An innovator in the automotive domain working diligently for Automotive OEMs to deliver excellent services: Matrickz GmbH

The future of mobility seems very promising with automated, hassle-free, personalized travel on demand. Various elements in the extended automotive ecosystem are working tirelessly to combine all the developments to realize that dream sooner than expected. This means that the new comers and incumbents in this segment must throttle up to move at top speed. When the major tech companies in the Silicon Valley entered the automotive markets, they introduced the concept of software-driven approach and electronic vehicle architecture. This significantly affected the main motto of the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Software-driven products were introduced by the tech giants and it became a major differentiator for future market. Autonomous driving is one prime example of advanced software development and it has proven to be a key enabler for bringing in crucial change in the mobility ecosystem.

There are various companies working to transform the automotive world with software, but one that stands out from the rest is Matrickz GmbH. The company is a Munich based software firm serving the German OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, specialized in automotive embedded software development, testing, integration and consulting. One of the core competencies of Matrickz is the development of embedded software for Electronic Control Units (ECUs). Despite the growing sophistication in this segment Matrickz has the ability to ensure that the automotive ECU software development is delivered according to the ECU product roadmap, complaint with the standards, and cost-effective.

In conversation with Dr. Hasan Ibne Akram, CEO of Matrickz GmbH

Q. Whom do you give credit for your business success?

I give credit to the leadership pipeline that we have been able to build, and it is the number one factor that contributed to our success. So the philosophy was to create an environment where we nurture leadership. And when I talk about leadership, I mean the distinct attributes of leadership, empathy, and empowering people and facilitating the talents with what they would want to do. This basic principle allows us to nurture leadership from the grassroots level; what didn’t work for us is to bring managers from outside and let the team run. We actually took our people, let our people grow from the grassroots level, and then took the big managerial positions to hold the company from scratch.

Q. Tell us about the experts in your company. How do you manage to maintain the quality of your service?

Our AUTOSAR experts have deep understanding of the complex architecture and have extensive experience in the configuration and integration of the AUTOSAR Basic Software (BSW), the Application Software (ASW) and the AUTOSAR Runtime Environment (RTE). Moreover, our “Safety & Security by Design” principle allows us to offer safety and security compliant architecture (e.g., Secure Onboard Communication), design and process definition for AUTOSAR (Versions .3.xx and 4.xx) based ECUs. We have expertise with all common AUTOSAR applications and the bootloader stack configuration. Thus, we develop and assemble the appropriate design, concept and suitable tool-chain based on the specific project and customer needs.

Our experts – having vast technical knowledge of working with global leading OEMs and suppliers – offer excellent support in Validation & Verification (V&V) and testing services. We offer Hardware in the loop (HIL) testing, which is one of the important testing methods in embedded development. The Electronic Control Unit (ECU) functions are tested by simulating the IO components and are verified in a laboratory environment. The systematic approach of our HIL consultants has proven successful commissioning of HIL Test-Bench, Plant Modeling, testing of Open and Closed Loop systems and maintains different HIL Platforms (dSPACE, NI, ETAS).

Q. The requirement of resources for testing keeps fluctuating. Can you tell us about the flexibility of your testing tools to access resources?

That’s a great question. First of all, we do not yet have any testing tools that we sell. What we’re doing is purely service-based. So what we offer is a testing service. Of course, we have internal quality tools and stuff that we use to test automation. We do not have any cloud architecture or anything where the requirements and the flexibility and elasticity comes into the picture.

Q. How do you deal with never never-ending change in digital transformation?

Digital transformation to me is a blessing. It is enormously influential if you know how to leverage that. In the nineteen nineties, early nineties, mid-nineties, late nineties, the Internet actually were beginning to be used by the mass. Of course, the Internet was there from the 50s. The military had it, that’s for sure. But the 90s were the time when the Internet was getting used by people on a mass scale. I think this was the first wave of digital transformation, but back then, we had many limitations. Our limitations were bandwidth limitations for technology. And then in the late 2000s, things changed, things got revolutionized. Platforms like the search engine were revolutionized. Platforms like YouTube came up platforms like Facebook came up. So that is the second wave of digitalization. And today, we are at the fullest scale of digitalization and transformation. So everything is at your fingertips. We never had such a great time doing whatever we want to do. We literally have everything at our fingertips, everything like media has been democratized, entrepreneurship, digital entrepreneurship has been democratized. So there is no excuse to say that there is a gatekeeper. We leverage digital transformation to our advantage and to persue the mission of our company. As you know, the mission is to make the autonomous vehicle safe and secure. The autonomous vehicle will be another big transformation called a digital transportation transformation, whatever you want to call it. This would change our society, not only in a way that the way we commute from point A to point B. This is going to define how our life would be. The autonomous vehicle is going to change our life in a way; society is going to change. It’s going to change the way we live. We will take advantage of the emerging technologies and stay ahead of the curve.

Q. How do you market your services?

The strategy is to create an ungodly amount of content and give it away for free to the industry. We then distribute that content to various platforms like YouTube, podcasts, LinkedIn, Facebook, and even TikTok and Instagram. The Idea of a press release from a PR is obsolete now, and I speculate that the PR agency’s need will also disappear. The good news is that media democratization is going to benefit the customers in the long run. The news agencies do not decide the market’s demographics, so the content’s reach will entirely depend on your capabilities. You must be good at what you do to win.

Leader behind the success of Matrickz GmbH

Dr. Hasan Ibne Akram is a serial entrepreneur, a computer scientist, passionate about automotive software, safety and security and the CEO of Matrickz GmbH. Hasan also run a podcast show on Autonomous Vehicle Safety & Security, where the industry leaders and experts share their experiences. He loves solving problems and building new businesses. Hasan is also the co-founder of Brainvincible GmbH, a company with the mission to enhance cognitive performance by means of technology and bio-hacking.

“With our competencies and expertise, we not only work for our clients, rather work with our clients till we reach our shared goals.”

Keep in touch: www.matrickz.de/en/