Automotive strategy consulting services

Driving results to redesign your future

Powerful foresight accelerates growth

The wave of auto innovation has taken off with remarkable speed: Electrification. Driver assistance systems. Automation. Artificial intelligence. Connectivity. And, of course, we’re seeing major progress toward bringing autonomous vehicles onto the road. But more noteworthy than the pace of this innovation is its breadth—and the opportunity it poses to some automakers.

As you look ahead to the future of mobility, we hope you are thinking big. We can help you deliver even bigger. At Strategy&, we use our strategy capabilities to transform perspective into pragmatism and ambition into action. The result? Strategy that works for years to come!

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How we help clients

Customer strategy

As digitisation continues transforming all aspects of your business, understanding your customers—and exceeding their expectations with your core capabilities—is increasingly important. We help clients build distinctive value and sustainable growth through higher customer engagement and brand loyalty across all physical and digital touchpoints.

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Deals strategy

We assist clients across the value chain of a merger process from strategy development, target identification, synergy assessments, and due-diligence to planning and executing the integration with experts in organisation management, change management, and strategic communications.

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Digital strategy

We have the skills, technology, and scale to think and deliver big across your organisation—in digital innovation and product development, digital supply chain operations, digital marketing and sales, and workplace infrastructure.

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Fit for Growth

Is your business ready to tackle its most intense challenges? Our Fit for Growth approach is a proven model for unlocking performance that helps companies manage their cost in a more strategic way, allowing them to cut costs and grow stronger at the same time.

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Operations strategy

We apply lean principles, sourcing expertise, and transparency across the disciplines of manufacturing, distribution, transportation, and managing working capital to allow our clients to optimise their supply chain operations.

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Product and innovation strategy

We advise automakers on how to strategically build more effective organisations and capabilities rooted in new programme and product line strategy, technology portfolio strategy, and engineering productivity. We work to drive actionable change from the start of our engagement, and deliver results that redefine your business for years to come.

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Technology strategy

We work with clients on IT strategy, lean IT, next-generation technology, process transformation, and more. An IT organisation that can transform its operating model to act as both a cost centre and a strategic enabler will be poised to manage cyclical business demands.

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Road network

Smart Mobility

When humanity and technology hit the road

Visit our Smart Mobility Hub - an essential resource for the latest perspectives that define our collective mobility challenges and help find the smartest solutions. 

From cities and urban infrastructure, to automation and impending regulatory hurdles, we’re ensuring the next stop is a new beginning for all.

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How we help clients

Developing a digital service strategy for OEM

After bringing a basic connected car service to market, a large OEM was struggling with a clear digital service strategy, systematic evaluation, and portfolio management. Multiple digital teams were working on similar creative ideas, but common end-to-end service delivery processes and responsibilities were not yet defined. Strategy& developed a comprehensive digital service strategy and roadmap, establishing a systematic idea review process and a quantitative evaluation framework. This defined the client’s end-to-end processes (customer, services, partner, and infrastructure management) and allowed the client to build comprehensive business cases.

Driving growth for an auto player

A large privately held group with diverse automotive (and non-automotive) business activities in production and distribution engaged Strategy& to create a multiyear strategic roadmap to grow its business 2X and reduce its portfolio risk. After developing the roadmap, Strategy& also collaborated with corporate and business unit management to monitor execution through financials, key milestones, and a corporate dashboard. This achieved organic growth at twice the historic performance, led to inorganic growth of 20%+ over the following 3-year period, and attracted a higher calibre of talent based on committed growth plans in the new businesses.

Delivering value for a new vehicle

An automaker engaged Strategy& in advance of launching its 5th generation of a light utility vehicle because the product’s pricing needed to be very competitive, but legislative changes were bringing additional costs. As part of our strategy work, we created transparency across the current creative pipeline, introducing and applying new methods for the generation of cost-cutting ideas. We also motivated the vehicle project team to take ownership of new ideas and introduced a new project governance to support rapid decision-making. This directly resulted in savings of more than €200 per vehicle and a pipeline for an additional €200 per vehicle. The new cost-cutting methods and processes were used on all future projects.

Developing a new compliance management system

Complexity in products and product features, especially due to the growing role of software, makes it difficult for OEMs and suppliers to monitor all potential implications on product compliance. When a company needed to secure compliance with a system that included regulations on emissions, safety and regulatory conformity, the leaders engaged Strategy&. We defined a process to identify relevant risks and developed a compliance management strategy, organisation and guidelines based on international standards for compliance management systems. We also implemented reporting and monitoring structures to regularly review the effectiveness of the compliance management system. This led to a product-related compliance system being established with mechanisms for continuous improvement.

Transforming organisation strategy for a car manufacturer

When a leading German car manufacturer faced supply issues with its single source steel structural parts and subassemblies supplier in South Africa, the leaders engaged Strategy&. We led a taskforce established at the supplier in advance of launching a new SUV model in South Africa. The taskforce included a cross-functional, international team of 50 stakeholders (OEM and supplier) who joined together to help solve critical problems in ten work packages and transform the supplier’s organisation structure. As a result of our work, there was no line stoppage at the OEM, and the supplier was capable of delivering peak volumes, sustainably and independently.

Creating a new production strategy for a major auto player

While new digital business models brought high levels of uncertainty to future production requirements, our client also faced higher-than-average costs and complexity in production. To help create a new production strategy, Strategy& screened potential technologies that could improve efficiency by 2025. We defined digital applications, resource allocations and cultural change.  We also built an implementation roadmap and an according KPI-set to track progress. This helped the client align to its “Strategy 2025,” working to secure the future production site and system that will perform core activities more profitably.

OEM designs new usership business model

An OEM needed to be a leader in the field as the auto industry transitions from ownership to usership. Strategy& assessed the economic viability of a standalone subscription model and defined the required key capabilities including changeover, utilisation management and customer relationship management. We provided a recommendation on the viability of standalone solutions and analysis of required utilisation to reach the break-even point. We also developed options for increasing fleet utilisation by pooling complementary mobility demands.

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Jörg Krings

Jörg Krings

Partner, Strategy& Germany

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