Eastern Influx: Automotive manufacturing in Central and Eastern Europe
A new thought leadership series from PricewaterhouseCoopers' Automotive Practice
As the automotive industry comes under ever greater pressure to control costs and the expansion of the European Union (EU) opens up new, more economical manufacturing locations, a growing number of carmakers and components suppliers are moving east. Indeed, research by PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests that about US$6 billion worth of automotive production will be transferred to Central and Eastern Europe over the next five years. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia will attract the bulk of this investment.
But relocating to another region is neither easy nor is it necessarily right for all companies -- and the smaller the firm, the fewer the management resources it can deploy in planning the move. The big carmakers and their largest Tier 1 suppliers have already spread across the globe and can call on past experience. A small manufacturer stepping outside its homeland for the first time is likely to find the prospect much more daunting -- and the impact much worse, if something goes wrong.
