Creating reality-搜狐汽车

BEIJING – Mackevision, a leading global producer of 3D-enabled visualization and CGI services mainly for automotive clients, will continue to support Chinese brands' efforts to go high-end after its acquisition by Accenture, according to Beatrix C. Frisch, general manager of China for the Stuttgart-based company.

Frisch made the comments in an interview on January 23 at the company's China headquarters in Beijing alongside Armin Pohl, founder and CEO of Mackevision, and Axel Schmidt, managing director of Accenture's Automotive Practice.

“Chinese car manufacturers should be among the top 10 in China and the future of China's car industry should not be low-end anymore,” Frisch told CBU/CAR. “Chinese clients are really demanding, so we are the perfect partner to help them understand how CGI works. We can help them really go into the next step. It’s a lot of work but it’s also a lot of fun.”

Mackevision, which earned international acclaim for its work on the popular HBO Series “Game of Thrones,” receiving an Emmy for Outstanding Visual Effects, counts high-end automotive brands including Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW, Porsche, Jaguar, Land Rover, Hyundai and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) as its major clients. It has achieved its most notable success in the auto industry – where CGI-based and ‘digital twin’ visualization has experienced some of the earliest adoption.

Now it is getting increasing attention and business from both traditional and “internet carmaking” Chinese brands such as SAIC Motor, Foton, Borgward and CHJ Automotive seeking to elevate their image.

“With their own brands, they want to position them higher, so they chose very deliberately to cooperate with us, and we are very happy to support them in their way out of this image of being low-end,” said Frisch.

Mackevision came to China two years ago on request from Mercedes-Benz, according to Frisch, but has since expanded quickly and gotten more awareness in the market. In fact it is part of Daimler's current efforts to digitalize its business, including its dealership footprint, in China and globally.

Frisch believes digitalization efforts in China are huge and it’s apparently one of the fastest in the world overall. “The speed to support the digitization of the economy is expected to be very fast. In China the expectation on flexibility is very high on customer needs, it's not only about the end customer, but also manufacturers,” said Frisch. “The challenge is to really fit into their process, their system, make them understand.”

“Our core competitiveness is that we can offer the whole end-to-end solution for customers,” said Pohl. “So the customers don’t need to talk to the creative team here, the visualization team there, the IT team here. All of these things need a lot of know-how, a lot of years of experience and lot of capacity. We have this capability, and this is unique.”

Commenting on automakers' digitalization efforts globally in China in terms of bringing cars to the customers, Schmidt believes the industry has only seen “the tip of the iceberg” on what will happen in the next 5-10 years.

“The premium brands are the fast movers, but others will follow. Will you buy your car at Mercedes or Audi, or will you buy it from Alibaba? That is a big question mark, and this game is not yet decided,” said Schmidt. “Therefore, the OEMs have to move and have to keep active on this interface. And just imagine, when in five years 30 percent of customers will buy their cars online, where will you buy it, from the OEM or from other platforms?”

Accenture announced on February 19 that it had completed the acquisition of Mackevision after the move was first announced on January 10. It will thus add state-ofthe-art visualization capabilities to Accenture Interactive's digital services portfolio – strengthening its ability to create compelling, next-generation customer experiences and industrial, extended reality applications. Terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.

“Mackevision is delighted to become part of the Accenture family,” said Pohl. “With our more than 20 years' experience in 3D visualization, our visionary technology and our efficient Single-Source Publishing (SSP) approach, we create relevant, inspiring product and brand experiences with lasting impact. We have moved from being a content provider to providing relevant end-to-end solutions for our clients, and we're looking forward to collaborating on creating meaningful client experiences on a global scale under Accenture Interactive.”

Accenture is an early leader in the burgeoning AR/VR services market, having delivered consumer and enterprise experiences for clients such as BMW and Jeep over the past several years, and recently launched the Accenture Extended Reality (XR) practice. The acquisition of Mackevision will help Accenture significantly accelerate its ability to envision, create and operate XR solutions at scale for its clients and help drive the future of the XR market which, according to industry analyst firm IDC, is predicted to rise to $162 billion by 2020.

　　To get more information, please send email to sub@cbuauto.com.cn to subscribe.

　　The above article appeared in the March 2018 (Vol. 13, No. 3) issue of China Automotive Review (CAR), our monthly publication in English exclusively focused on the Chinese auto industry.