EUROBIKE 2019 | Platforms aren't always good

BIKE BIZ

REVOLUTION

SEPTEMBER 3, 2019

CONFERENCE FOR VISIONARIES

New Mobility Germany is lagging behind

Despite a dynamic cycle industry, high population density and good state of the economy, Germany is still not investing enough in modern infrastructure. Even though now is the right time, says Professor Sauter-Servaes. more soon

Connected Bikes Software beats hardware

Connecting bikes is so much more than just implementing new features. By integrating greater system concepts, new business models can come from sharing more soon

The future of the exhibitions Micro-mobility instead of just bikes

Stefan Reisinger, Head of the EUROBIKE, reveals in an interview what his plans are for the leading bike industry trade fair and how much pressure there is on the trade fair company to transform. more soon

Interview with Peter Post, Managing Director Scholz & Volkmer

Platforms aren’t always good

Peter Post has been advising companies in their efforts to digitise for 25 years now. His agency survived the dot.com crisis. And even now is still independent. For the EUROBIKE he designed the new EUROBIKE CONNECT platform. Nevertheless, he is still critical about platforms.

Do you need to hold workshops to explain how to complete the profiles?

Peter, you also view platforms critically. Why?

Post: We tried to implement this. But I’ve Peter Post: Because platforms aren’t found that if you help a few companies to only moving in business, but are also complete their profile really well, then the penetrating even deeper into social users look at their peers and not what is issues. As citizens, we should think listed on the Help page. about whether we want to do this.

A very surprising result from the interviews, Nevertheless, I think it is still worth that people are very sensitive to the visual opening platforms in 2019. On the one appearance. Professional presentation is an hand, because they can be very dynaimportant value, especially in terms of image mic thanks to the participants networquality. king on them. Secondly, because it is by no means certain that the major The US company WeWork not only organizes the work of its employees, but also their platforms can do everything really lives and the education of their children. well. There is hardly a company that How long did the development take? has lost as much money in investment as Google. And nobody knows Netscape Post: One year. anymore, a dominant company in the browser business back in 1996.

What are the offshoots you are critical of?

Post: The US company WE offers co-working spaces. And now, they are starting to build WeLive as well as WeWork and offer kindergartens and similar things there. That has something sectarian about it. Should so much power be in the hands of a profit-oriented company?

What makes a good platform?

Post: Certainly mutuality. The participants need to find each other and want to do something with each other. In the bike industry, this is exciting, as so much is changing. We have carried out lots of surveys and all of them told us this. And transparency is very important for me.

Many industries have tried to set up their own platforms and failed.

What do you do differently?

Post: People don’t need a second XING or LinkedIn. They need something that helps them and which wasn’t available before.

A new platform always has the chicken and the egg problem. If nothing’s going on, then nobody visits. What are you doing to combat this?

Post: At the EUROBIKE, we have a great start. 1,400 exhibitors are automatically on the platform. But it’s important that it doesn’t take much effort at the beginning. That represents the background noise. And then the platform develops a life of its own. After that, you need to listen to the participants, so that you implement what they really need.

Were there any problems?

Post: There are always technical challenges, but it’s always like this in every project. We’ve been doing this for 25 years now and always underestimate this.

But there weren’t any particular problems.

What would be an indicator of success?

Post: If companies from other industries discover the platform and network with our industry. And cities. That would be great, especially if cities were to think about the future of mobility together with the industry.

Are there any plans to publish editorial content regularly?

Peter Post fighting for his own piece of cycle path in Wiesbaden

Post: No, not at the moment. It’s about creating contacts between companies via the people who work there.

What are the next steps?

Post: We have a large backlog of improvements, but I don’t want to push them into the limelight. We can think of lots of improvements, but we’re not the bike industry. It’s more important for us to listen to what the participants themselves want. Maybe it will go in a direction that we can’t even imagine yet.

Messe Friedrichshafen GmbH - Neue Messe 1 - 88046 Friedrichshafen Phone +49 7541 708-0 - www.eurobike.com - info@eurobike.de

BIKE BIZ

REVOLUTION

3. SEPTEMBER 2019

CONFERENCE FOR VISIONARIES

Challenges for the Industry

SCOTT MONTGOMERY:

All manufactures will enter the end consumer game

Prof. Thomas Sauter-Servaes sees many opportunities 1. Car traffic today is extremely inefficient Sauter-Servaes puts it down to four factors. Energy efficiency for power transmission is currently 25 percent on average, the rest being heat and friction. E-mobility can increase this to up to 95 percent. On average, cars are only used up to 20% of their capacity.

Ridesharing offers such as Mois or BlaBlaCar can almost triple this to 55 percent.

Duration of use is also extremely low at around five percent. The rest of the time, cars are parked, and not being used. This is where carsharing comes into play. The unused vehicle is rented out and its usage rate increases on average to 20 percent.

When it comes to safety, cars today only achieve ten percent of what is possible. Autonomous technical systems make a value close to 100 percent possible, at least in theory.

2. Cars are getting connected Finely tuned mobility systems where the bicycle will also play a major role will be the result. As an example, Sauter-Servaes cites where Dallas, for example, ticketing for public transport is already in-

DATEN IN DER RADBRANCHE:

the model lies in the fact that people with similar interests can be brought together via the platform.

4. Car use is becoming a convenience Autonomous vehicles are the supporting structure of the taxi republic. Instead of owning a car, a customer can always call a car if he needs one. This will also change rural areas, where there is currently no alternative to owning your own car.

5. The onus is on the local authorities If traffic becomes more efficient, fewer vehicles will be needed and this is the chance to free up urban space, especially parking areas. It is up to the local authorities to make the most of this opportunity and it is up to the cycling industry to position itself strongly here and to position the bicycle as an efficient, ecological and space-saving means of transport in the city. „For years, it was a question of availability whether new forms of mobility would prevail,“ concludes Sauter-Servaes, „today it is only a question of acceptance. The assets are all there“. And change is rapid, as you can see from the example of the e-scooter.

Thusbass sees five serious problems: - L ack of standards: many manufacturers use different names for the same colour - V ariable intervals: New products come at the „wrong“ time, so there is no time to correct/ change the data later.

- Data is constantly changing.

- L ack of motivation for improvement. The product data system has become so complicated for many manufacturers that no one really knows anything about it.

tegrated into the Uber app. Or, Whim, a subscription model, which combines different means of transport in Helsinki, in its app. The car is becoming the extended arm of a smartphone and manufacturers like Tesla are in daily contact with their customers.

In some cities, Whim is already offering combined transport subscriptions

The boundaries between public transport and private vehicles are becoming increasingly blurred.

Privately used cars are being made available to the public, for example via BlaBlaCar ridesharing agency. For Thomas Sauter-Servaes, the charm of

Alex Thusbass is fighting for better product data.

His Dealer Centre only works really well as a virtual extension of the POS if he receives the current data from the manufacturers very quickly and can make it available to the dealers. But the problem is much bigger than this. Poor data makes cooperating across system boundaries more difficult and opens up the market to new third parties, especially in terms of digitisation.

- M anufacturer data is often not consistent. There are suppliers with one EAN number for two different products.

Uber wants to make its app the linchpin of new mobility. Not only Jump e-bikes should help, but also the public transport tickets from masabi

3. Cars are being used collectively

Not enough motivation

The solution, in Alex Thusbass‘s point of view, needs to be a mixture of technology and machine. Processing data manually won’t work in the long run. This means that it will take longer to get started initially, but it’s worth it.

Messe Friedrichshafen GmbH - Neue Messe 1 - 88046 Friedrichshafen Phone +49 7541 708-0 - www.eurobike.com - info@eurobike.de

BIKE BIZ

REVOLUTION

3. SEPTEMBER 2019

CONFERENCE FOR VISIONARIES The greatest myths

BIKE AS A SERVICE

Swapfiets‘ success story is based on reassessing customer needs and creating efficient digital infrastructure.

Bikes are an emotional subject. New customers who discover Swapfiets come here either because they heard about it on social media or because a friend told them about it. Meanwhile, Google search only plays a role for two percent of new customers.

Doing e-commerce the right way

Thomas Schwerdtner has looked into the question of how durable common clichés are, which are often treated as common property in e-commerce and marketing consulting.

His conclusion: 1. Be Present at Amazon The growth of Amazon happens on the marketspace and this were retailers are. Therefore you are helping your enemy. The visual presence is limited to product and price. Is this how you want to present yourself? Ortlieb demonstrates, that there is another way.

Whoever sells on Amazon makes the competitor even stronger

That‘s not surprising as the idea of a bicycle subscription is new, and that‘s not what customers are looking for. Expensive awareness campaigns on TV or posters would destroy their business model.

The example of Swapfiets shows how well craftsmanship and digitalisation go hand in hand, even or especially with an emotional topic. Swapfiets‘ service promise is to replace a damaged bike within 12 hours. The Dutch company offer this via their central app. Subscribers can conveniently report their service case here and describe the fault. They will find their nearest service partner just a tab away.

For Swapfiets, digitally transmitting service tickets makes the organizational process efficient. In some cases, orders are forwarded to workshops that are not operating at full capacity.

However, what’s even more important: Swapfiets collects data. Data about the bikes, e.g. which parts break more frequently than others do. This enables the right parts to be kept in stock and provides useful information when negotiating with the manufacturers.

Swapfiets also collects data from subscribers. This way they know how cyclists are moving around the city, who they are and where it is worth setting up new workshops. In the long term, this data can even be marketed to third parties. Anonymously and strictly according to GDPR, of course.

Swapfiets is a good example of how digitalization changes market conditions, because once a process has been established, then it can be scaled up. Bicycle subscription is now available in 45 cities, 17 of them in Germany.

2. Direct Sales The customer must be able to shop were he or she wants. Digitalization enables new points of sales and they must be used. To stick to old structures just out of tradtion is wrong. Sales and distribution only makes sense where it generates value for customers and manufacturers.

3. Be Disruptive Retailers must rediscover their very own strenghts again: the pre-selection of products, induvidual advice, local service and haptic presentation. Customer centricity it is called in the digital industry - the latest craze.

Connected Bikes

Connecting bikes and riders digitally to platforms and brands opens up completely new business models/areas and gives manufacturers the chance to keep in touch with their customers regularly.

What distinguishes Tesla from VW? Tesla took a smartphone and screwed four wheels underneath it. The bicycle and especially the e-bike are developing in a similar way. It all began with digital bike gadgets such as speedometers or GPS satnav systems. Then the GPS anti-theft device and the smart bicycle lock came along. Now the industry has noticed that a major upheaval is on the horizon, allowing numerous new business and service models.

applications, which the manufacturer can come up with himself. In addition, the movement data from bikes naturally could play a very important role in optimising the range of products offered by manufacturers and dealers.

Kressimir Hlede from Greyp Bikes shows what this looks like in practice.

His company, which wants to be understood as an IT company, connects sports bikes virtually via an online platform so that users can race against each other online.

„For a mechanical engineer like me, it‘s Christian Anuth from Hahard to admit that veltec, the manufacturer of service is more im- This is how Comodule sees the future of Bike Biz I LOCK IT, reminds us of the portant than the product,“ says Kristjan Maruste from Comodule. As bad experiences that not many brands have had an accessory supplier, his company offers to digiti- with their own apps. „I don‘t think customers will ze finished bikes. The Gazelle icon, for example, is want to start an app before they start using their available in the connected C8 HMB Connect model. bikes,“ smiles Anuth. He’s urging for standardizaIn addition to anti-theft protection and the like, this tion. also includes open interfaces for various networked

Messe Friedrichshafen GmbH - Neue Messe 1 - 88046 Friedrichshafen Telefon +49 7541 708-0 - www.eurobike.com - info@eurobike.de

BIKE BIZ

REVOLUTION

3. SEPTEMBER 2019

CONFERENCE FOR VISIONARIES

Interview with Stefan Reisinger, Head of EUROBIKE

Micro-Mobility instead of just a bike show

The pressure to transform does not stop at the exhibition grounds either. When it comes to financial strength, Friedrichshafen cannot compete with the very big trade fairs. For EUROBIKE, this is why, Stefan Reisinger is focusing on as much innovation as possible and being very close to visitors and exhibitors.

Mr Reisinger, new, old dates, new platform, new conference? How many experiments can the EUROBIKE tolerate?.

Stefan Reisinger: Of course, we are sticking to what has been tried, tested and proven. But with EUROBIKE in particular, we have experimented a lot in recent years. For example, instead of a day open to the public, we held an entire festival weekend.

Last year we tried holding it at an earlier date.

Asia as an attractive sales market. And on the other hand, many suppliers come from Asia. Some of them are currently relocating production out of China because of Trump‘s customs policy.

Is the trade fair here also moving away from its own bricks and mortar to a certain extent by offering large manufacturers the option of organising such events for them?

and make contacts.

What do the exhibitors want?

Reisinger: It‘s all about lead generation and efficiency.

The new conference BIKE BIZ However, this only REVOLUTION kicks off EUROBIKE. works of course, if as many exhibitors and participants as possible use the tool and fill it with content.

This has also brought you some headwind.

You won‘t be involved in this editorially?

Reisinger: On the one hand, we did yes, but on the other hand, we received a lot of applause. The industry is quite divided here. This all depends on how the season went.

Reisinger: No. At least that‘s not our objective at the moment.

You’re currently expanding the conference programme around the EUROBIKE. There are market participants who view the coexistence of trade fair and conference critically.

Are there any content experiments?

Reisinger: We are currently looking into and analysing the topic of conReisinger: Over the past few years, ferences and workshops very closely. we mainly did this through coopeAnd the topic of e-mobility goes beyration agreements. But we weren’t ond e-bikes. We have now opened the EUROBIKE sees the bicycle in the center of modern mobility concepts and opens up itself for always satisfied with the quality. That‘s trade fair to e-scooters and other forms other industries. (Bilk: Havelring Eindhoven) why we‘re now taking the matter into of micro-mobility. And also successively Reisinger: Absolutely. I consider this to be an imour own hands. And, the conference is clearly posiextended the portfolio over the exhibition grounds portant part of the future business model. Addrestioned and will take place the day before. and the duration of the sing individual needs has always been part of the trade fair. Media days concept, especially during EUROBIKE week.

If Tesla came here today and wanted to preare held in the Alps. sent themselves at the EUROBIKE, would that Here manufacturers Investing in digital solutions is inevitably be a no go? can present their latest more expensive for smaller trade fair compamodels for the coming Reisinger: If Tesla were to enter the market, which nies than for very large ones. season to journalists we understand as micro-mobility, seriously, then and the press to test. Reisinger: We’ve looked at the digital products of they would be a potential customer.

Stefan Reisinger, Head of The next step is setting other trade fairs in the past and haven’t yet found or EUROBIKE seen a model that would make a lasting contribution Mr. Reisinger, Thank you very much for the up a digital platform. to customer loyalty. Nevertheless, we are launching interview.

What can your trade fair achieve in terms of a new digital platform for the bicycle industry. We haven’t done anything differently to what the EUROinternationalisation?

BIKE is. We have transferred products and brands Reisinger: We had a successful bicycle trade fair IMPRINT into a digital in China for years, but the market collapsed sharply. format so that Messe Friedrichshafen GmbH - Neue This year there will be a new event in Bangkok, the the users can Messe 1 - 88046 Friedrichshafen ASEANBIKE. see and filter Phone +49 7541 708-0 them intelwww.eurobike.com Can synergies with the EUROBIKE be created ligently, put info@eurobike.de The new platform EUROBIKE CONNECT from this? them in the orwill connect the industry.

Reisinger: Many of our exhibitors see Southeast der they want Messe Friedrichshafen GmbH - Neue Messe 1 - 88046 Friedrichshafen Telefon +49 7541 708-0 - www.eurobike.com - info@eurobike.de