The value of data

“It turns out computer scientists were onto something where they said data is the source of everything,” admits Dr Corina Apachite at Continental AG. She had her “aha moment” while working on automated driving technologies. It wasn’t the data itself that elicited her response, but rather the mind-blowing amounts of data — the petabytes of data — pouring in from every component and every sensor.

The awe continues. Not only is data getting bigger and trickier to handle, but data structures are increasingly complex too. Data is heterogenous; it has different origins which, of course, leads to challenging issues of ownership. Yet companies, including Continental, want more from data; they want to manage it, make it useful and squeeze value out of it.

However, data is just one ingredient — the flour in the cake, as Corina puts it. To create something truly remarkable, you need other ingredients too. They must blend together seamlessly, and questions must be asked of each:

• Strategy: Do you have a long-term strategy for data? Is your data strategy linked to your business strategy? Is management aligned and committed? How do you measure results?

• Organisation and talent: Do you have the talent and skills you need? Do you have a strategy to acquire talent? Do you have structures in place to support talent?

• Agile delivery and culture: Do you have a suitable delivery methodology? Are teams enabled to work in an agile environment? Can you maintain high internal collaboration? Can you turn a traditional company into a future-focused one?

• Technology: Is your infrastructure prepared and secure? Is your IT strategy aligned?

• Data: Do you have a solution to govern your data? Do you have data architectures and a data ecosystem? Is data acquisition, storage and provisioning enabled?

• Analytics, models and tools: Are suitable tools and methods available to generate insights? Can these insights be leveraged in the business?

• Adoption and scaling: Do you know why your proof of concepts fail to scale? Can you integrate your efforts into your business? Can the impact of your efforts be measured? Can you scale your approach to full maturity?

• Compliance: Who owns the data? Have you considered all legal implications? Do you comply with existing regulations? Are your company and compliance policies aligned?

In achieving this balance of competencies, Corina is a big believer in observation and collaboration across the business. She says: “The killer question, when speaking with colleagues, is: ‘what exactly do you need?’ Very often, people don’t know what they need because they are totally in the dark about what they don’t yet know. So, I watch how they work. And we figure it out together. Sometimes the answers aren’t there yet, but it is a good starting point for discovery.”

The Continental way

Back in 2020, Continental drew up guidelines for the use of AI in its business. The guidelines are centred around important principles, such as robustness, explainability, non-bias and fairness, to ensure responsible and ethical use of AI technology.

Now, from its AI lab in Berlin, located close to government, technical hubs and talent pools, Continental participates in regular information exchanges with other industry players. It recognises the need for collaborative value chains and ecosystems to foster innovation and spark new ideas. And, with the right framework, legal certainty and traceability, Corina anticipates exciting new opportunities from greater data sharing.

Continental manages the vastness of its data via its data portal. Dubbed the Single-Entry Point of Truth, its purpose is to ensure that data is real, complete and reliable before it is integrated into products and systems. Every engineer adheres to processes, methods and tools for handling data, which are collectively known as Continental’s House of Solutions.

Outputs include virtual camera views, radar systems, pedestrian recognition, traffic-situation recognition, etc, that together deliver better and safer human experiences. But, of course, for Continental, data is about so much more than driver-assist and other highly automated driving functions.

As Corina concludes: “Data is critical, because without data there is no IT and there is no digitalisation.” In fact, data is fundamental to supply chain management and HR processes and every single operational process that will define Continental’s future.