FCA plays ‘Shark Tank' and nets new customer app

DETROIT — A friendly competition designed to spark innovation at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles as employees work from home produced a smartphone app that the company is now releasing to help customers learn about their vehicles.

FCA's "Pitch Night" event during the summer led to the submission of more than 500 ideas related to connectivity and infotainment that were then voted on. The virtual event, borrowing from the "Shark Tank" TV show format in which entrepreneurs pitch ideas to a panel, ended with one winner: an augmented reality app called Know & Go that breaks down key features by having the user simply point the camera at a part of the vehicle.

When looking through the camera, the user will see a name and description overlaid on the particular feature. The upcoming Ram 1500 TRX, due out before the end of the year, is the first vehicle that can be used with the app.

The concept came about after two employees — Feature Innovation Manager Carolina Harris and Propulsion Systems Program Manager Mimi Nguyen — combined their ideas into one.

The two knew the competition was fierce because they had a chance to check out many of the ideas on a database where the concepts were housed. That "kept us on our toes to try and put forth the best proposal and pitch that we could," Nguyen told Automotive News.

Harris and Nguyen have each interacted with customers over the years through consumer research. Nguyen said they saw firsthand how customers weren't aware of all of the capabilities of their vehicles. Features that could improve the driving and ownership experience often go unused because drivers don't know about them, Nguyen said.

Know & Go provides push notifications about undiscovered features, overviews and how-to videos in addition to feature-specific owner's manual pages.

"As a company, we listen to our customers, and we do everything we can to address the needs and the wants that they tell us that they have," Nguyen said. "We put forth the effort and the time to introduce features that can support those needs and wants. But we realize none of that matters if our customers don't realize that those features exist for them."

FCA said online voting by employees got the list of 500 ideas down to 50, and company leadership then picked the top 14. From there, the company assigned coaches and executive sponsors to the finalists to help guide prototype development and hone the pitches before they were presented to a panel of judges that included CEO Mike Manley and North America COO Mark Stewart.

Mamatha Chamarthi, chief information officer for North America and Asia Pacific, was the executive sponsor for Harris and Nguyen. Harris said Chamarthi laid out key objectives that the team needed to cover during its pitch.

Chamarthi saw an opportunity to make the TRX the debut vehicle for the app, Harris said, because it was being revealed around the same time that Know & Go was being developed.

"She was the conduit to connect us with the brand team," Harris said.

The idea went from a concept to market-ready product in three months, which Nguyen said was an impressive feat because the process can often take six months for app developers.

FCA said Know & Go was picked because of its "originality, feasibility, viability and desirability." Harris and Nguyen have worked with cross- functional teams since winning the competition to take their idea from concept to reality.

Nguyen said this has been a passion project for them. The two have to carve time out of their already-crowded daily schedules to shepherd the app's development.

"We are trying to find time, as much as possible, to make sure that we can develop Know & Go to truly be the most useful app that it can be for our customers, and to truly achieve meeting the objectives that we had," Nguyen said. "There have been some extra-long days and some weekends involved. But we do it out of love that we have for this app, this project, and we know the impact that it can have to the experiences that our customers will have with our vehicles."