Luxury carmaker Automobili Lamborghini, faced problem while validating the authenticity and heritage of each car. The obstacle was, to get a Lamborghini vehicle accurately authenticated involved a strenuous, often manual-based process. When consumers want to obtain the heritage of their car to gets its value or put it on the market, they are advised an authentication process that commences with arranging to ship their vehicle to the company headquarters for inspection and back to the primary or new customer. 

Automobili Lamborghini earlier had paper-based records. The records are now digitalized, accounting for 95% of all Lamborghinis built since its launch in 1963. The information is available to validate the authenticity of a given vehicle; the problem was, it took many months to get to that conclusion.

It is because, when a Lamborghini is resold, the vehicle can go through 800 to 1,000 certification checks. As all these need to take place at the Lamborghini headquarters in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy, the origin of the process involves the customer to be connected with the appropriate shipping agent, and then arranging transportation and then getting the car to headquarters to carry out all the checks.

Lamborghini technicians have to work with a massive network of resources, including auction houses, photographers, repair shops, dealerships, newspapers, and magazines, to be capable of curating the full history of that specific car and verifying all the parts and services.

Nevertheless, this service is vital for consumers and the company, as it enables them to maintain the originality of the car and keep the vehicle as close to the original value, which can be in the range of $2 million to $3 million. 

Paolo Gabrielli, Head of After Sales at Automobili Lamborghini, explains, “The value of a luxury heritage car is its authenticity. Original was the car when it was produced, authentic means it’s kept the same specification, the same shape, and what’s been installed during the life of the vehicle is using genuine spare parts.

We like to understand which are the parts from when it was built, which parts are replaced, and which are not precisely not genuine but are perfectly aligned with our specification”.

Gabrielli points out that restoring the authenticity of the car implies that any new or spare parts need to bring it to as close to the original specification as possible. However, this takes approximately 3,000 to 4,000 hours of work to ensure all the pieces have the right serial number, and the car has everything from the same leather to the original logo.

The certification part of the process was also very time-consuming. Because the company needs to report back to the customer with a full breakdown of each part of the car that was replaced or restored, and share this information in a committed and secure way.

But this process is worth doing. As a result, the customer has a higher-value vehicle, as it is certified as authentic by Automobili Lamborghini. 

 Salesforce Blockchain Approach

Automobili Lamborghini is now planning to use Salesforce Blockchain to make this authentication process faster and more reliable, aimed at giving a better consumer experience and keeping the value of heritage vehicles. 

The Blockchain technology allows Lamborghini to digitize the authentication process by building a trusted network among technicians, dealerships, repair shops, and other related parties.

Blockchain is built to provide a new way of securing trust and transparency, with every user involved in the ‘chain’ given a safe, checked copy of the related data. 

Nonetheless, getting every party along the chain and future parties that might need to be involved, onboard, has been a striking point for blockchain, as it needs heavy-duty data integration work at every point. Salesforce Blockchain is based on clicks, not code. It will provide a quick set-up process instead of having to build lines and lines of code, and also the capability to integrate players that are not using Salesforce Blockchain Applications.

Automobili Lamborghini’s blockchain system named ‘Sicura,’ which means safety in Italian is the layer smoothly connecting logistics companies, dealers, auction houses, and the carmaker itself so that that data can be collected and shared quickly and with the guarantee of trust. The typical time for an auction house to validate a car used to be three to six months, but with Sicura, this can now come down to a matter of days.

From a consumer viewpoint, they can download an application, which permits them to request a certification or book car transport, all on top of the reliable blockchain platform. 

All partners in the chain can access trusted information, real-time so that everyone can track development at each step during the journey. Still, individual accounts can restrict this, so only some parties get to see specific data.

Once authentication is done, this data is stored and available to the current and all future owners of the vehicle. It can also be downloaded as a safe, verified PDF – each download through the blockchain is associated with a unique fingerprint or hash that can only be obtained once the hash is authorized.