Delivering innovative products and services

Our vision is to improve people's lives by envisioning, innovating and creating new avenues of access to leading-edge mobility solutions. Our innovation strategy is designed to sustain our competitiveness in a dynamic digital economy, ensure that our core specialist expertise is future fit and meet the expectations of the connected customer.

Many customers no longer follow a linear approach when buying a vehicle, and prefer to engage in a process they are most comfortable with whether this is to establish their affordability and creditworthiness as a first step or conduct online research before engaging directly with a sales consultant. The digitisation of the end-to-end vehicle buying process aims to meet new customer expectations and offer them an omni-channel experience.

  • The slow roll out of a strong 5G network in South Africa will delay the introduction of connected vehicle technology.
  • Sub-Saharan Africa has the world's most expensive mobile data prices1.
  • Ensuring that digitisation does not add cost and complexity for the customer while remaining compliant and delivering cost efficiencies.

What we are doing

Stakeholder engagement

The detailed customer research project concluded in 2021, surveyed our own customer base as well as those who have not interacted with us, to determine digital adoption readiness in South Africa when purchasing a vehicle. The results indicated that 88% of people engage through digital touchpoints when purchasing a vehicle, and over 40% are comfortable to complete the majority of the vehicle buying process online (compared to 79% in the Deloitte 2022 Global Automotive Consumer Survey who indicated they would be happy to complete a full virtual process). 37% of customers indicated that customer service is the most important factor when deciding which dealership to buy from. Convenience, speed of transaction and ease of use are key factors in driving digital transactions2. The biggest barriers to digital adoption were identified as trust, security of personal information and fraud risk.

The customer research project also showed that customers desire a more emotional connection with sales personnel given that they are making a major purchasing decision, and that good communication, transparency and effort by sales executives are key to building trust and delivering an excellent customer experience. Key to being able to deliver this experience is our collaboration with subject matter experts in areas such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Innovation journey

Innovation is a core enabler of our future. Deliberate and methodical innovation helps Motus anticipate changes and position itself strategically to benefit from shifts and trends in a transforming market. As digitisation solutions become more sophisticated, we have been able to fully digitise even the most complex transactional areas of our business, such as the vehicle finance application process.

Our approach is two-fold with a dual internal and external focus. Internally, innovation is focused on leveraging existing capabilities to create efficiencies and improve customer experience. Externally, we focus on strategic innovation partnerships and investing in technology and new concepts that will allow the Group to capitalise on existing and new opportunities to create value. We continuously assess what is working well and identify areas of improvement.

Innovation is a key enabler for the longer-term sustainability of the Group and supports the progress we are making to achieve our ESG priorities. For each new innovation project, we consider the sustainability of the intended outcomes prior to implementation and embed internal practices and policies that lead to effective decision-making and legal compliance.

1 https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/06/as-young-africans-push-to-be-online-data-cost-stands-in-the-way/.
2 Deloitte 2022 Global Automotive Consumer Survey (over 26 000 consumer responses).

Innovation performance model

Innovation capability and strategy

Innovation capability and strategy

The mx platform ( see Leveraging a diverse and change resilient culture) facilitates engagement, participation, and collaboration across the Group to solve for the under-served mobility needs of South African motorists. It is central to sharing business challenges and generating ideas on how to improve business processes. We use a design sprint methodology to take an idea through from concept or problem statement into a prototype ready for deployment. All viable projects are sponsored by an executive member, providing investment and resources to take the solution into the business. When concepts fail, the learnings are saved in a knowledge repository to ensure we don't make the same mistakes or are used to inform other concepts. Key Group projects that have come out of this process are Digital Dealership (see Key innovation projects) and our digital identity tool (see Key innovation projects and keeping abreast of regulatory changes).

In addition to Group projects, vehicle brands and regional operations have their own digital innovations.

Streamlined processes

Our technology developments aim to differentiate our products and services; streamlining the sale of new and pre-owned vehicles, the valuation and trading of pre-owned vehicles, and our vehicle rental processes, making them more efficient, effective and digital while reducing costs. For customers, we are able to respond to their queries more quickly, repetitive processes are removed and they receive better service from our customer-facing employees who are freed up from administrative processes. Customers can also trust that they are using secure online transacting platforms.

Monetising data

Mobility Solutions complements and leverages our automotive businesses, using technology to leverage and analyse proprietary customer and vehicle data to price our offerings accurately, manage claims efficiently, offer personalised services that enhance the customer experience and improve customer retention.

How we measure our performance

Our focus over the next two years, will be to measure our innovation projects in terms of profitability, efficiencies or improvement in customer service so that we have a good understanding of the impact these projects are having and the value being created. We also measure the return on investment of each project.

2022 performance and key objectives

South Africa

  • Our innovation portfolio comprised 23 concepts in development at year-end; eight to improve efficiency, 13 to do things better and two transformative projects to solve problems for new market segments. Four projects relate to social and environmental matters ( see overview of our ESG performance).
  • We have acquired a 25% stake in a technology company to gain access to complementary technology and expand our offering.
  • A pilot project that allows customers to book their vehicle service using WhatsApp was successfully concluded. A national roll out is underway and scheduled for completion in 2023.
  • We implemented robotic process automation (bot) software to perform basic, repetitive tasks across applications. Two bot solutions were tested in the year in our finance operations, delivering efficiencies which ultimately contribute to customer experience. Since deployment in October 2021, one of the bot solutions has saved an average of 1 135 task-related hours per month and the other, to be deployed early in the 2023 calendar year, is able to bring down the time to do bank reconciliations from 11 hours to 15 minutes. We intend to develop additional bots for other parts of our operations.
  • Aftermarket Parts commenced online trading in April 2022 providing our registered customers in South Africa with one comprehensive product catalogue, which provides technical data, dimensions, 3D images and vehicle VIN references to support improved parts identification. The platform will be enhanced to incorporate products that are sold to the global market through our distribution centres in Asia. Aftermarket Parts is also piloting 3D printing and robotic picking.
digitisation portfolio

Regions

  • In the UK, we are implementing a cutting-edge web-based booking system for vehicle services, making the process seamless for the customer and allowing us to upsell on additional offerings. We also added new functionality that enables our customers to reserve a vehicle or order it online.
  • The CitNow sales video facility has been introduced in the UK to support remote engagement between sales consultants and customers. The solution allows our sales consultants to send personalised videos and videos of vehicles in response to customer queries, building a relationship with them before they even visit the dealership.
  • In Australia, our efforts are focused on digitising our marketing platforms.

Objectives

  • Group: refine our omni-channel approach to ensure that traditional selling processes seamlessly integrate with our digital processes.
  • South Africa: monitor user engagement with our apps as well as the apps of third-party service providers, including getWorth, Digital Dealer, the digital identity tool and Ready2Go, to make enhancements, add functionality and further streamline these solutions.
  • South Africa: continue to develop our telemetry capabilities to address under-served needs, and become more sophisticated in how we store and analyse data in preparation for advances such as the connected vehicle.
  • UK: cactivate digital touchpoints along the customer relationship management journey and maximise data efficiency.

Innovation and digitisation review.

2022 highlights

Key innovation projects

motus.cars is a safe and convenient interactive platform where customers can shop for new, pre-owned and demo vehicles from Motus dealerships across South Africa. Using the platform, they are also able to obtain values for their current vehicles, apply for finance and arrange to have purchased vehicles delivered to their nearest dealership or home.

At June 2022, 20 months after its launch, motus.cars represented 23 OEMs, over 300 dealerships and thousands of demo and pre-owned vehicle models. Visits to the site numbered more than 3,3 million with 2,1 million unique users. All vehicles displayed on the website are owned by Motus and have gone through rigorous inspection processes to guarantee the quality of the vehicle. This provides a level of credibility that is trusted by our customers.

Enhancements made in 2022

  • Built in added safety checks to minimise human error when populating vehicle prices on the website.
  • Added the getWorth pricing functionality and the vehicle value estimator for customers wanting to sell their vehicles.

Our subsidiary, getWorth, specialises in buying and selling quality pre-owned vehicles (independent of trade-ins) with a retail value of over R200 000. It allows sellers to receive fast and relevant online offers for their vehicles, using patented technology that leverages large data sets and advanced machine learning algorithms to accurately price vehicles based on live market data. getWorth is also able to predict future prices for thousands of vehicle variants at different future dates and mileages.

Certain qualifying sellers of vehicles are able to access getMore – a patented product that offers an upfront cash amount on the sale of their vehicles and a bonus amount when the vehicle is sold on to the next buyer. The bonus amount depends on the actual selling price (less the upfront cash amount, fees and reconditioning costs) and the number of days it takes to sell the vehicle.

For Motus, getWorth provides a streamlined automated buying process that reduces procurement and valuation risks and identifies best pricing guidelines based on its market research capability. Within dealerships it has accelerated our ability to price trade-ins, previously a labour intensive process, satisfying customer expectations and increasing our chances of making a sale.

getWorth's first aspirational warehouse shopping space in Cape Town includes facilities for delivery, inspection and refreshments managed by a concierge.

Over and above getWorth, we introduced a pilot vehicle value estimator on motus.cars, offering users an obligation free tool to access estimate trade and retail values for their vehicles based on actual listing values of similar vehicles for sale in the open market. The difference to getWorth is that users can get estimates without entering their personal details. It is then up to them to decide whether they want to further engage with Motus to receive a tailormade offer for their vehicle. This will be a novel approach in the South African market.

In addition to a savvy digital customer, the South African regulatory framework has made the purchasing and finance application process for vehicles more complex than ever before, increasing administrative burden (capturing, verifying and reporting customer data to financial authorities), in turn, introducing frustration for customers. Our research confirmed that customers want us to simplify the vehicle finance application process and automate mundane and repetitive paperwork. Motus Digital Dealer was developed to address changing customer behaviour and streamline the process to apply for finance. This digital back-end sales solution will in time digitise the end-to-end vehicle purchasing process. It can be adopted by all Motus brands in the Group while still allowing them to tailor their front-end marketing and communication processes.

Phase 1 of the project was launched on motus.cars in June 2022 and shortens the finance application process from days to just two hours. Customers onboard themselves by filling in their details, taking a selfie, recording a short video of themselves talking, and uploading supporting documents (bank statements, payslips and personal identification documents) at their leisure. Once a customer's profile has been created it is retained in the system and is available to our Retail and Car Rental divisions, allowing for a once off onboarding process. If the customer is already listed in the credit bureau system, Digital Dealer automatically populates proof of residence when an ID number is provided. This instils trust for the customer that they are dealing with a credible and professional business.

Digital Dealer engages with all the major banks in South Africa, providing customers with the best possible chance of being approved for finance and getting the best deal.

Once finance has been approved, the customer can confidently shop for a vehicle, clearing the way for better interaction within the dealership by removing potential embarrassment. The application is then linked to the desired vehicle and the system sends the customer's details as a hot lead to a sales executive who follows up personally.

A technology-based personal and document verification solution that works behind the scenes to support Motus Digital Dealer has been implemented to enhance our regulatory compliance processes. With 80% of the vehicles Motus sells being financed, it is vital that verification for each application is quick and cost-effective. The tool ensures 100% regulatory compliance with 50% time reduction, and customers no longer have to visit a dealership to submit documents for the verification process. Digital verification is valid for three months in the Retail division's system and 12 months in the Car Rental system, after which re-verification is a quick process as the majority of the customer's information is already accessible. For Motus, costs are reduced through a more streamlined process and our employees have more time to focus on customers. The project will be rolled out in three phases with completion expected in the 2023 calendar year. See keeping abreast of regulatory changes for detailed information.

Car Rental is modernising and future proofing its information technology capabilities in line with global travel industry norms and to align with the technology services of its domestic and international business partners. A number of key improvements were made in 2022 to offer a superior, memorable and consistent online customer experience, where customers can transact on a device agnostic basis at multiple touchpoints when renting a vehicle. The platform leverages a myriad of technologies.

The customer self-service portal, Ready2Go, offers individual customers the same digital services already available to our contracted corporate customers. The key features of Ready2Go are once-off online registration, digital customer validation using the digital identity tool, a database of customer information which can be leveraged for marketing purposes and secure payments. When customers checkout the vehicle at a branch, it is a quick process of scanning their driver's licence and collecting the keys. This means the customer can engage with us, book rentals and pay online for as long as their driver's licence is valid. The minimum variable product was launched in May 2022.

A customer web portal, scheduled to go live by December 2022, will provide our Car Rental customers with access to their invoices and statements. This self-service functionality will enable us to process more customers through the same facilities at a higher level of service.

Every month, Motus moves an average of 16 500 vehicles through bond store gates. The management of the supply chain from port to bond store to dealership is a complex process utilising the services of many service providers and requiring the management of data such as inventory, tax and storage charges. In the past, this was a manual paper-based recordkeeping process.

In 2019, we brought this process in-house to improve operational insight, provide better transparency for our distribution teams, enhance functionality and better serve our dealership network for owned brands. Since then, we have digitised the process connecting our service providers to allow for end-to-end supply chain visibility. This has improved the co-ordination of the outbound supply chain and adherence to lead-times, supported faster decision-making based on real-time data and enabled continuous improvement through analytical insights.

The integrated ecosystem was completed in 2022 and is enabling enhanced management of the supply chain and improved service to our dealership network, in turn, assisting our dealerships to meet the expectations of their customers and maintain brand experience. Call centre response times have reduced from 120 minutes to 10 minutes.