Hi!

Today I would like to say a few words in favor of having consulting topics on the agenda to eliminate risk in a modern and rapidly changing environment.

Based on my engagement in Roland Berger's Transportation Competence Center I will shed some light on the Autonomous driving trend that is no doubt our future. In Russia, business is already starting to prepare for it. Here are just a few insights from some of our recent projects, in which I participated:

The economics of highway construction is changing considerably, and will continue to do so, provided autonomous driving is implemented. Autonomous roads are significantly more attractive compared to sea and rail due to decreased costs per trip, combined with high delivery flexibility and speed.
The urban mobility players are preparing. The city administration is thinking of how to better address and foster coming trends via regulation solutions; what starting point would be better (e.g. separate lane for autonomous vehicles or a mix of autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles in the same lane). The mobility operators like taxi companies are starting to develop prototypes for autonomous mobility in the city.
OEMs are preparing themselves for the autonomous future with new connected trucks/cars solutions. For as long as vehicles are not connected, it is difficult to imagine the autonomous future.
LSPs (Logistics Service Providers) are working on their own connected and integrated logistics solutions to optimize route planning, order handling and customer service level control. They tend to think even wider – to connect not only own trucks but third party ones as well, to make logistics more efficient.

We are working closely with different types of players to help address these issues – e.g. general concept elaboration (what are Clients' ambitions in addressing these new trends); use case development (what functionality will be demanded); MVP elaboration, partnership strategy, implementation roadmaps, business case evaluation and, of course, implementation support.

So, any "cosmic" topic starts from something quite concrete and we as consultants are actively participating in it. If you had any doubts about the up-to-date acuteness of consulting topics – please be free of them :)