We designed and supported the implementation of one of the most advanced MaaS business models in Europe, including the carve-out of a new mobility entity.
OEM mobility strategy
Shared mobility services have experienced a rollercoaster ride over the last decade. Ridiculed at the beginning, then hyped in the brief era of market frenzy over autonomous driving, and more recently suffering from a loss of investor trust.
Competition is fierce, market equilibriums are distorted by regulation, customers are notoriously disloyal, and the road to profitability is a long journey with only few survivors likely to remain at the end. Shared mobility services present a challenging environment, characterized by start-ups who are willing to change the world but typically in dire need of cash.
So the industry is still standing. This decade will show whether the transformation to a more convenient and efficient transit system will continue to stall or whether we will witness a necessary and overdue comeback story. At Berylls we are driven by a belief that this story will be a successful one.
Strained household budgets, huge public transit deficits and an increasing shortage of bus drivers make advances in shared and autonomous mobility solutions imperative to cope with increasing urbanization and the accompanying potential for permanent traffic gridlock.
A systemic transition lies ahead of us, for which the industry needs to take a deep breath and find a willingness to hold its course.
Shared mobility needs better technology. It needs vehicles that are optimized in terms of total cost of ownership, yet are convenient and inclusive. It needs better prediction and pooling algorithms, and a smart tariff system. And it needs a society that no longer accepts cities built around streets, but around people instead.
This is where we can help. We help get the right concepts in place, and make realistic assumptions about commercial success and the growth path to the profit zone. We help find the right start-ups and tech companies to partner with. We help set up minimum viable products based on realistic, state-of-the-art mobility models.
For many years we have worked to distinguish between the fundamental market drivers of shared mobility and arbitrary investor and “expert” sentiments. That is a promise our team will continue to keep.
approach
We have worked for companies in all segments of the shared mobility industry - OEMs, suppliers, mobility providers, public transit companies and tech start-ups.
However diverse the settings may have been, one thing has been common across all of them: their positive feedback on Berylls being somewhat “Different”.
We are proud to have been part of some of the most advanced and courageous endeavours in the shared mobility sector over the last few years. Our track record includes:
approach
We designed and supported the implementation of one of the most advanced MaaS business models in Europe, including the carve-out of a new mobility entity.
We supported and bootstrapped a shared mobility startup through hands-on, daily business building work for 12 months after inception – resulting in an operational “MVP” go live after just 11 months.
We designed and implemented an innovative zero-emission car sharing scheme, including supplier selection, vehicle sourcing, pricing concept and ODD design – in only 10 months from project start to launch
We modelled the long-term impact of autonomous MaaS on private and B2B car sales for a large OEM in seven key regions/countries (and because this went really well, we repeated this exercise 3 years in a row)
We developed several strategic Shared Mobility target pictures and target service portfolio for Automotive industry incumbents, what to focus on and what to let go
For a conceptionally advanced, large public transit operator, we developed a long-term autonomous strategy, detailed to corresponding initiative and capability roadmap, and secured funding for several years.
Designing a viable and innovative strategy and business model in shared mobility is no trivial task - especially if you want to earn money from it.
At the beginning of each mobility strategy project, our initial questions are always the “why” and the “what”, followed by the “how”.
Berylls has the competence and the methodology to help you successfully define a viable service and product strategy.
Our offering includes:
Once you know what to do, and why, and how, the question is then “where?”.
Car ownership, spatial structure, density of stop points and departures, household income, parking regulations, modal share distribution, population density, commuting patterns, home office intensity, public transport and taxi price levels, and public policy-making: all these factors can impact customer demand and the attractiveness of cities for various types of business models.
Solving such equations with a large number of variables can to some extent be done with expertise, good data sources and using our mobility database of cities with 100,000 inhabitants and more.
But the more detailed it gets, the more the need for sophisticated simulation models to obtain meaningful results. Berylls partners with the most advanced companies in this field to obtain the best results for our clients.
Our offering includes:
Even if a city looks commercially promising, it may not be a good idea to enter it with a new service. Regulation is usually tailored to protect incumbents from “unfair” outside competition, and that has a huge impact on market accessibility.
Often enough a new service comprises a mix of elements from traditional public transit and private taxi services – a hybrid that is often not defined in market access regulations. However, choosing the service parameters in the right manner can allow the service provider to “nudge” the service offering in the direction of the most favorable regulatory regime.
Berylls has developed a unique analytical framework and methodology to link new service operational parameters to the relevant legal regulations and classifications, allowing us to suggest acceptable adjustments to the business model in order to maximize regulatory favorability and political support. We have a solid international network of local partners that provide us with the most relevant and latest updates on mobility service regulation.
Our offering includes:
Setting up a shared mobility service embraces many activities along the value chain: from designing the user interface and user experience, setting up the operations, dealing with authorities to receive concessions, and on to sourcing and fitting out vehicles. And where vehicles become autonomous the workload increases further, including the design of remote control and fallback operations.
The challenge for operators and service providers lies not only in defining the tasks and processes, but also the division of work and creation of technical interfaces between the companies involved.
Our offering includes:
Achieving a profitable business model in shared mobility is very challenging. One of the most critical tasks is to generate realistic estimates about unit economics, which determine at what point in time the business can expect to scale profitably. Operators can improve their profitability expectations by making smart make-or-buy decisions and deploying their fleet at the right intensity and with optimal timing.
Berylls has a deep understanding of the business models and value pools of autonomous shared mobility. We offer support in the creation and validation of individual business cases.
Our offering includes:
Scaling any business in a mobility ecosystem demands a detailed masterplan, from how to enter the market to how to cope with the growth ahead. There are too many examples of promising start-ups which either scale too slowly, or too fast. Too fast may be due to ramping up the fleet without allowing diffusion mechanics on the size of the customer base to do its work and generate demand. Too slow may come about where young teams lack the capacity or the cash to migrate their software product onto a scalable backend and tech stack. At Berylls Digital Ventures, we have established entrepreneurial engagement models, optimized to cope with exactly these situations.
Berylls has successfully supported the go-to-market process and scaling of innovators in the mobility services area. We are ready to act as a senior advisor, but we are also ready to get our hands dirty. Because we have proven to ourselves and to clients that the biggest reward comes when we see the results of our efforts not just on the planning board but driving through the streets.
Our offering includes:
Mobility services have generated a multitude of providers and start-ups throughout the value chain. Berylls Digital Ventures is actively networking with many of these start-ups and is continuously scouting promising ventures and business ideas. Most incumbents in the automotive industry have already understood that they must partner with younger companies that can offer fast access to innovative technology and agile working methods. We foster the activation of the start-up ecosystem for shared mobility.
In addition, our M&A practice offers its extensive experience in transactions and due diligence work to identify and assess companies in any specific sector of the shared mobility environment.
Our offering includes:
The WTCAR covers the 100 most relevant and promising listed companies worldwide.