McLaren And Deloitte Join Forces To Create ‘Data Driven’ Products With An Eye On £1bn Annual Pot

Performance car maker McLaren is joining forces with professional services giant Deloitte to create data-centric systems and products for applications such as smart cities.

Drawing upon McLaren’s experience in engineering, simulation, sensor hardware and analytics developed through its heritage in motorsport then later in the creation of performance sports cars that can put the wind up Ferrari, the two company’s will create hardware and software  initially for use in the retail, transport, life sciences, and retail worlds.

Initial products the partnership aims to yield are systems for improving scheduling, handling traffic congestion, and boosting quality and compliance in the manufacturing world.

Driving data

While Apple may have been long rumoured to gave been courting the British automotive brand, it appears Deloitte has got there first, at least publicly.

The partnership aims to create 150 new jobs across the joint venture and hopes to deliver over a £1 billion in annual “client benefits” by 2020; it is no surprise Apple may have been sniffing around McLaren.

“McLaren is first and foremost a technology company and among the pioneers of collecting data through sensors and then interpreting and using that in clever ways to generate insight,” said Ian Rhodes, chief executive officer at McLaren Applied Technologies.

“We realise the huge potential for us to take that kind of experience to improve businesses and solve some of their most pressing challenges.

“So it makes sense for us to partner with a company like Deloitte who have a range of complementary digital and analytics skills, combined with a global network of clients and locations, to scale our co-created data driven business products.”

Mike Dobby, vice chairman and senior consulting partner at Deloitte, echoes Rhodes’ rhetoric and added: “This partnership with McLaren Applied Technologies opens up a number of opportunities for Deloitte, particularly for our consulting business.  Increasingly clients are turning to us not only for advice, but also for digital and physical products to solve their problems.”

The partnership is indicative of how sensor and connectivity technology and the way if can usher in digital transformation is yielding new products designed to harness data regardless of the format.

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