Connecting people is encouraged at the HUB FCA.
“The idea is to collaboratively bring more agility and better understanding of the valued propositions we want to develop for our consumers, be they products or services,” says Breno Kamei, Director of Portfolio, Research and Competitive Intelligence for FCA in Latin America. The focus is always on the consumer: the human being who is increasingly connected, interacting with devices and has new expectations as to what a car can offer. Thus, the connections at the HUB FCA capture market and behavioral trends, technology and consumer news to predict solutions. “We understand today that when we multiply our presence, not only in the factory but elsewhere, with other creative entrepreneurs and companies, we increase our power of awareness”, says Mateus Silveira, Product Innovation and Connectivity Manager at FCA Latam.
FCA has mapped out, for example, a network of different startups - more than 500 worldwide, in countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the United States - to build an emerging innovation strategy. “We can understand these startups as surfers who are on the best wave in each area”, jokes Mateus, about the sea of stimuli and opportunities. With a better distribution network, FCA can assess who it should connect with in order to build a collaborative intelligence.
Gustavo Delgado, Innovation and Connectivity front coordinator, explains that one of the examples of the formation of this network is the challenge launched by FCA in Latin America in partnership with Sebrae's Nexos Program, to think of the car as a platform and starting point to offer new solutions to consumers, reframing existing technologies in the car, expanding their use and access to the opportunities that cities offer. “We were able to mobilize a network of people with diverse skills. In total, 39 startups presented innovative solutions, which became 23 and then down to five finalists”, explains Gustavo. "Nexos grasps our concept of connectivity, understood as the ability to operate in a network environment, in this case consisting of large companies, startups and acceleration environments acting collaboratively", he adds.