Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)

IHS Automotive Consulting assists OEMs with their highest priority needs. Our information and expertise include:

• Market opportunities and risks
• Competitor intelligence
• Future customer needs and desires
• Evolution of automotive technologies
• Portfolio competitiveness
• Regulation
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Business planning

IHS Automotive Consulting uses syndicated forecasts along with competitive intelligence to develop custom solutions for OEMs, including:

Market Opportunity Assessment
Using near- and long-term vehicle and market assessments, IHS Automotive consultants can help you understand trends in demand, competitive offerings and the market positions of your manufacturers,relating to current and future customer needs. You receive quantitative market assessments and risks and opportunities evaluations that we base on IHS Automotive data sets as well as country- and region-specific economic and risks forecasts.

Market Entry and Expansion Strategy
IHS Automotive Consulting assists OEMs with entering new regional markets or new segments in existing markets using near-term tactical plans and longer term strategies. We help you identify market opportunities using our various analytical tools, ranging from our proprietary data sets to our Portfolio Analysis Tool as well as the knowledge and experience of our seasoned market analysts.  

Market Power Play
IHS Automotive consultants can help you optimize your portfolio and analyze your competition. To equip you to make a power play, we conduct an analytical model comparing your company's product line-up to that of your competitors.  Our mathematical proximity model incorporates target product and competitive data sets from IHS, clients and project-specific research undertaken by IHS Automotive or one of our strategic partners.  IHS Automotive consultants use the model to assess your product's relative strengths or weaknesses and to identify unique opportunities in target markets

Business Portfolio Evaluation
IHS Automotive Consulting provides timely analysis and supporting documents to lenders, investors and other parties with an interest in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of an auto supplier's book of business.

Clients receive a program risk analysis assessment of their portfolio in which we rate the programs either green (positive), yellow (some concerns or uncertainty) or red (negative), based on on short- and intermediate- or long-term criteria:

• Short-term factors:
• Production volatility and coefficient of variation
• Intermediate- or long-term factors
  • Cancellation probability
  • Inventory levels
  • Sales and production volatility
  • Sales and production trending
  • Incentive activity
  • Competitive landscape
• Long-term factors:
  • Relative health and prospects of the company's customer base
  • Global outlook for the company's product range globally as well as threats from offshore competition
  • Customer concentration and the risks presented by that exposure

Technology Forecasts

• IHS Automotive consultants can perform an analysis for OEMs related to the evolution of technologies specific to individual markets or companies. Leveraging our proprietary data and syndicated research, our consultants can project the expected pathway a technology will take, based on various factors, such as:
• Near-term competitive actions caused by company rivalry for market share
• Longer-term external factors, such as economic pressure, regulatory demand and evolving needs and wants of the customer base
• Mounting off-shore competition
• Global energy market constraints and opportunities
• National trade, transportation, climate change, air quality and local resource contingency policies
• The entrenched position of national champions or political causes
• The evolving nature of the costs and functional capabilities of existing and emerging technologies

Impact Assessment
IHS Automotive Consulting leverages the broad expertise across IHS to furnish OEMs with scenario-based impact assessments of regulatory policy on jobs, costs, the evolution of vehicles and components or technologies and the outlook for companies as a whole. Clients receive a report based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis that can offer insight into a policy change or suggest strategies for seizing new opportunities or enter new markets.

Opportunity Targeting
IHS Automotive consultants can help you identify, prioritize and realize new business market opportunities using our vehicle and component forecasts.

Mergers and Acquisitions
IHS Automotive consultants help buyers and sellers navigate each transaction stage, from pre-deal preparation to post-deal support. (See "Due Diligence")

Custom Market Sector Forecasts

• IHS puts several hundred econometric modelers at your service, providing off-the-shelf or custom-developed forecasts for virtually anything for which there is associated historical data. We can provide your forecasts under standardized IHS Automotive scenarios or in the form of alternative outlooks specifically developed for you. Use our forecasts to drive your business plans and benchmark your corporate performance against competitors and the industry. We also develop regional-level market forecasts, where data is available, to assess your dealership or sales office performance in specific market areas.

Brand Image, Market Position and Strategies to Broaden Appeal

Challenge: A global OEM in the automotive industry wanted to expand product offerings and move its brand image up-market in an effort to gain market share and attract younger, more affluent consumers.

Solution: IHS Consulting produced extensive vehicle and market forecasts, undertook a highly detailed competitive benchmarking exercise and examined successful premium brand practices from the point of market entry to the present day. Based on this information, our research team identified current and future opportunities and made multi-pronged strategic recommendations on brand image, product features, specifications and advertising strategy.

Results: The client was prepared to undertake a successful evolution of its brand image and products to increase market share and volume in a very challenging mature market.