Exact Systems - Technologies as Automotive Driving Force /Part2

Untroubled with the Politics, but Upset about the Labour Costs

Taking into consideration threats that are pointed out by representatives of automotive production plants, countries could be divided into two groups. The first one sees the labour costs as the biggest obstacle in the coming years. In Poland two out of three respondents are concerned about their increase. It is far more than one year ago (18%). This group includes Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia and Romania, too. The countries from the second group are afraid of the political and economic situation. Among them can be found Great Britain, Turkey, and Germany. Especially concerned are representatives from the UK (75%) which might be caused by the country’s decision to leave the European Union. What is interesting, the producers in Poland are a little bit more relaxed in regards of the economic and political environment than last year (2018: 29%, 2017: 42%).

- According to our analyses,  development of  vehicles with the electric and plug-in hybrid drive power has the greatest potential in Poland. With regard to the new automotive trends, the greatest opportunity for our country is to develop new production plants of the automotive parts and components, and the greatest threat may turn out to be the decreased orders for the parts and components in the existing production plants. What is interesting and personally pleases me is the fact that so many as 39% of the automotive producers in Poland has a department responsible for research & development of new technologies, and almost every third plant has already produced parts for the eco-vehicles and autonomous cars – says Paweł Gos, President of the Management Board of Exact Systems.

The greatest development optimists are the representatives of the automobile industry from Slovakia, Poland, Turkey and Romania. Survey participants in these countries stated that within only 5 coming years they are able to catch up with the technologically and mentally advanced markets. However, while looking at the current condition of preparations for an implementation of the innovations it seems that the Slovaks and, first of all, the Romanians are too optimistic and may overestimate their development potential.

A moderate optimism in the aforementioned area is visible in Hungary and the Czech Republic where all surveyed persons mutually ascertained that they need up to 10 years to catch up. This answer was also chosen by 44% of the Russian respondents. In case of the Hungarians and the Czechs this forecast seems to be very realistic, because these countries have already pursued an innovation path in the intensive manner.

The greatest number of the pessimists can be found in Romania where one out of three surveyed persons foresees that chasing the advanced markets will take more than 20 years.

Methodology The study “MotoBarometer 2018 Moods in the Automotive Industry. Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Romania, Slovakia, Turkey, Hungary and Great Britain” was conducted by Exact Systems on chosen representatives from the automotive industry, who are also clients of Exact Systems. This group consists of car producers, Tier I and Tier II suppliers of automobile components, like wipers, car windows, steering columns or safety elements. The research sample was 597 respondents from 9 countries (Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Romania, Slovakia, Turkey, Hungary and Great Britain). The respondents were representatives of automotive plants, including OEM and Tier, especially Quality Engineers, Plant Directors, Quality and Production Managers. The analysis was conducted by phone interviews (CATI), online surveys and individual surveys starting in April and ending July 2018.

source:exact-systems.