We are in the midst of the greatest disruption the
automotive and mobility industry has ever seen with the move from the
internal combustion engine to battery electric vehicles, the
move to the software defined vehicle, autonomous technologies
and new retail experiences fundamentally transforming the
industry as we know it.
But making this journey to this exciting future is not going to
be cheap.
It's going to require companies to dig deep to free up the
resources they need to fund this exciting journey ahead.
Clearly cost discipline has been a core focus
of the automotive industry since its beginning and clearly a lot
has been done the last couple years to navigate the
challenges we had with the chip crisis and COVID. It's been tough.
But as we look ahead, we still see opportunity for clients to
do things differently, to do things better.
First, they have to move away from an incremental approach to cost.
It really requires a clean sheet thinking about,
given my ambition, what can I afford?
How can I most optimally utilize my resources to deliver against that ambition?
Secondly, it's not just about changing the work.
We have to look at where there may be opportunities to eliminate work,
to do things completely differently that can then allow
us to take those same resources and repurpose them for more
higher value add areas.
And third and lastly, it's going to require companies to engage
with their entire partners and supply chain to not just take out cost
in a very commercial oriented way, but work together to design
out cost to eliminate cost in the value chain together to
create true win-win situations which can only be done through
collaborative partnerships.
Companies who move forward in 2024 and embrace these three
tenets can certainly make great progress here and help
fund this exciting journey ahead.