driven solutions, and our mindset, we co-create digital transformations.

— Thomas Zuchtreigal, Head of AVP

AVP portal and render using AVP

(Source: Automobili Lamborghini S.P.A)

A better experience for creators and buyers

The lines between digital and physical are blurring. With AVP, Audi Business Innovation (ABI) aims to combine the digital and real world touchpoints for end customers and for the dealerships/sales into a seamless customer journey. This aligns well with Modus Create’s idea of every company being a technology company in the digital age.

The alignment of views facilitated Modus Create’s shift from a supplier to a long-term partner for ABI. What started with one front-end engineering project eventually led to multiple engagements involving design and product. Today, Modus Create and Audi Business Innovation are collaborating on several cutting-edge projects to digitize the automotive industry.

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SEE AVP IN ACTION

Modus Create CEO Patrick Sheridan speaks about ABI's digital transformation story with Technology Magazine.