Thread regarding Ford layoffs

@3zfy Ford Credit has been both a purchaser and seller of that data for a long time. The credit agencies all have more data than Ford.
Ford has also been selling employee data for a long time.

Hackett, who was pretty oblivious, once said the quiet part out loud about the unique selling point of automotive data:

“The issue in the vehicle, see, is: We already know and have data on our customers. By the way, we protect this securely; they trust us,” Hackett said. “We know what people make. How do we know that? It’s because they borrow money from us. And when you ask somebody what they make, we know where they work, you know. We know if they’re married. We know how long they’ve lived in their house because these are all on the credit applications. We’ve never ever been challenged on how we use that. And that’s the leverage we got here with the data.”

Honestly it seems pretty creepy.

@1pau+1gZjybbX. I am guessing you are a manager and very probably not an STEM graduated. Let's see some numbers:

MS Office 365, one of the most famous software/subscription in the world, with over 50 million of subscribers (including businesses), let's say at $70 a year per each subscriber, generates around $3.5 Billion dollars annually. If we join Microsoft Office 365, Azure, LinkedIn, and Dynamics 365, together they generate around 88 Billion dollars annually.

To put things in perspective, Ford generated 160 Billion dollars annually in 2018 by making cars, almost twice as much as all those subscriptions from Microsoft.

Are you telling me that Ford software and subscription are going to generate MORE money than Microsoft? Right...

There is no future for Ford in data and services. Anyone that thinks that there is needs to lay off of the crack.

IF Ford's future is dependent on data and services, then we all are screwed.

@1pau
Please name even $25 worth of monthly subscriptions that a significant number of vehicle purchasers will sign up for. I used to pay about that for OnStar, but now my cell phone does pretty much the same thing as part of my cell service. I used to pay for Sirius radio, but now my cell phone has my music options. I can assure you that I will not pay for subscriptions for heated seats, cameras to cover door locks that don’t work, or any other service currently performed by my cell phone, including maps and shopping apps.

I’m looking forward to your list.

It is not just data that our future profits are coming from. Subscriptions and software are a big part of the revenue as well. Plus new exciting possibilities you don't even know about yet.

My spouse is a commissioned salesperson who actually sells “data,” although they don’t call it that. It is purposeful reports created from a variety of sources to provide business insight. The response when asked if they would take a job selling reports based only on Ford vehicle data, the response was “no way.”

@OP and @whoever keeps touting Ford's future in data collection

And they won't, right? Ford's grandiose data collection revenue streams are becoming commoditized as you're suggesting. Apple and Google cornered this market or at least gained a significant foothold by virtue of them incorporating Carplay and Auto into their phones. It's only a matter of time until both are the (total) nucleus of the connectivity echo system of the car once we can stream them wirelessly to our car's display. It's not clear whether the automakers will be able to make headway in data revenue sharing, especially with privacy becoming front and center. Sorry, Ford, would love to share revenue but there is this little thing called privacy we take very seriously might say Apple. Google seems to have a different take, as this is a much bigger piece of their business model, but rest assured they're going to go for everything they can. Bottom line is that most automakers are setting themselves up to be the "d-mb pipe" of it all. Love him or hate him, Elon Musk is probably the one person who can out maneuver big tech in this regard. JF or Junior??? Not so much.

So this leaves the beyond useless Ford Pass. Does anybody and I do mean anybody log into it anymore? Every time friggin' time I go to open it I'm prompted for login information. And if that isn't enough it fails to start my car, open the doors, etc. probably 50%+ of the time. Why as the consumer would I invest in never ending log ins coupled with a high probability of it failing to deliver on what it truly adds value? There really else is nothing else compelling about it, and a lot of companies wrongly believe that they're entitled to consumer draw and stickiness by virtue of just having an app with their product- coffee makers and portable dehumidifiers also come to mind. I guess you keep throwing money at the consumer in the form of app loaded "points," but there is nothing that says I have to keep data collection on with the app running in the background. I just deleted it quite frankly and may resurrect it if I need it to redeem my points.

So picture the GIF of Gene Wilder dressed as Wi--y Wonka with the headline, "You say Data collection is the future of Ford Motor," and at the bottom it saying, "Tell me more about Apple/Google and the value of Ford Pass."