M:WISE
The road to a digital warranty solution

by Mikael Wepsalanien, Global Director Warranty & Technical
Products

MSX has provided specialized technology-based services to the automotive industry for more than half a century. Its solutions have primarily derived from custom projects offering business efficiency and support, facilitating growth and recurring revenues from long-term contracts. However, the trend towards more digitalized automotive companies presents significant opportunities to compete in this rapidly growing market.

In 2016, MSX enlisted Bain Consulting Group to support this transition and overhaul its business strategy. One area of focus we identified as being a huge opportunity was automotive warranty.

We examined several challenges faced by OEMs in managing their warranty expense, including legacy IT systems, disconnected processes and the ability to keep up with diagnosis and repair procedures as cars become more complex. We also saw heightened market pressure resulting from stricter regulations and increased competition, highlighting the need for OEMs to improve their traditional business models and consider more innovative warranty models.

MSX became fully immersed in the warranty space, interviewing key stakeholders and conducting extensive industry analysis which was used in the development of concepts to overcome these challenges. We began to map the warranty journey with the insight we’d gathered through this social and cultural research, examining the pain points that affect the entire process within an OEM. As a result, we identified several areas of opportunity where we could offer solutions to help mitigate these industry challenges.

The result is the MSX warranty-as-a-service solution, or M:WISE. It’s an end-to-end, multi-tenant, digital service offering that provides our customers with the accuracy and transparency needed to stay ahead of the competition in a challenging market. The platform not only streamlines the warranty process, but helps OEMs find savings that would normally be lost amongst the billions of dollars spent on warranty annually.

M:WISE is designed to integrate with an OEM’s existing warranty systems. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to score every claim, and data science to prioritize each claim based on the manufacturer’s unique rules. The system identifies the claims most likely to contain anomalies or those which may be fraudulent, and allocates them to agents for manual investigation. Any low-value or straightforward claims are managed through an automation platform, which means OEMs can process more claims in less time and focus on those most likely to generate value or cost savings.

Using this platform, OEMs have complete control over the rules that dictate a claim’s score, while their agents can access the warranty information they need to work as efficiently as possible. It also generates reports that gives our automotive customers the insight they need to predict costs and analyze dealer performance, for example.

Manufacturers using this warranty management solution already benefit from the power of digital automation and AI. They’re saving money to invest in research and development and the digitalization of their networks, and experiencing greater efficiency and control across their businesses. In fact, some OEMs have tripled their productivity levels through claim automation, unlocking cost savings of up to $10 million.

This cutting-edge technology changes the way decisions are made. And when it’s combined with our experience, long-standing reputation, industry relationships and decades of proprietary data, it can truly help manufacturers stay ahead of the competition.

About the Author:

Mikael Wepsalanien

Global Director Warranty & Technical Products

Mikael leads the MSX Warranty and Technical Product function responsible for developing and positioning the full range of MSX products. He has a deep passion for the current automotive industry and the innovations required to support its future development. Mikael works alongside the organization’s sales and operational teams helping them add value to a growing global client base.

He can be reached at mwepsalainen@msxi-euro.com

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