The Second Founding of Honda

In this edition of Seriously Curious, Chris and 30 year Honda veteran, Raj Manakkal discuss the second founding of Honda, highlighting cross-functional product teams, design thinking, and agile practices to build in-house infotainment and digital services.

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Welcome back, everyone to Seriously Curious podcast about all things customer experience for business strategy and design. I'm Chris Rockwell, president and founder of Human Experience firm Lextant here in Columbus, Ohio, where we focus all things on the interactions, moments of truth between humans, and the things that we design. Today, I'm super excited to have the talented Raj Manakkal with us today. Raj is division lead and assistant vice president for American Honda Motor Company and part of the leadership team that's leading Honda through its next evolution, called the second founding of Honda. I think it's an amazing concept. This is a bold move to set the company up for success in an increasingly connected and software driven future. Raj, thanks so much for being here today. I really appreciate it. Hello, Chris. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about how you got here on this journey. I know you've been with Honda for many years, so tell me a little bit about how you arrived here. Okay, great. So, I was at University of Iowa and, was looking for jobs, and, I had a fantastic opportunity to interview with Honda in the West Coast. And it was pretty much a continuation of what I was doing in grad school, which is driver, simulator related studies and experiments. And so I took on the opportunity, and, I never thought I would be working for a company this long. I've been with Honda now 30 years. Yeah. So it's been a fantastic journey so far. Yeah, yeah. What a great experience. So, did you come out of University of Iowa, with a like an engineering background? You say you were working in the simulator lab, what were your first kind of roles at Honda? Yeah, so it was the engineering background. But my role at university while when the, was to work in the Iowa driving simulator, setting up for experiments, running, data and analysis and statistical analysis for them. Back in those days in Unix machines before windows came out. Right. So that was my role. Yeah. And then I joined Honda, pretty much, doing driver research and, mainly technology focused as well. But how the drivers adapted and do they, appreciate what we're trying to do for them? Yeah. Yeah. You know, Raj I didn't realize that our backgrounds were so similar, you know, in terms of and it makes sense now, you know, after all these years, Raj you've had an incredible journey, now with 30 years at Honda. Tell me a little bit about that. And what are some of the pivotal moments, say you've experienced on this journey with Honda now to the various highest levels of the company? Absolutely. I mean, there've been a lot of opportunities and new opportunities to create something meaningful. It never felt like, you know, the same old job. Several pivotal moments that I can share with you, but the one that recently sticks to my head is where we proposed to create our own infotainment software platform. Which is where we become more vertically centered, integrated, to become a software oriented company where we take the, platform development in our hands. Therefore, you have the flexibility to monitor and adapt what the customer reacts to. So that was important for us. So we proposed that to Japan and Japan headquarters. There were fantastic group of executives who understood that the shift is happening. In the industry where the automakers are not just you know, traditional tool and dye companies anymore, that we are creating software platforms and creating experiences with this. And if you want to control the experience, you want to take ownership of the software and the development of that. And we had several great, sessions with executives, you know, where they were asking, how would you do this? How would you do that? And then they supported us greatly. So we developed a software platform, and that was not only software platform. It was also the introduction of Acura Precision Concept, a brand new user experience. Right? That our software was just an enabler for the experience. Right. And along with several new technologies such as over-the-air updates where the drivers can get updates after, making some comments or we fix any minor software bugs, things like that. So everything we did was new there in creating this new experience. And I'm incredibly proud to say that the job that our team did, was applied to six different vehicles and across two brands, Acura and Honda, and also in creating two distinctively different, user experiences. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that transformation. I think that was a really, important step forward in the way Honda was looking at customer experience more holistically in the cockpit. Tell me a little bit about, sort of the next evolution. What's your role entail now since you've moved from that position now, to American Honda on the West Coast, there. Okay. So I was, initially in Los Angeles. That's how my journey started with Honda. I was here for two years, then I moved to Ohio. I was doing the vehicle, embedded hardware and software development, right where we directly impacted the user experiences there. After a long tenure in Ohio, I wanted to work, in the newly software defined vehicle, area. And the software defined vehicle purpose is to add value to customer. You don't create software just because you want to create software. You're trying to create an experience that is meaningful and meets customer's needs, expectations, or even wows them. Right? So, our new role, my new role here is to unify the digital experience or the touchpoints for the customer across their entire journey with the company and our journey. But I mean, awareness stage, pre-purchase phase and, and the ownership phase and stereotypically we tend to focus a lot on the ownership phase coming from vehicle hardware development and software development. But there's a lot to be said, even in the, awareness phase and pre-purchase phase where you create the experience, and create the brand, recognition to the customer. So I've been learning a lot. It's been a great new role. So we are also adapting, in terms of working style, industry best practices such as agile, where we, you know, first of all, do the design thinking, empathize with the customer, identify pain points, gain points, etc. and we want to do beta tests. And we have conducted a lot of beta test, including market with the limited number of customers. And we validate the hypothesis. Okay. I thought we would add value and then we're not all that effective. Let's pivot a little bit more and add value. And we have done that and released products to the market. And we watch the usage of the customers. How they are using it, where are the friction points where we can make it better, things like that. And we continue to do updates. Right. So I want to holistically say we are in the transition of becoming a company that values digital services and software services. Also also part of the cars package. It's not just, you know, the motorized seats and all the air conditioning, things like that. Now, digital services and software services are a big value add. Yeah, I, I think this, it's been great to go on this journey with you. You know, when you think about, taking this sort of value centric approach to all the touchpoints of the customer's journey and getting to more like life level mobility. So everything from how you consider, and purchase a vehicle to how you use it in your daily life, how it adds value, what makes it smart, and then, you know, servicing. It's great to see how Honda and your team specifically are now working on all this connective tissue. How do you feel? So so how does this relate to the second founding of Honda? I think one of the things I was, blown back when I heard that the, you know, this press release came out and you and I had a chance to speak about it. This idea of the second founding of, a global, you know, you know, this large, well-established brand, huge company decides to reestablish itself and refine, refound its whole company and ethos. I was just blown away by that idea. Tell me, what does that mean to you and how does it relate to this sort of software services work that you're doing? What does it really mean to be to found a company a second time? Let me first start saying by with my personal level of, understanding here. So, you know, always Honda has being a company that has the startup mentality and innovative. And that's how Mr. Honda started the company. You know, a very iconoclastic, character. You know, you've heard a lot of stories about him, how he goes against the convention to create something great and found success as well. Right? Is fantastic. So, we, watch Honda-san's videos, stories and things like that. We try to propose and try to steer the company from, regional office, or from the bottom up, so to speak. Right. And we we were super excited when our CEO Mibe-san says we it's a startup company. We're you know, rebirthing ourself. There's a second founding right. We were super excited because that sends a message from top down. Anything you know now or anything you've been doing for the last 20, 30 years. It's not that doesn't mean nothing. But you know what? We're going to do everything new brand again, because, we hear you, but truly speaking, the second founding is a significant phase in our company's evolution, right? And it's driven by the needs that we need to adapt to the ever fast changing technological and business conditions as well in the market and the customers expectation. So it's a fantastic top down alignment of the company to say everything we know is great. Put it in your toolbelt. Now let's start with the new company kinda thing, it's great. So I think it's interesting. So it's about understanding the customer more deeply across more touchpoints and, and taking the, the knowledge that you've developed on how to develop physical products with high quality and reliability and now expanding that to software services. Right. Like how do you become, great at software value delivery? That's correct. So I agree. So we were known for our DQR so to speak, like dependability, quality, reliability and even buying Honda car. And you know, you hear stories about it runs forever, things like that. We want to get the same level of recognition for software services and the experiences we create. Right. It's the no nonsense. I expect this from Honda. It's great to use, easy to use. Makes my life easy. That's where we want to get to. Not necessarily, you know, giving them like a rocket shuttle launch program type of complexity. We want to make customers life easy. So we definitely want to be part of that. Honda's DNA of DQR. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, you mentioned Mibe-san he recently said that, Honda's vision is to put a Honda logo on all next generation mobility products, you know, not just, vehicles and and engines and the like, but, tell me about that. What does that mean for innovation at Honda? I mean, not only in consumer mobility but beyond that. Well it creates a dream for us. When he says, you know, his vision is to have a Honda logo on all the next gen mobility products. It's not cars, it's not this. So you can take it to how you want to interpret it and propose some innovative cool products. So it it reflects really the future direction of Honda. So in my mind, first it's being where I am in the organization. I want to say it's a combination of hardware and software and what we can do with it in terms of services for the customer. And it's not just related to the usage of the car and driving. Yeah, right. In, the near future, it very much will be involving about how we can onboard customer and make them feel peace of mind in terms of charging or taking a long trip with their EV cars. There's so many opportunity in this, new domain. Right. And secondly, I want to say, of course, Honda wants to strengthen our brand recognition, to the new generation and convey that we have a value proposition like we talked about beyond the DQR, like Honda is a company that can provide value to make your life easier. Beyond that, and like you said, finally definitely highlights the Honda's commitment to innovation because we have to be at the edge of the competitive, in terms of technology and business to appeal to the customer. Yeah, not just competing with, competitors, but mainly it's if you align with the customer, you automatically win. So yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think of that. As I said, I mentioned it before, this idea of life level mobility is kind of like where. Yeah. How we integrate the kind of value driven services products, whatever experiences we're trying to create into sort of bringing that ability to move people and things, whether it be air mobility or ground mobility running all the different kinds of things. So I think it's amazing. It's an amazing recognition, by Honda leadership and yourself that, the world is changing and we need to be more, adept to, you know, to move with the customer and to move with the future, to develop, you know, smart, autonomous, connected, electrified world. Yeah. You know, so I imagine this brings, a lot of challenges with it, though, as you, you know, you're a large organization and a large ship doesn't. Does it turn, you know, quickly. But tell me about what are some of the challenges? that you, you know, that you face as you move kind of from product excellence to include software experience excellence. That's a great question. And I like your analogy of a ship, Chris. And I would like to say that we are a aircraft carrier, big. And we also, just like an aircraft carrier, has a lot of supporting destroyers and ships. We have an ecosystem, right? Our partners and suppliers, who are also in this journey with us for the last 40, 50 years. So I would say the challenge is really organizational, right? So here's this big ecosystem that with some inertia is moving and we need to turn quickly, requires new mindset, challenging spirit which are actually Honda's core values. You may have heard but I would say organization. Right. And we are always that's where we are quickly changing the organization. If it doesn't work and doesn't meet the targets, let's change it so it works. We don't. The point being, organization can't be a hurdle right? And then it requires new processes and standards for developing software or experiences. Right. You can imagine 30 years ago, maybe a chassis designer never thought about something called design thinking. Right? But now design thinking is our starting point, right? Including for the, mechanical engineers. They're thinking about how does the customer use their car? So, so the change in processes and standards and how we evaluate things are different. In such a company where we have a lot of investment, and footprint across the country, right. There is impact to society that we have. Right. So the change requires some careful thought because finally, Honda is a company that society wants to exist. And I think what Honda has done in Ohio with the EV hub is fantastic example of that. I'm no expert of that area, but it just shows that that's why I stick around in this company for so long. They're like, hey, we have had this footprint in Ohio. You know, we have to use their committed manpower and engaged manpower and twist it to become a, a convert, I should say, to become a EV hub where we can make, hybrid cars, electric cars. And I'm sure it wasn't an easy task or challenge. Right. So, the legacy technical burdens need to be converted to produce new things, and, yeah, a challenging spirit and mindset, which I believe that's, easy to find and engage in Honda. Yeah. These are some of the challenges in my mind. Yeah, yeah. So organizationally, it sounds like you have to align some new parts and pieces. You, you talked about the importance of looking across the customer journey and making sure that you're providing a cohesive experience across all the touchpoints. And then you also mentioned the ecosystem. I mean, I think one of the things that strikes me is the powerful ecosystem that you've developed up there at Honda, including things like Marysville Smart City Initiatives. You know, we're instrumenting light poles for VtoX connectivity. And, you know, some of the autonomous and electrified types of experiences you're creating. And then the software suite, I think is powerful, too. You know, the connected services that come with, vehicle ownership, I think, set you up, hopefully for a more positive, you know, future with customers. And, you know, the businesses goals are the same to, not just attract and retain customers, but to have a true mutual exchange of value. I think that's one of the things you mentioned the other day in one of our conversations is that, there's a business reality to the things that we do, but we really are looking for a meaningful and impactful value exchange. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that. You know, how you kind of go beyond just the dollars and cents to really building, a brand and customer loyalty for it? That's a great question. So I would like to maybe touch upon a project that you and I worked on. Chris, with your permission, Sure, yeah So adding value to customer in their journey, is so important. And we visit this customer journey periodically, right. And dig deeper into level two, level three, deeper journey. So we found, one example from our safety mindset group. Like what can we do to improve the quality of life for a customer when they have a, collision or some type of breakdown? So with your, Lextant's support, we interviewed actual customers who went through this very recently. Right? Like, hey, what what was your pain point? And I think Lextant helped us, design the research really well. And we found great, pain points that there's a lot of confusion. Customer doesn't know what to do, who to call, and there's a lot of anxiety about when can I get help? A lot of pain points. We found. Yeah, yeah. So we, working internally across different divisions and business units, tied in a lot of different services that we offer. Now, today as a service called Collision Guidance. We hope you never have to use it. But if you do get into some fender bender, we can detect that and we can ask customers, are you in a crash? Are you safe? You know, get your personal health, and then we can walk them through a series of questions and help them. Hey, now, take a picture of this scene. Now, please exchange information with the other person and things like that. And finally, you can see this growing into us being connected to the customers insurance company and things like that. Right? So we can easily add value and make the customers life a little bit easier. And at the same time, also, you know, we are connecting, for example, where is your tow truck on the road. How long is the ETA before it comes to you? In a lot of these microservices that we tie in together into this, service called Collision Guidance that you helped us design. And it's out in the market today. And, again, the KPI here cannot be monthly average user. I don't want a high month average user here. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. So this is one example of how we're adding value. I would say beyond, you know, just you buying the car. Yeah I'd love I love that example Raj. Because one of the things I think it demonstrates is, that you're building relationships with customers exactly and you care about their well-being. And, you know, when you have an accident, your emotional state, you know, is chaotic and and you need some something or someone to sort of lead you through the steps in the process. So you can kind of keep a level head and, and do what needs to happen next. I also love the idea that, I always say that when you buy a product from a brand, it's a promise made. That's right. And when that when you need help from that product is when the promise is kept. That's correct, fantastic. I love that idea of like, how Honda is working to sort of keep and earn its, you know, its relationship with you, you know, in an important way. It's not like just a transaction and then, you know, good luck kind of thing Absolutely. You know, it's the trust that we want to build from this relationship, that they will think not even thinking about that they're going to buy a Honda again. But it's just that. Exactly. They put the trust and probably their life's second biggest investment in our product. And we have to be on the customer side. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, yeah I think it absolutely would build goodwill. You know, I think one of the things we find in all of our research is customers build loyalty with brands that, that they can build a relationship with and that have a demonstrated, sense of care for that relationship. You know, the ability to say yes when somebody reaches out and needs help, you know, for example, and this is a great example of that, and it's, it's, it's, an elegant and small and kind of simple but important moment of truth that you focused on. I think that's one of the things that, you know, as we've worked together and as you've sort of expanded your view to the larger customer journey, finding those moments of truth and being able to add value in critical moments for the customer, I think is really important. I think that's an important part of any company's evolution. To become more value centered, you know, to build a strength like that So, so and I can tell you, we our team had so much fun working with your team because the mission was very clear. Yeah. Right. So yeah, very good. Yeah. Thank you. Right. You mentioned, business KPIs and one of the things I've been thinking a lot about lately is measurement. I'm hearing more about it, especially when it comes to experiences and value. And, you know, companies will often track Net Promoter Score or other kinds of things, like how does Honda think about measurement and business KPIs when it comes to this second founding, this value centric approach, to adding value to the customer's world, you know, how do you how are you thinking about measurement these days? Great question. So any value we create, right. We want to make sure it's indeed, providing value to the customer stakeholders and finally to the society. Right. So the, any for example, the fundamental things are like monthly average user, engagement scores like that, including NPS. There are several metrics like that. I mean, these are not new to the industry. So which we can use to gauge how well our product is doing in the market. But I believe that is not the final mission, right? The mission is still about adding the value. So I can say in the domain of electrification, for example, right. So we provide a service there in the West Coast, where we add the EV vehicles, even before the Prologue and the ZDX were introduced or the Honda Clarity to reduce the burden on the grid. Right. We worked with utility companies in Southern California to come up with a scheme where we encourage customers to charge their cars at home, only during off peak hours. And we came up with an incentive plan that we share with the customers. Right. And it all used a digital touch point, which is the app. So those are some of the the KPIs. There are something we have to see how many, customer behavior did you change? How many people are enrolled. And again, your enrollment is not just to see, how they're using your app, but this is going beyond the mission. The mission is to help the society reduce the grid and also give some cost savings to customers. Right. So we can measure easily, you know, how many, the hours were charge during the off peak hours and how much, incentives did we provide to customers? Those are easy to measure as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's another great example of sort of, value deliver beyond what we would traditionally think of mobility. Right. The ability to give energy back to the grid or to reduce load on the grid to, to help families and, you know, an individual's control, their energy footprint and the cost associated with it. I think it's another great example of value delivery. I think, you know, some of these when I think about measurement, I think we can develop experience metrics that correlate well with our business KPIs. So Net Promoter Score is a very elegant and simple metric that would, you know, that's about would this, customer refer somebody else your product to another, But, we have to get to the whys behind that. And that's where I think when you talk about value, like, are we delivering the value, are we seeing a change in behavior that would demonstrate we're moving in a value centric way for a customer? So I think it's yeah, I, I'm looking forward to sort of how organizations are going to measure and manage this sort of value centricity moving forward. And I think there's real opportunities around some of the things that you've talked about. Yeah. As an example. So, So, Raj, anything else when you think about, the transformation that your organization is going through, you know, we talked about some of the organizational hurdles, how do you put the team members in place, or how you look across the journey and find opportunities? I love the way that you're beginning to productize and build solutions for these, opportunities. What do you think are the some of them maybe core obstacles that, that, you know, you have to solve for as you're moving to this next evolution for Honda? So we talked about, a challenge being the organization itself and the way we've been doing things and the culture. Not not to boil the ocean. It's going to be difficult in the journey. So what we have done right now, yeah. Before I go there, I want to talk to you about this. So, you know, Melvin Conway's statement, any product that the company makes reflects the communication structure of the company, right. So we should try our best not to make our organization structure visible to the customer. Yes. Customer doesn't care. So we have switched to industry best practices such as product based organization. Okay. So we have a team of business value finders, customer value finders, UX researchers, where we work with you and the designers of it, and also now the technology developers like IT delivery teams and software, delivery teams. And now anything you do with customer nowadays, you know, we have to have governance that we are doing things correctly, properly falling all the laws or potential laws and go beyond that as well. So we have to work in this product team. And that's the only way to get it, get things done. It could. We can't wait for the perfect organization to come through and structurally come through and keep changing all the time. So switching to a product based organization is key, where these experts, from different domains sit together, always talk about the customer journey. Right. And find efficiencies or synergy I want to say more than efficiency. Like for example, the website development team can sometimes tell us, hey, you're trying to do this, but if I link it to, you know, our first 100 account page, your visibility is more and you say Oh, fantastic. I never thought about that. You know, so that kind of synergy needs to happen. And that can happen. I believe in a product based team where we sit together regardless of who your boss is, and we all look to the customer and the customer's journey and look for the opportunities to make things better for them. But I think that is an interesting mindset. And, you know, it does challenge people who are, you know, done same thing 20 years. And, hey, I'm in this lane now. You're asking me to switch lanes and be part of this, you know, startup style product organization? But I'm excited and I'm having fun in this role for a while, so. Yeah. Yeah. So Raj, one of the things I think it's been interesting to watch is if you think about how, at least in the US, the way traditional automotive development would happen in Detroit, for example, versus, a sort of West Coast software mentality, you know, which is more fast and iterative. There is this sort of clash of cultures. And it's interesting. I see it way more with, US, some of the US manufacturers in Detroit and, say some of what's happening on the West Coast, but Honda seems to be, like quietly handling it and accelerating its innovation in the way it coordinates. And I don't know, do you think that Honda is doing things differently than other large OEMs in terms of this sort of, these, you know, de-siloing of the company, this ability to be agile and innovate. What do you think? Or is it, you know, I mean, I know Honda, you know, struggles and, you know, with, with, organizational, growth and acceleration as well. But it's just something I observed. I think it's interesting to watch how Honda, you know, innovates versus some of the other companies. You're, you, you get to interact with other industry executives. Have you noticed there's a difference between the way Honda operates and other companies. Simply saying, I think there is a difference because, I can't probably pinpoint because I don't know exactly what the other organizations do, but certain things that I see Honda do, is to begin with, you know, the second founding, you know, top down, there's a statement that says, we need to act like a new company. Yeah, fast and speed and things like that. Right. That and also I do see this put in practice quite a bit. Maybe other companies do as well. It's just not visible to us. For example, there is a problem statement. As you know, coming up with the problem statement is half the journey. Yes, or half the difficulty, but once it's there, I do see multiple teams trying to find solutions for it. You know, in some times it could be looked at as, oh, there's duplication going on in this company. There's no efficiency. But no, we believe there's different perspectives and different solutions to the problem. Right. At some point, of course, we need to converge. So that is a true, form of independence that, you know, like the Ohio team in, where we used to work together, where we came up with this infotainment platform because we think we have a different perspective to find a solution. And, you will get executives sign on and sponsors to continue your journey. Right. So I think those are the things in Honda that's different where we are trying to continually evolve our, you know, products and services become this nimble company while still keeping the Honda core values. Maybe when he joined Honda the first year, people don't realize these three simple words joy of building, joy of selling, and joy of, buying. Right? When you create or renew or working in this challenging project and you put it out there with Honda and Acura brands, and you applied this system for six different cars, you truly are proud of yourself when you tell your kids, hey, the car is running on my software. And the experience we created was done by my team is truly a joy of creating and selling. Though I'm not. Actually, it's selling, to the customer in a dealership, but you understand what I mean. Yeah. It goes back to those three fundamental joys. So I do think Honda is different in that way. Yes. Yeah. It's great. Raj, Yeah. I like that idea, too, of, there's never a bad time for a good idea, you know? Yeah. There's a famous psychologist that has, talks about divergent thinking and convergent thinking and that, and as you, as you say, you know, innovation and design is problem solving. We need to do the problem seeking, right? We need to find the opportunities. And then when we do, we need to be open to new ideas because somebody's crazy idea might lead to something that's really doable and that can really differentiate us. And so you sort of converge to, put a lot of things out there and then eventually converge and work together as a team. I think that's a great approach. I and I love the, you know, you mentioned the core values of Honda. Several times. And that seems to be kind of, a North Star for, you know, for Honda and the Honda team, which is important, you know, to give everybody marching in the same direction. All right. Raj well, this has been amazing. This has been an amazing discussion. And I'm, really thankful that you were able to come on today and spend some time with us. Raj, what advice, would you have? I always ask this question. What advice would you have for emerging professionals that want to sort of grow in this area, that want to do more of this kind of work, maybe lead companies or lead the development of next generation products and services. But what do you say to your younger Raj self? Yeah. I would definitely say don't get too comfortable. It's good to get out of comfort zone. Absolutely. Because, it's not my statement, but I think the marathon runner, Eliud Kipchoge said this where you feel pain is where you get success, so get out of the comfort zone. Yeah. So creating a value and adding something of useful to the customer, is not easy, right? The customers are being influenced by so many other things in their life where their expectations are changing. So keep at it. Keeping with the customer journey, finding pain points and running beta tests, things like that, or the new way of doing things and and in this cross domain, cross-functional teams are the future in, in this kind of things. And to deeply involve yourself with the customer in their customer journey experience the life of customer right. Go to the actual place and do the actual things. For example, our company said, oh, why don't we, increase the usage of Honda Link Acura Link, and have everybody send everybody a link to easily sign on to Honda Link Acura Link within the company? But we said, no, you're going to go through like what a customer would go through, right? Right. We would reimburse you the cost if need be, but you're going to have to walk the customer journey. Yeah, really empathize with the customer. So I that's the key point to success. I want to say. Yeah. And I also I had so much fun talking with you in this one, Chris. And you know, your firm has been educateing us in the customer experience journey as well. For the last, how long have you worked together now? 12 years or so. Yeah. Right. So we really appreciate it. We have had so much fun working with your teams and I continue to look forward working with you and see what we can do. Yeah. Thanks, Raj and I'm super grateful to to you and your teams and all the great work that we've been able to, to do together. And I'm excited for the future of Honda. And, I think they're lucky to have leadership like yourself there for, for next steps Thanks so much for taking the time. Thank you so much, Chris. For for meeting with us today. If you'd like to get ahold of Raj in the future, you can reach out to him on LinkedIn. And, it's probably the best way to contact him. So, thanks everyone again for tuning in today. Stay tuned for what's next on Seriously Curious again, this is a podcast, all things UX for strategy, business and design, and we have some great speakers coming up. And, we're going to be looking into the future of connected retail soon with some, influencers and and designers in the areas of, say retail for fashion, for fast and casual, restaurants and the like. So I'm really excited about our upcoming episodes. So stay tuned for that. And if you have a topic you'd like to see covered, shoot me an email at Chris@lextant.com and I look forward to seeing you again next time on Seriously Curious.