Daimler Truck Innovation Centre India (DTICI), with its new data and artificial intelligence (AI) team, is focusing on identifying opportunities for leveraging data and AI to enhance various aspects of the business, such as product improvement, customer success, and operational efficiency, said Raghavendra Vaidya, MD and CEO of DTICI.

The captive unit supporting Daimler Truck AG research, IT and Product development activities, located in Bangalore is the largest centre of its kind outside Germany, for the automotive major. Vaidya told businessline, “This team will work across the globe with all regions and all product lines. This will have the responsibility of driving this strategy for the entire organisation.”

The focus is on leveraging technology to drive business value rather than just adopting technology for its own sake. With the newer technologies, the significant shift, for instance, involves transitioning from reacting to part failures to predicting them months in advance. Providing accurate predictions allows fleets and owners to replace parts during scheduled downtime, minimising operational disruptions, Vaidya explains.

Talent pool

Globally, the company is investing heavily into cloud, real-time data collection from trucks to create solutions. In India, its investment is majorly into building a strong talent pool. The company did not disclose its employee headcount in India, but said that it is actively hiring for multiple roles in the region.

Also read: Hyundai Motor India hopes to close the gap with Maruti Suzuki sales with upcoming plants

“The transformation in the automotive space is happening on switching from conventional power sources to electric and hydrogen, and intelligence to drive, where more and more software is being introduced into trucks. I think DTICI is in the forefront of both,” Vaidya said. Further, the business strategy is to increase the service revenue, which is centred around monetising data and deriving insights from data. “India provides those technology solutions and that technology edge drives the service revenue,” he noted.

The company also works with service providers locally, in addition to its larger partner ecosystem. Weighing in on the coexistence of GCCs and IT services players debate, Vaidya said that the ecosystem is quite well balanced with GCCs being well integrated with global business and having clear strategy. The partnership with IT services players are forged to drive operations that are not close to products and customers.

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