Abstract:
The profound digital transformation our society is facing has substantial impacts within the automotive industry balances. This is a particularly complex sector, where innovation underpins processes and products. This thesis aims to specifically analyze how the diffusion of a new generation of vehicles relying more and more on software, rather than hardware, can influence design logics among new product development processes. In doing so, the focus is posed on implications concerning make-or-buy strategic decisions implemented by companies operating in the automotive industry. This dissertation addresses a comparative analysis between strategic choices chronologically carried out by Volkswagen Group and Tesla Motors. While the former represents an historical player of the sector, the latter is a relatively new automaker standing out for its disruptive business model in terms of innovation management. This study analyzes and assess changes due to the spread of software-defined vehicles in OEMs' insourcing and outsourcing strategic decisions concerning software systems. The comparative analysis represents the means for addressing benefits and drawbacks of the different approaches.
