Daimler manager Sajjad Khan
The Mercedes-CTO is convinced: “We should never give up our aspiration for perfection. That is our USP as made in Germany – and not just for security issues. ”
(Photo: Bernhard Kahrmann for Handelsblatt)
Sindelfingen colleagues describe Sajjad Khan as “positively crazy”. Finally, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) from Daimler two passions that are unusual for a traditional car maker. On the one hand, the native Pakistani with a German passport rides an excessive amount of bicycles. “No problem,” says the manager about himself, he can use his seven bikes to wind a hundred kilometers a day. On the other hand, Khan likes to code for his life – privately and professionally.
“If you can really program – and I’m still fit – you can achieve so much. It is the best invention of mankind, ”enthuses the 46-year-old. “A well-written code is a work of art, something like the Mona Lisa of the 21st century.” Now Khan is not a new Leonardo Vincithat would be presumptuous. But the manager is always a brilliant crosshead with almost inexhaustible drive.
With MBUX, he has created what is currently probably the best multimedia system in the automotive industry and is responsible for almost all relevant future topics Daimler. In concrete terms, Khan has been a member of the board of management since 2019 Mercedes Benz AG around the so-called CASE organization. The acronym stands for connected, autonomous, shared and service as well as electric. That means: At Khan all efforts of the brand are bundled with the star, Turn cars into smartphones on wheelsthat will bring us comfortably from A to B at some point, as driverless as possible and powered by green electricity.
The only problem is: the Stuttgart Dax group lags behind the competition in all these areas. When developing robot taxis, that is Google-Daughter Waymo hurried to the Swabian. Mercedes overslept the starting shot into the electric age, the lead of Tesla is several years. And with mobility services, Daimler has nothing to report outside of Europe. Khan and his team should now make the connection.
He is backed by CEO Ola Källenius. After the corona shock, the Swede wants to cut the costs at Daimler even more drastically than before – but investments in digitalization and electromobility are explicitly excluded from the savings plans. Khan can therefore continue to work with a development budget of up to one and a half billion euros per year, which is part of corporate circles.
The manager plans to use the money to put the EQS on the road next year. The sedan will and should be something like the electric counterpart to the S-Class Tesla with a range of more than 700 kilometers, among other things, technologically in the shade. There is only one project under the leadership of Khan that is even more ambitious: the top star coder will program by 2025 with his team a kind of Windows for the car.
Clash of worlds
With the MB.OS operating system, Daimler wants to ward off attacks by tech giants from Silicon Valley and China in the future. Because platform developers like Google and Apple or Tencent and Alibaba are increasingly pushing into the vehicle with their ecosystems. “Battle of the worlds”, is how Stefan Bratzel, head of the Center of Automotive Management (CAM), describes the competition between classic car manufacturers and digital giants for the mobility of the future.
Whoever wins the race is open. But the German corporations don’t start from pole position. “Big data players have far better access to customers. You only have to adapt your existing operating systems for the car, ”says Bratzel. The crucial question is therefore: “How much better are the operating systems from Daimler and Co. compared to Google’s Android Automotive to justify the high development costs for this?”
Sajjad Khan knows such reservations. When the father of two children started at Daimler in 2001, the company was still called Chrysler. Now he sits smiling broadly on the ninth floor in the Daimler development control center in Sindelfingen and spreads confidence instead of the end time mood. “In our more than 130-year history there have certainly been some setbacks, but overall we were ahead,” says Khan: “This will continue to be the case in the future.” That the entire German auto industry would be in danger just because a few corporations were involved from California or the Far East has also recently started to deal with software for vehicles, is “too simplistic,” says the manager.
Example of autonomous driving: “I hear names like Waymo or Over for more than five years. The fact is, however, that none of these companies currently has an autonomous vehicle commercially successful on the road, ”Khan says. Daimler is not yet ready, but is actively helping to shape the change. And Khan himself swears by the classic Mercedes virtues when it comes to software instead of the principle of trial and error so popular with tech giants. “We should never give up our claim to perfection. This is our USP as made in Germany – and not just for security issues, ”Khan describes his strategy.
But does Daimler have enough capable programmers to be able to deliver the brains of the future cars in addition to the chic tin cladding? Khan smiles: “It’s true: other companies may have more money and more software developers than we do. But sheer mass says nothing in the software area. “It is rather true that small but technically outstanding teams often deliver better results than large ones. “We have all the prerequisites to compete against corporations with a host of developers,” says Khan.
As one of the most valuable brands in the world, it is also not difficult for Mercedes to attract enough digital talent. “Some people may think we are a Swabian company in the heart of Stuttgart. In truth, however, we are extremely international in terms of development, ”says Khan. His team of over 4,000 employees is scattered around the world in offices and digital hubs in Sindelfingen, Beijing, Tel Aviv, Seattle and Silicon Valley. In spite of rigid austerity measures, Daimler is likely to continue to massively increase staff at this point.
The reason: topics like data analytics, artificial intelligence and software platforms are becoming increasingly important for all car manufacturers. “In fact, they will soon be much more important to our industry than the purely mechanical engineering work that we have been doing for decades,” predicts Khan.
The magic of software
Digital pioneers like the son of a Pakistani diplomat at Mercedes have long struggled. The veteran developers stuck too much to their modular logic and internal combustion engine. Maybe that’s why Khan moved to the supplier Magna in the meantime and later BMW. But in 2015 the manager, who studied information and communication technology, returned to Daimler.
And since MBUX’s success at the latest, it has “become easier for him to discuss with his colleagues,” as Khan himself says. The multimedia system designed by his team, which is controlled using gestures and voice commands, celebrated its premiere in 2018 and is extremely popular. Although MBUX costs over 3,000 euros in its most luxurious equipment, the installation rates are more than 80 percent. “This fully pays off our margin,” says a financial expert from Mercedes.
For Khan, MBUX proves that Daimler doesn’t have to hide in the fight against Tesla and Google. “In the race for tomorrow’s mobility, what ultimately counts is who can implement his ideas and transform them into profitable business models. And we can. ”If the new electric flagship EQS becomes a bestseller too, Khan qualifies for even bigger tasks at Daimler. Some already see him as the future head of development. “I trust him,” says an influential companion.
Others are more skeptical. “He may still lack the breadth for this,” believes a supervisory board. “Sajjad is difficult in terms of management technology,” states a Daimler veteran. Khan is said to perform poorly in the annual manager ratings. However, the Mercedes-CTO should not be satisfied with more salaries in the medium term. “Sajjad sees himself called to higher things, he dreams of Apple and alphabet, ”says a manager who has known him well for years.
Scope and flexible rules required
On the other hand, Khan speaks well in Stuttgart and Sindelfingen, although English is closer to him than German as a language. In any case, on days off, the manager can often be found in the coffee house. There he devours one book after the other or worries about the local industrial location.
“If Germany If we want to play a role in the business world in the future in competition with Chinese and American companies, we have to be much more aggressive in the software sector, ”says Khan. “We need a show of strength in corporations and start-ups, the universities and in society in order not to lose touch.” He calls for more precise laws.
“Software development cannot be accomplished in classic eight-hour days. The human brain works differently and cannot be squeezed into such a corset, ”says Khan. The manager emphasizes that he is not concerned with undermining protective functions for employees. These are very important. “But we have to create scope and make rules more flexible.” Otherwise, the Mercedes manager fears, Germany gets too little from the “magic” and the high-paying jobs that clever software unfolds.