As much as most of us would love to be a jack-of-all-trades, more often than not, that approach tends to leave us as a master of none. Although nowadays different industries are more intertwined than ever, the best results are still achieved when everyone sticks to what they know. That’s also one of the main reasons why car manufacturers tend to not find much success when it comes to managing their own internal IT projects.
Where focus goes, energy flows
The main big reason why car manufacturers are not great at leading their own internal IT projects, is the simple factor of focus. Much like any other business, car manufacturers are motivated by profit. That means their focus and energy goes into processes that will bring them the biggest profit. When it comes to car manufacturing companies, it is clear that their biggest income comes from selling cars.
On the other hand, if we talk about companies that specialize in automotive software, their profits are measured by how well their software sells. Hence, it is obvious that car manufacturers and automotive software companies put their focus on completely different areas. While manufacturers invest their time, energy and resources into selling cars, they generally simply don’t have as much bandwidth left to deliver their internal IT projects in time or according to the initial plan. This, however, is never an issue for an automotive software company, who is solely focused on delivering such IT projects with finesse and according to an agreed schedule.
The role of management
Another big reason why it’s wise for car manufacturers to outsource service providers to handle their internal IT projects, is the level of IT expertise within a car manufacturing company’s management. It only makes sense that an automotive company is led mainly by people whose knowledge and experience comes from selling cars, accessories, aftersales, etc. The management of such companies also tends to include people responsible for car sales in different regions.
This is not to say that the management of a car manufacturing company doesn’t include anyone responsible for IT and development processes within the business, however, such people usually only make up about 10-20% of the entire management.
On the other hand, if you were to analyze the management of an average software company, it is a whole different story. The management of a software company is generally mostly made up from people whose full responsibility lies in the development of their specific software and anything and everything to do with that. People included in the management are usually product leads, head of engineering, head of deliveries, etc.
That means that even based solely on the makeup of the management of a company, there is a very high likelihood that an automotive software company will be much more successful in delivering an IT project for a car manufacturing company than said company using only its internal team. Of course, the best results are always achieved when the automotive software company and the client work hand-in-hand to reach their common objective.
