09 10 201520 At Volvo IT is a growth accelerator The auto industry as a whole is embracing IT as never be fore But for Volvo which has been struggling for years to secure a bigger and more profitable slice of the global premium car market the need to act is arguably even more urgent Bendrik in a telephone interview in August summa rized Volvo s approach to IT as follows To realize our future business potential we need to be smart and nimble and lever age new technologies And he added It s very clear that for an automotive company IT is vital when it comes to manufac turing developing selling and servicing cars Volvo has been owned by Geely since 2010 when the Chi nese carmaker bought the company from Ford Motor for 1 5 billion dollars Together with its Chinese owners the Swed ish group embarked on a plan to broaden its global footprint move its model range further upmarket and capitalize on the new connections it has in China the world s biggest car mar ket As part of the strategy Volvo is building more cars locally for the Chinese market and recently announced plans to start manufacturing in the US Earlier this year it also launched a new flagship model the XC90 large SUV which is built on a new scaleable architecture and has an array of novel driver assistance features Volvo said in August that it had already received nearly 57 000 orders for the XC90 significantly more than it had projected Volvo needs that kind of boost With sales stuck in the 400 000 range for many years the carmaker is now committed to rais ing that total to 800 000 by 2020 Last year it sold 465 866 cars so it has a way to go A customer centric approach should help Volvo as it looks to cater to increasingly connected con sumers Bendrik said That means car connectivity is part of a bigger picture for Volvo It s not so much the connected car that is a priority but the connected consumer he said In oth er words car connectivity needs to support people s connect ed habits and be part of their connected world To make that In March of this year Volvo Cars appointed Klas Bendrik its CIO for the past five years to the company s senior management board The move the Swedish carmaker said at the time underlined the key role technology will play for carmakers in future as they develop their connectivity products and services STORY CIO pushes digital agenda

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