-Japanese auto parts manufacturers- Emerging from “Keiretsu” Management

Automotive strategy team Asia

The current global business environment is characterized by the contracting state of the Japanese domestic market, while Asian markets continue to chart rapid expansion and free trade advances. Against this backdrop, the moves by Japan’s complete vehicle manufacturers to steadily relocate their production bases overseas and promote effective procurement of local parts suggest that the transaction volume of Japanese parts builders is tapering off. Under these circumstances, to survive on the marketplace it will be critical for such Japanese-owned parts manufacturers to break away from management and manufacturing practices reliant on keiretsu (business groupings) at the earliest possible stage in time, while channeling greater efforts into newly emerging nations and the quest for global business development.

In this proposal, the Roland Berger team recommends the mobilization of efforts to both land and expand business dealings with China as a foothold in engineering this type of strategy shift. With European and North American mega-suppliers well on the way to raising their presence in emerging economies, including China, this report presents a roadmap, from various different perspectives, examining business methods promising to prove most effective for Japanese parts manufacturers from here on.