For Japanese automotive parts-related companies,

the key to winning and sustaining orders is how they can contribute to strengthening the competitiveness of the car manufacturers with whom they do business and to solving social issues. This is because automotive OEMs are working on the rapid market launch of electrification and intelligence technologies to strengthen their global competitiveness from the late 2020s onwards, while at the same time being required to contribute to social issues such as the environment, safety and logistics.

The first is “alliances and collaborations for products and technologies”, which have traditionally been the mainstay of automotive competitiveness, with recent alliances and collaborations in the areas of “electrification”, “automotive batteries”, “semiconductors”, “connected”, “SDV”, “interior/cockpit/engine” and “automatic driving/ADAS”. The second is “social issues”.

The second is “alliances and collaborations in fields related to contributing to social issues”, where alliances and collaborations are actively taking place to acquire technologies in the areas of “energy/storage”, “production and logistics” and “recycling”, as the automotive industry is also required to become carbon neutral (CN) and contribute to labour shortages and logistics issues. The third direction is the ‘New Territories’.

The third direction is ‘new areas/non-automotive’. While parts suppliers are focusing on helping automotive OEMs to respond to CASE and solve social issues, there is a strong sense of uncertainty about the future growth and maintenance of business for the automotive sector amid the rapid changes that have been described as a ‘once-in-a-century’ transformation, and in recent years they have been focusing on creating new earnings drivers in various non-mobility areas as well as non-automotive mobility. In recent years, the company has been focusing on creating new earnings drivers in various fields other than mobility as well as mobility other than cars. In addition to solutions to social issues such as food, agriculture and medicine, there is a growing number of alliances and collaborations with other companies, including start-ups, in areas beyond the conventional automobile framework, such as shared cycles, healthcare, education and other QoL fields, as well as flying cars and drones that can contribute to both social issue resolution and QoL. 1.

As with automobile manufacturers, it is becoming increasingly important for parts suppliers to make effective use of alliances and collaborations with other companies, as it is difficult for them to respond to the wide-ranging technological evolution of recent years on their own, both financially and in terms of human resources. A look at the details of the alliances and collaboration initiatives of Japanese automotive parts companies over the past two years reveals three main directions.