Ford Realigns Mobility Group; Acquiring Autonomic, TransLoc to Accelerate Growth
January 25 2018 - 12:00PM
Business Wire
- The Ford Mobility team is accelerating
and expanding its activities in 2018 to deliver a broad suite of
mobility products and services to personal vehicle owners, fleet
owners and cities globally
- Ford is enabling an increase in speed
and scale through four newly established, integrated teams that
will deliver new business innovation, business scaling and
profitability, marketing and voice of customer excellence, and
product development
- As part of this acceleration, the
mobility unit’s subsidiary Ford Smart Mobility LLC is acquiring
Autonomic, a technology company that specializes in scale,
architecture and leverage for transportation solutions, and has
named Autonomic CEO Sunny Madra leader of its new Ford X team
- Ford also announces the acquisition of
TransLoc, a provider of demand-response technology for city-owned
microtransit solutions
As 2018 begins, Ford Motor Company’s mobility organization is
making the move to accelerate delivery of mobility products and
services to customers and deliver shareholder value.
As outlined at the 2018 CES show in Las Vegas, Ford’s mobility
strategy is to deliver a broad suite of products and services that
enhance all layers of the transportation system – vehicles,
infrastructure, connectivity and digital services – to alleviate
the transportation drag on cities and help people move more freely
in the City of Tomorrow.
“We believe transportation done right – as part of a systems
approach – can bring life back to our cities,” said Marcy Klevorn,
president, Ford Mobility. “By accelerating our delivery of mobility
services through the changes we are making today, we are enabling
that revival, enhancing our competitiveness and creating long-term
value for Ford shareholders.”
This year, Ford expects to accelerate and launch businesses in
the following areas:
- Transportation operating system:
The company’s open, cloud-based platform – the Transportation
Mobility Cloud that manages information flow and basic transactions
between a variety of components in the transportation ecosystem –
will be expanded beyond Ford to include other automakers,
suppliers, partners and cities; a developer network to build and
support the system also will be launched.
- Connectivity: Preparing to
deliver digital services to personal, fleet and city customers,
Ford’s mobility team will deliver on the company’s commitment of
100 percent connectivity of new vehicles in the United States by
2019 and push toward its goal of 90 percent connectivity globally
by 2020.
- Ride sharing: Chariot, the
cornerstone of Ford’s microtransit solutions, will see an
acceleration of city launches globally this year; launches will be
based on a major shift in focus to the unit’s enterprise business,
which provides employee transportation services for businesses.
Just last week, Ford announced the launch of service in Columbus,
Ohio – Chariot’s fifth city.
- Non-emergency medical
transportation: Tapping into the growing healthcare
transportation market, Ford Mobility will expand its non-emergency
medical transportation operation from a Southeast Michigan pilot
with Beaumont Health into a full business serving multiple medical
systems.
- Vehicle Management as a Service:
Founded in 2017, Ford Commercial Solutions is leveraging vehicle
connectivity to deliver data services and fleet optimization to the
commercial segment, building on the automaker’s historical strength
in serving fleet customers. Ford Commercial Solutions will expand
its offerings globally this year.
To support this shift to innovation and delivery at speed, the
company today is announcing an agreement to acquire Autonomic, a
Palo Alto, California-based technology company that specializes in
scale, architecture and leverage for transportation industry
solutions.
Ford’s acquisition of Autonomic will accelerate the automaker’s
mission to establish the Transportation Mobility Cloud platform and
support its plans to scale up other key mobility initiatives,
including the drive toward full connectivity, Chariot and
non-emergency medical transportation. In addition to being able to
fully capture the value created by this platform, Ford also will
benefit from the Autonomic team’s capabilities in creating and
incubating new mobility businesses, as well as relationships that
will further improve Ford’s access to top technology talent.
Ford also is announcing the acquisition of TransLoc, a Durham,
North Carolina-based provider of demand-response technology for
city-owned microtransit solutions. Acquiring TransLoc allows Ford
to leverage its operational expertise, network of city
relationships, and proven track record of providing solutions to
cities globally that can improve the rider experience with dynamic
routing.
The terms of these acquisitions are not being disclosed.
“As we deliver on our commitment to provide solutions for
cities’ transportation challenges, an important part of our process
is to determine whether to build, buy or partner the capabilities
required,” said Klevorn. “We believe the integration of the
technology and talent from Autonomic and TransLoc into our Mobility
team will further bolster our ability to deliver robust solutions
for personal owners, fleet operators and cities, with speed and at
scale.”
Ford also is announcing the reorganization of the teams
developing and scaling mobility solutions. Building on the
successful integration of Ford’s data and analytics group and
information technology team into Ford Mobility under the leadership
of Klevorn, the reorganization will establish four new groups
focused on mobility products, services and businesses. The new
groups are:
- Ford X: Ford’s acquisition of
Autonomic will serve as the cornerstone for its new Ford X team.
Part of Ford Smart Mobility LLC, this team will have responsibility
for ensuring Ford is continuously discovering and actively
incubating new business models. To support this mission, Ford X
will oversee the Transportation Mobility Cloud platform; the Ford X
Accelerator, a new group dedicated to quick incubation of potential
products and services; and new mobility businesses early in their
development.
- Mobility Business Group: With
responsibility for scaling the company’s existing mobility
businesses, Ford Smart Mobility LLC’s new Mobility Business Group
will oversee Ford Commercial Solutions; Ford’s microtransit
businesses including Chariot and the non-emergency medical
transportation unit; FordPass® and digital services, including
those supporting autonomous vehicle businesses, in-vehicle services
and personal vehicle ownership; and future businesses once they
mature following their incubation within Ford X.
- Mobility Platforms and Products:
Ford Mobility’s product solutions group will lead design and
development for the technology underpinning Ford’s mobility
businesses, including connectivity, FordPass platform elements,
vehicle management as a service, transportation as a service, its
autonomous vehicle partnership platform and foundational
platforms.
- Mobility Marketing and Growth:
To drive demand with consumers and commercial and city customers,
and to ensure the voice of the customer is heard throughout the
organization, Ford Smart Mobility LLC is establishing a global
marketing and sales team. This group brings together Ford’s City
Solutions team, its regional Ford Smart Mobility leads, TransLoc,
and related marketing and sales talent into one organization.
These new teams will benefit from Ford’s ongoing investment in
and work with Pivotal. They will also benefit from learnings from
the 2017 implementation of product teams, a structure common in
software companies and used in FordLabs – the automaker’s four
software development and implementation operations in the United
States, the United Kingdom and India.
With the new organization, several leadership appointments also
are being announced:
- Sunny Madra, CEO and cofounder of
Autonomic, will join Ford as vice president, Ford X.
- Marion Harris, chief financial officer,
Ford Credit, will be named vice president, Mobility Business
Group.
- Rich Strader, who is named vice
president, Mobility Platforms and Products.
- Brett Wheatley, director, Ford
Marketing, Sales and Service Fitness Transformation, is appointed
vice president, Mobility Marketing and Growth.
“2018 is the year Ford Mobility moves from foundation building
to product and service delivery, and we are acting decisively to
ensure our teams are set up for success,” said Klevorn. “The
acquisitions of Autonomic and TransLoc, together with the new
organization will enable faster innovation incubation and product
development times, as well as increase the group’s ability to scale
and create value for our shareholders.”
About Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is a global company based in Dearborn,
Michigan. The company designs, manufactures, markets and services a
full line of Ford cars, trucks, SUVs, electrified vehicles and
Lincoln luxury vehicles, provides financial services through Ford
Motor Credit Company and is pursuing leadership positions in
electrification, autonomous vehicles and mobility solutions. Ford
employs approximately 203,000 people worldwide. For more
information regarding Ford, its products and Ford Motor Credit
Company, please visit www.corporate.ford.com.
For news releases, related materials and high-resolution photos
and video, visit www.media.ford.com.
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Ford Motor CompanyKaren
Hampton313.390.9080khampto2@ford.comorMichaela
Johndrow313.845.8732mjohndro@ford.com
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