Using Data to Spark New Business Growth Processes
Having access to large volumes of data that can be turned into useful insights, whether for developing new products and services or improving management efficiency, requires advanced technical and scientific tools. It is a crucial issue affecting many businesses. The Smart Data Centre at Politecnico addresses this challenge by analysing massive datasets and making them usable for companies. One compelling example is its collaboration with UnipolTech (Unipol Group).
Effectively working with large-scale data is something UnipolTech knows well. It is currently tackling this challenge with success, partly thanks to a Partnership Agreement with Politecnico di Torino. UnipolTech designs, develops, and delivers services based on telematics, IoT, and Big Data for safety, protection, and mobility systems, services that include mobile payments such as Electronic Toll Booths for the Unipol Group. “We come from the insurance world, but we are not insurers – points out Paola Carrea, Director General of UnipolTech of Unipol Group –instead, we focus on making the best use of the information generated by the roughly four million customers who use our telematics boxes in their vehicles. This helps us improve the services the Group offers to its clients”.
The partnership agreement is built around two main objectives: joint research, with intellectual property protected and shared through initial agreements, and help raise awareness of the company among Politecnico’s community of students and young researchers, creating opportunities for talent recruitment. This is the foundation for the collaboration with Politecnico’s Smart Data Centre.
“For the past 6-7 years, we’ve studied how mobility data on behaviour and usage habits can help design sustainable mobility solutions based on electric vehicles. The collaboration with UnipolTech has been crucial. Thanks to the large datasets available, we’ve been able to analyse how the current vehicle fleet could transition to electric, identifying the policies and concrete tools needed to support this shift without disrupting users”, explains Danilo Giordano, Professor at the Department of Computer and Control Engineering-DAUIN and a member of the SmartData@PoliTO Interdepartmental Center.
The company emphasises: “UnipolTech does not conduct research for its own sake but instead focuses on applied, purpose-driven innovation. With Politecnico, we have developed a data analysis platform that allows us to bring new ideas and products to market, always considering ethical implications and environmental sustainability”.
The first analysis was carried out in the Asti area, followed by Milan, and is now being extended to other cities such as Trieste and Foggia. The goal is to apply the methods tested in different urban contexts, since mobility patterns depend on a wide range of territorial and demographic variables.
From an operational perspective, at least three outcomes have already been achieved: improved service for customers who already use UnipolRental, the Group’s car rental company; greater flexibility for Unipol agencies, which can now offer a broader range of services to policyholders choosing between buying a new car or renting one; and the possibility for individual customers to use the developed tools to evaluate the best car option based on their personal habits – without needing to change them.
“Our work with the university is not over. In addition to extending the platform to more cities, we are focusing on data management, particularly in terms of anonymization – says Claudio De Tommasi, Head of R&D - IoT Devices at UnipolTech – We are required to delete data after a certain number of years, but being able to store anonymized historical data could open the door to new research opportunities”.
There is a broader takeaway from this successful partnership between UnipolTech and the Politecnico. “This experience clearly demonstrates how research can drive business growth. Our role is to provide the tools needed to turn opportunities into reality”, emphasizes Emilio Paolucci, Professor at the Department of Management and Production Engineering-DIGEP and scientific coordinator of the partnership agreement.
“Politecnico is open to working with companies that have a clear vision for transforming their business models and that require cutting-edge technological expertise, which is central to our institutional mission. These companies can find in the university a valuable partner for jointly building the knowledge and technological advancements needed for shared growth –generating, on one hand, new research opportunities rooted in real-world challenges, and on the other, creating value and innovation for the businesses and the people within them”.