(Image credit: Dollar Photo Club.) 

This week SAP (Waldorf, Germany) announced the availability of the SAP Vehicles Network (SVN, see video embedded below) solution, which the vendor described as a cloud offering that allows enterprise companies to offer secure, convenient end-to-end vehicle- and mobility-centric services independent of devices or vehicles. Through a partnership with Samsung, SVN is designed to enable transactions, for example by activating a gas pump and executing payment through a mobile wallet or app, or reserving and paying for parking, among other financial and information transactions. The platform has the potential to support the transformation of usage-based insurance (UBI) programs into rich customer engagement strategies.

“With SAP HANA Cloud Platform, we are providing an open platform to our customers and partners. Offering a seamless and digital experience, SAP thus is enabling the digital business,” comments Bernd Leukert, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Products & Innovations, SAP. “We are happy that Samsung Pay is leveraging SAP Vehicles Network based on SAP HANA Cloud Platform. With this, Samsung is accelerating market adoption of mobility services of the digital economy.”

Samsung executive VP Injong Rhee observes that Samsung Pay is accepted today almost anywhere a consumers can swipe or tap their card, and reports that the company is continually for ways to extend the service. “Enabling Samsung Pay users to pay at the pump will further help us deliver on that promise,” he says.

Integrated In-Vehicle Experience

The SVN will improve the way drivers can benefit from mobile and geo-location services through their automotive journeys, providing an opportunity for member companies to create new mobility service and apps for consumer use, according to SAP. The Network also allows app providers and automotive companies to gain access to tens of thousands of mobile payment-enabled parking garages and gas stations in key markets, according to the vendor—thus enabling companies to improve the driver and passenger’s digital experience by using mobile wallets and third-party apps for an integrated in-vehicle experience.

As an Internet of Things (IoT) play in the transportation sector, SVN suggests a potential connection to telematics and usage-based insurance (UBI)—a connection reflected, in fact, on SAP’s list of SVN partners. In addition to companies such as Volkswagen, BMW, Shell, Toyota Info Technology Center U.S.A., SAP is working with Intelligent Mechatronic Systems (IMS; Waterloo, Ontario) a vendor of connected car, telematics and UBI-related technology. Famous for being the company chosen by Oregon to support a per-mile-driven road usage pilot for residents of the state, IMS is offering connected car for UBI and road-charging services with SVN.

While UBI programs are based on insular systems for the collection of driving data relevant to risk, IMS is focused on connecting such programs to other services. The vendor’s DriveSynch solution was designed to support multiple partnerships in order to deliver value-added services, according to Ben Miners, VP of Innovation, IMS. “It’s about delivering value not from a single, separate platform but from a platform that embraces partnerships—such as those that could support reserving and paying for parking without leaving the car,” he says.

Positive Engagement on a Day-to-Day Basis

From the vendor’s SVN provides a transactional platform that broadens the reach of partners and simplifies the way insurance carriers and other enterprises can benefit from IMS’s growing portfolio of services, according to Miners. From the insurance carrier’s point of view, SVN provides an opportunity to transform UBI programs into rich customer engagement platforms.

“The real value to the policyholder is in a broader set of personally relevant services, from the parking example to being alerted to a need for a battery change, to a host of others,” Miners adds. “These have the potential to transform insurance from being something people dread to something that delivers positive value on a day-to-day basis to policyholders.”