Mobility Services
MOBILITY SERVICES ARE DEAD – LONG LIVE MOBILITY SERVICES!

Challenges

HYPED THEN SHUNNED, NOW?

Shared mobility services have experienced a rollercoaster ride over the last decade. Ridiculed at the beginning, then hyped in the brief era of market frenzy over autonomous driving, and more recently suffering from a loss of investor trust.

Competition is fierce, market equilibriums are distorted by regulation, customers are notoriously disloyal, and the road to profitability is a long journey with only few survivors likely to remain at the end. Shared mobility services present a challenging environment, characterized by start-ups who are willing to change the world but typically in dire need of cash.

So the industry is still standing. This decade will show whether the transformation to a more convenient and efficient transit system will continue to stall or whether we will witness a necessary and overdue comeback story. At Berylls we are driven by a belief that this story will be a successful one.

Berylls perspective

STRIVING IN SHARED MOBILITY IS A MARATHON,
NOT A SPRINT

Strained household budgets, huge public transit deficits and an increasing shortage of bus drivers make advances in shared and autonomous mobility solutions imperative to cope with increasing urbanization and the accompanying potential for permanent traffic gridlock.

Shared mobility needs better technology. It needs vehicles that are optimized in terms of total cost of ownership, yet are convenient and inclusive. It needs better prediction and pooling algorithms, and a smart tariff system. And it needs a society that no longer accepts cities built around streets, but around people instead.

This is where we can help. We help get the right concepts in place and make realistic assumptions about commercial success and the growth path to the profit zone. We help find the right start-ups and tech companies to partner with. We help set up minimum viable products to validate technical and commercial feasibility.

For many years we have worked to distinguish between the fundamental market drivers of shared mobility and arbitrary investor and “expert” sentiments. That is a promise our team will continue to keep.

Service offering

HELPING CLIENTS ADDRESS MOBILITY CHALLENGES

 

 

STRATEGY & BUSINESS MODEL DESIGN

Designing a viable and innovative strategy and business model in shared mobility is no trivial task - especially if you want to earn money from it. 

At the beginning of each mobility strategy project, our initial questions are always the “why” and the “what”, followed by the “how”. 

Berylls has the competence and the methodology to help you successfully define a viable service and product strategy. 

Our offering includes: 

  • Strategic framework and target picture definition, development of shared beliefs and identification of aspirational targets for the shared mobility value pool. 
  • Business model ideation via workshops and systemic design methods. 
  • Demand prediction on several levels of detail, focused on individual cites or city archetypes. 
  • Modelling of market potential, revenue streams and profit pools for any shared mobility application. 
  • Definition of strategic directions, success-critical tasks and bundles of measures for strategy implementation. 
  • Operating-model design, value chain and partnering strategies. 
  • Capability modeling and assessment. 
  • Process and technical architecture design and review. 
  • Elaboration of the strategy roadmap and implementation planning. 
SIMULATION-BASED BUSINESS MODEL ASSESSMENT

Once you know what to do, and why, and how, the question is then “where?”. Car ownership, spatial structure, density of stop points, household income, parking regulations, modal share distribution, population density, commuting patterns, home office intensity, public transport and taxi price levels, and public policy-making: all these factors can impact customer demand and the attractiveness of cities for various types of business models.

Solving such equations with many variables requires sophisticated simulation models to obtain meaningful results. Berylls partners with the most advanced companies in this field to obtain the best results for our clients.

Our offering includes: 

  • High-level attractiveness scoring of cities for specific shared mobility business models.
  • Research into local competition, price levels, modal shares, driver availability, and commuting patterns.
  • Demand estimates for specific business models and service parameters on an individual city basis (but always depending on the availability and accuracy of local data).
  • Business model feasibility assessments, using simulation models of various levels of granularity and sophistication.
  • Price sensitivity assessments, based on simulation and primary data acquisition.
MARKET ENTRY ASSESSMENT

Even if a city looks commercially promising, it may not be a good idea to enter it with a new service. Regulation is usually tailored to protect incumbents from “unfair” outside competition, and that has a huge impact on market accessibility. 

Often enough a new service comprises a mix of elements from traditional public transit and private taxi services – a hybrid that is often not defined in market access regulations. However, choosing the service parameters in the right manner can allow the service provider to “nudge” the service offering in the direction of the most favorable regulatory regime.   

Berylls has developed a unique analytical framework and methodology to link new service operational parameters to the relevant legal regulations and classifications, allowing us to suggest acceptable adjustments to the business model in order to maximize regulatory favorability and political support. We have a solid international network of local partners that provide us with the most relevant and latest updates on mobility service regulation.  

Our offering includes: 

  • Methods and procedures to link business design parameters to regulatory realities.  
  • Research into local regulations, the political landscape, pending legal initiatives and decision-making bodies (“stakeholder maps”).  
  • Recommendations for preferred market access regimes and required adjustments to business model parameters. 
  • Establishing local networks including regulatory bodies and influencers. 
OPERATING MODEL DESIGN

Setting up a shared mobility service embraces many activities along the value chain: from designing the user interface and user experience, setting up the operations, dealing with authorities to receive concessions, and on to sourcing and fitting out vehicles. And where vehicles become autonomous the workload increases further, including the design of remote control and fallback operations. 

The challenge for operators and service providers lies not only in defining the tasks and processes, but also the division of work and creation of technical interfaces between the companies involved. 

Our offering includes: 

  • Definition of the operational strategy, including make-or-buy. 
  • Definition of basic layouts, operating areas and the operational design domain for any autonomous shared mobility driving system. 
  • Demand simulation and capacity determination including different growth scenarios. 
  • Definition of operating models including technical, economic and organizational dimensions (such as number of vehicles and  drivers). 
  • Design of the operational and technical service architecture.  
  • Process description including interfaces within and between the layers of the mobility ecosystem, and the partnering approach. 
  • Location search including hubs.  
BUSINESS CASE DESIGN & PROFITABILITY ASSESSMENT

Achieving a profitable business model in shared mobility is very challenging. One of the most critical tasks is to generate realistic estimates about unit economics, which determine at what point in time the business can expect to scale profitably. Operators can improve their profitability expectations by making smart make-or-buy decisions and deploying their fleet at the right intensity and with optimal timing. 

Berylls has a deep understanding of the business models and value pools of autonomous shared mobility. We offer support in the creation and validation of individual business cases. 

Our offering includes: 

  • Assessment of the business model canvas for any layer or application in the autonomous driving ecosystem. 
  • Modelling of demand and revenue development including dynamic pricing (as a function of technology diffusion and scaling). 
  • Modelling of capacity utilization, cost development and their interdependence with the operating model design. 
  • Sensitivity analyses, scenario simulation and war gaming. 
IMPLEMENTATION & SCALING SUPPORT

Scaling any business in a mobility ecosystem demands a detailed masterplan, from how to enter the market to how to cope with the growth ahead. There are too many examples of promising start-ups which either scale too slowly, or too fast. Too fast may be due to ramping up the fleet without allowing diffusion mechanics on the size of the customer base to do its work and generate demand. Too slow may come about where young teams lack the capacity or the cash to migrate their software product onto a scalable backend and tech stack. At Berylls Digital Ventures, we have established entrepreneurial engagement models, optimized to cope with exactly these situations. 

Berylls has successfully supported the go-to-market process and scaling of innovators in the mobility services area. We are ready to act as a senior advisor, but we are also ready to get our hands dirty. Because we have proven to ourselves and to clients that the biggest reward comes when we see the results of our efforts not just on the planning board but driving through the streets. 

Our offering includes: 

  • Definition of go-to-market strategy including product, price, promotion, place, people and processes. 
  • Proof of concept through pilot operation and/or simulation.  
  • Comprehensive launch preparation of the defined business and operating model. 
  • Senior advisory during the go-live and scaling phases. 
  • Technical and business development scaling support. 
STARTUP ACTIVATION / M&A

Mobility services have generated a multitude of providers and start-ups. Berylls Digital Ventures is actively networking with many of these start-ups and is continuously scouting promising ventures and business ideas. Most incumbents in the automotive industry have already understood that they must partner with younger companies that can offer fast access to innovative technology and agile working methods. We foster the activation of the start-up ecosystem for shared mobility.

In addition, our M&A practice offers its extensive experience in transactions and due diligence work to identify and assess companies in any specific sector of the shared mobility environment.

Our offering includes: 

  • Scouting of promising ventures and business ideas in shared mobility.
  • Evaluation of start-ups to create a validated portfolio of innovative companies.
  • Assessment of product capabilities (including tech stack due diligence).
  • Mentoring and matchmaking, connecting start-ups with partners (such as industry incumbents or investors).
  • Transaction advisory and due diligence. 

Team

OUR MOBILITY SERVICES EXPERTS

Associate Partner

Timo Littke

Our world needs new solutions for the mobility of the future. Digital innovations will play a key role in this. At Berylls, people come together who have the mindset, the know-how and the drive to shape these changes.

Project Manager

Benjamin Bierl

Being a Beryll enables me to combine my passion for cars and profession every day. This enthusiasm, which connects me with the entire team, enables us to actively shape the future of mobility - in line with our theme BUT DIFFERENT!
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