 Welcome everyone to HGL India 2021. Welcome to Applying Data Science and Innovation to Infotainment Experiences. We are very glad to have Shruti with us today for this talk and I hope it's informative for all of us, all of you. And with this, over to you Shruti. Hello all, thank you for taking your time out on this busy weekday evening. I'm Shruti Pandey. I'm a lead sales engineer at Hedspin and today I'm going to talk about a topic which has suddenly become a very, very big buzzword in our industry and in our circle. And what it's really called is, it's called as infotainment. What infotainment really means is a very slang word for that would be information plus entertainment, making it infotainment. But when we say infotainment and anybody Googles it up or searches it up or looks online, they may think that there's infotainment for so many different aspects to it, right? Because there's journalism, there's media, news, all of them are same really. And what exactly is infotainment coming into picture here. So when we say infotainment, it's really on the basis of cars becoming digital and it's an in thing about infotainment with cars these days. Because if you understand it's not just our TV or Chromecast or Alexa or phones that have become digital and also we have become digital, but even our cars have become digital. And these are just some graphics that I'm showing you on the screen which basically gives some statistics as to how this transition has really happened and how it's going to happen even more with respect to cars becoming digital. What this really means for the automotive industry is as simple as having the capabilities of, for example, I want to listen to Spotify. And it should work right off the tab or the digital screen that comes on the user panel on my car, right? So it could be any brand and I didn't want to name any today for this particular session but any brand that might be and it has a centralized panel where you can regulate the AC or take up a phone call or start the music and stuff like that. Maybe I'll take one name because Tesla has disrupted so much and so many things for the industry globally, not just in the US but it has a triple effects even in India and APAC and all the different continents on our sides as well. So what really has happened is people have started comparing that widget or that digital panel on the car as an extension of a smartphone and I've even researched for this session that I was taking today. I even researched a couple of Mackenzie reports and other reports which actually show trends like people want to see while buying a car or purchasing a car if it is actually digitized or not. If they are able to have that kind of a user experience where it actually has a panel and everything is so automated and robotic in a fashion maybe that everything is available to you on a button click in front of you without taking much of drivers attention and if you look at it for a second you may think that oh it's actually like a mobile phone, how much difference can this really make or add. But if you look at the brains going behind creating this technology or working on it, it's not really as simple as a mobile phone while you're driving or you're on the backseat or the next seat to the driver and trying to use your mobile phone. It is so much more than that. Again, this is the survey that I was talking about people even go about switching their car brand if it does not give them that automated feeling or the user experience or if that panel is there or not there and what kind of things can it control not just in our market but even in the EMEA and the US markets like what kind of experience am I getting in my car and how digital my car is. It sounds so weird but it is those days when things like that have been happening and are happening which makes all these things even more insightful not just as a researcher not just as a consumer but if I am in the industry and trying to cater to a market. I need to understand how the trends are going and what the dynamics is really coming on to because with the advent of smartphone and getting everything accessible on the phone. What exactly is my car offering me more compared to the other different things and how is my experience with respect to that so there's a fancy term called as OEM that you may see, which is original equipment manufacturer. So taking a classic example of Apple right so if you buy a phone you need to have its charger you need to have its plugins you need to have its headset. So similarly when you're buying a car and if it comes with different things so the engine the tire the doors the windows everything is a customized thing for that right you may opt for a AC or not you may opt for that panel or not so all of these accessories come under the jurisdiction of original equipment manufacturer so all of this comes under the OEM so the panel that you see is very in-house so all the providers basically thought of coming up with their in-house solutions to create that digital panel for the users because the one who is driving is the one who has to optimally use that panel. So for instance I am traveling somewhere and I don't know where to go and I just start the navigation or start the map. I need to know how and where I can reach it has to be able to take my voice commands for that matter. So all of that created in one single panel in front of me while I'm in the driver's seat all these different brands and automotive industry started creating their own in-house version of it. But when they were creating in-house version of these softwares and while they are great in creating cars because they have been doing that for years and years and years of expertise and not just the brand the research and creating the model but this was a new horizon and by 2015 there was a committee or there was an alliance that was formed which decided what if we are seeing this common problem of creating this thing in-house individually by ourselves and not being able to achieve what if we create a common platform and then they thought of leveraging the Android OS for creating this automated digitized platform. Yes, I mean can you imagine it's Android that is in the background as an OS that's beating the heart and soul of the platform that we're using which gives us as a market as engineer and testers a lot more things to leverage on and ship a better product to our customers or our end users really. So this alliance made the best thing possible for us and if you see the timelines are given as to when each of these companies or brands are trying to create their own version of their digitized panel based on Android as an OS. What exactly happens when all of these things have moved past and now they're trying to create something better as anything else or as any new technology coming up even the OEM platform or the Android OS platform that these automotive industries are trying to bring up they need a nice feedback loop for themselves to create. So I'll give you a very nice analogy when we are using our mobile phones and moving from one place to another or even if we are not moving from one place to another our network keeps changing and fluctuating. What if my data provider suddenly puts me from a 2G to 3G or 4G to 3G whatever. It constantly keeps changing and that's just one aspect of it. So when in car when you're actually on the go or on the drive there's so much more data to be captured because you're not just using a network or a data pack or Bluetooth to maybe connect your handset to the panel on the device but there's so much more happening right and this is where the complexity comes up to things which were looking simple until now which were looking like okay this is just something what my smartphone offers right but it's really not there's so much more that is going beyond the scene and there's so much more happening here. And what this really needs next is not just the state of the car because again right it's like you are in a device which is doing one kind of a job that it's supposed to do and on top of it you're using or trying to use another intelligence on it and try to leverage a couple more aspects because you want to easier ride you want something better to happen you want a better experience or you're just taking calls because you're driving and you're stuck in the traffic and you want to make use of the time. A lot of people do I mean I personally would not recommend that but you may know a lot of people go about taking their calls via the phone it could be personal or professional in nature but people want to save on the travelling time because they're stuck in traffic too long. So not just the calls or the finding navigation but trying to find out different ways as to how they can keep themselves engaged during that journey. So while there is a journey happening on the road on the fly on the drive for them there is another user journey that they are taking on with respect to this panel on the device which makes it all so much more amazing pool and complex at the same time. So you're not just monitoring the state of the vehicle you want to give the best user experience not just with respect to the driving and engine and the automotive part of it but even this heart and soul which sits as a digital panel. So you want to understand how my system is performing and what if there is distraction on the driver's end that distraction cannot just be getting a phone call or a message or something happening. There are people in the backseat or a kid or something of the sort which is creating those distraction not just this what if my panel that I really have in front of me isn't working good enough and I'm just trying to hit on the button and nothing comes up for me. It's not just distracting. It's also very frustrating for the driver in the driver's seat and you don't want something wrong to happen while all of this is going on right which makes this technology to be even much more perfect because the lives are at stake and not just yours but other people who are also driving in the same car with you or maybe on the road who are with you right. So all these auto OEMs need to check about a lot of different experience which we have been talking about from internet to voice control to hands free and all these integrations have to be really seamless and have to be very cautious while we are trying to maintain security for the driver as well giving them the best user experience and how to really go about it. So when I was trying to brainstorm or think something about this, this is exactly what we've been talking right for the last 10 minutes that this is in for entertainment. We want to have a feedback loop where I need to understand the data analysis as to how the user experience is really going about how the experience monitoring is happening because all of this is not just a user flow that you're doing on a digital device but it's also about monitoring the experience and getting the real time insight so that you make that digitization of the car even more better. A couple of KPIs that you can find in the real time are some of these so from the vehicle speed because ultimately the car is what it's used for right. That journey has to go in place there has to be geolocation there has to be connectivity and strength because what if there is no signal suddenly and the digital panel being digital is of no use anymore. I want to make calls that is blank screen and there is buffering that's happening which is again adding to the driver distraction or race tapping really. So a lot of these KPIs and a couple of more can add to understanding how we can make this journey better for the users. And lastly I would like to add it's all about something as a technology coming up new and before it's done everything sounds very difficult and complex. The companies who will understand this behavior and will be doing something very proactively about what to go about doing with respect to this setup and how to leverage this industry and cater to the users. Only they will flourish like it happens for any other technology right the ones who understand and go about doing something proactively. The end users and customers giving them the best customer experience really are the ones who will try in the market. So this is what I wanted to talk about infotainment today and I hope this makes sense and in case there are any questions I would really be very happy to take them out. Thanks a lot Shruti. I think we've got one question from Prasanna I'll just read it out to you. What exactly do you mean by connected car experience? Sure so connect it's not exactly the term where you call it as connected car experience but it's mostly like we were just using car as a car as a vehicle to drive me from one location to another right. But now it's not just that you might be using your phone and those were the days when you were doing a couple more things. Now you have a digitalized panel or a platform on the car itself right in front of you. You know the days when we used to have a panel as a radio or people would have their cassettes put into the slot and listen to music. But what are those days and there is a panel in front of you which basically gives you about more data and it's not just used for your air conditioning control and picking up a call by connecting my device or connecting my smartphone as a Bluetooth option. But that panel is now being leveraged and utilized as a much more bigger offering in the automotive industry. And I would like to say Tesla has disrupted a lot of this user experience and making cars digital which is making the users and the ones having those level of money and even if not having those level of money but there's so much of things coming up technologically with respect to giving the car experience that it has become all connected with respect to what's going on in the automotive industry. I hope that answers your question Prasanna. Yep thanks I think yeah Prasanna has responded. Yeah so thanks a lot Shruti for this session. Thanks a lot for joining us today and thanks a lot everyone as well.