“Who in Europe can imagine managing their parking tickets via infotainment in the vehicle?”

Xin Liu / International Rollout


In cross-continental projects, nothing goes according to plan, Xin Liu, responsible for the international rollout of vehicle services, explains why this is so, using China as an example.

What project are you working on?
I am in charge of the rollout and integration of vehicle services for Audi in China. We distinguish between “infotainment” and vehicle-related services. The “infotainment” services include Tencent myCar, weather information, news and point-of-interest search.
The vehicle-related services run more in the background, such as synchronising traffic data.

Why China?
China is the biggest market for German cars. But it is not only the vehicle itself that is important to the Chinese. More than any other nation, they also want to be entertained while driving – and not only on mobile devices, but also in the car itself. In China, a large part of communication and trade already takes place directly via the vehicle. Who in Europe can imagine managing their parking tickets via the infotainment system in the vehicle?
The Chinese market offers enormous potential: 1.4 billion people – that speaks for itself.

What are the challenges of such a constellation?
It is interesting that we were constantly confronted with new things. As we quickly discovered, the Chinese market follows its own rules: it is extremely fast-moving, we have to pick up on trends quickly in order to fulfil the wishes of the end customers. For example, it is common in China that points of interest are not searched for by customers themselves, but are announced and sent by a “concierge”, or shared by friends via WeChat. To make matters worse, Chinese law prohibits the processing of data outside of China. Therefore, a separate backend server had to be set up locally.

What is your specific role?
As a product owner, I am mainly responsible for communicating the requirements of our customer on the Chinese side to my team in an understandable way. I am also the communication interface between our Chinese customer and the customer in Germany. I helped set up our location in China, from job interviews to coordinating the employees on site and integrating them into the teams in Germany.

What skills were most in demand to succeed in this market environment?
On the one hand, of course, my knowledge of the Chinese language but even more so of Chinese culture, helped me. This enabled me to understand the requirements of the market well, and also to read between the lines. Most important, however, was my technical knowledge, which I was able to acquire as an architect in the German market.
With the know-how of more than 15 years of experience in the international automotive industry, Valtech Mobility has the technical understanding and knows the specifics of the respective markets. In addition, we are able to estimate the organisational effort very well due to our many years of experience in the European market and can also support the customer in this respect. In markets as fast-moving as China’s, our agile approach allows us to react quickly to the needs of the market.

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