Towards the end of the year, the contradiction between the whole car factory and its suppliers has once again aroused heated discussion because of the decline in the year.
When the zero-adjustment contradiction that has been going on over the years leads to war again, it is difficult to say which is right and which is wrong.
It is also a difficult task to understand the real situation of who is the “host” and who is the “parasite” on both sides.
It can be said that nowadays, it is not easy to judge which link is holding the real say in the automobile industry chain.
Who on earth should the “wool” come from? However, any problem contradiction is divided into primary and secondary, grasp the principal contradiction or can be found according to the clue to simplify the complex problem.
Under the current situation, the main contradiction between the whole vehicle factory and the supplier is to reduce the cost.
Should the whole car factory reduce the price? Now that the price has been lowered, is this behavior reasonable? When the whole automobile industry chain focuses on the general cost reduction, who will have more room for cost reduction? For this reason, Geshi Automobile specially launched a questionnaire survey for the majority of automobile industry practitioners in order to find out the cost contradiction in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the automobile industry chain caused by reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
According to the survey results of Galaxy, 58% of the respondents believe that the annual decline of 3% is a reasonable range, and 30% of the respondents believe that the annual decline of 5% is acceptable.
In contrast, only 3% of respondents approved of the recent widely circulated annual decline of 10% in the industry.
In this way, the acceptance of different annual declines by the auto industry practitioners is self-evident.
It is worth noting that there are some relatively novel findings in the research results.
There is no need to say much about the necessity of reducing the cost, but it seems that it still needs to be deliberated on which link of the industrial chain.
, figure source: Weilai, the results show that only 22% of the respondents think that the cost reduction space is in the first and second supplier dimensions.
However, 34% of the respondents believe that the cost reduction space is not in the primary and secondary suppliers, but in the vehicle factory dimension.
That is to say, more people in the auto industry believe that the problem with the high cost of the whole car factory lies in itself, not in the supply chain.
However, you should know that for a long time, the whole car factory represented by Tesla has been committed to achieving cost savings through technological innovation and self-sufficiency in the core supply link.
Nowadays, it is obvious to all in the industry that the whole car factory has taken the lead in innovating a series of innovative cost reduction technologies, including integrated large die casting technology , lightweight technology , chassis integration technology and so on.
Just recently, Tesla also made public the patents for wire harness and electronic interface, hoping that enterprises in the whole industry would join hands to unify interface standards and achieve cost reduction.
In other words, the efforts made by the whole car factory to reduce costs are beyond doubt.
But the problem is that as far as domestic vehicle factories, especially new energy vehicle factories, are concerned, there are only a handful of car factories that can be self-sufficient and profitable like Tesla, and most car companies are still struggling on the edge of profitability.
and it is a costly and laborious thing to reduce costs through technological innovation.
In other words, it seems unrealistic for most car companies to cut costs from their own dimensions.
In addition, Galaxy also noted that in the survey results, 51% of the respondents believed that the main problems in zero cooperation occurred in the whole car factory price adjustment and settlement link.
34% of the respondents said that the payment cycle of the car company is within 30-45 days and 90 days, and even 30% of the respondents said that the payment cycle of the car company is between six months and one year.
And 75% of the respondents said that most of the payment methods for suppliers are bank acceptance, installment payment and commercial acceptance, and only 25% are settled in a lump sum.
In other words, most car companies are not very well-off in terms of capital.
What about the profits of whole car factories and parts manufacturers? Looking up the relevant information, it was found that in the automobile industry, the average profit margin of vehicle companies is 5%, 10%.
According to the 2024 White Paper on the Competitiveness of Core Enterprises in the Global Automobile supply chain, the overall revenue of the world’s top 100 auto parts companies increased by 13.
2% year on year in 2023, and the overall profit margin of auto parts suppliers in 2023 was 6.
1%, an increase of 0.
7% over the same period last year.
At the same time, the revenue of new energy and intelligent parts has become an important revenue pillar of the top 100 parts and components enterprises, with the added value accounting for 34% of the total added value, and the profit growth of new energy parts accounts for 36% of the total added value.
The net profit of intelligent electronic parts has maintained a growth rate of 200% for two consecutive years.
It can be seen that, to a certain extent, the whole car factory does not necessarily earn more than the spare parts enterprises, and the pressure transfer of reducing the cost may also be a helpless move.
Escrow subordinate suppliers? Who is sinking in the whirlpool of capital reduction? It should also be made clear that the cost control of suppliers by the whole plant is not limited to the annual decline.
The “smart” whole car factory has infiltrated the demand for cost reduction into all the details of the supply link.
A relevant practitioner of the automobile industry chain told Galaxy: “whether it is a car company or a first-tier supplier, they will carefully calculate the cost and profit space of the next-tier supplier.
” Oh, this is true.
The automobile industry has always been famous for its “long chain, wide influence and complex relationship”.
Just a single supply link, it will be associated with countless first -, second -, or even third-or fourth-tier suppliers.
In the face of such a huge “supply system”, if the whole car factory does not pay attention to it, it may inadvertently expand the cost space.
In this way, it has become a common behavior for many vehicle factories to choose multiple first-tier suppliers to compare prices at the same time.
What’s more, it has been reported that the whole car factory has entered the subordinate supply management of first-tier suppliers, striving for further transparency of supply costs and profits.
Tu Yuan: Weilai, Galaxy has learned that, in general, first-tier suppliers who obtain orders directly from the whole plant will choose the next tier of second-and third-tier suppliers according to the profit margin of the project.
In order to maintain more personal profits, first-tier suppliers usually choose secondary or tertiary suppliers that are more closely bound or more familiar.
And due to the long-term cooperation between first-tier suppliers and downstream partners, they also have a better understanding of their respective products, services and delivery capabilities, communication management has also become smooth, in order to achieve a win-win state.
However, the details of the cooperation between the first-tier suppliers and their upstream suppliers, as well as the division of the proportion of profits and costs, are precisely the dark corner that the whole car factory cannot see clearly.
It is reported that at present, many vehicle manufacturers are participating in the selection and management of second-and third-tier suppliers by first-tier suppliers.
For example, Xilai and ideal are all rumored to be involved in the management of second-and third-tier suppliers.
If so, it means that some of the items of the first-tier supplierProcurement costs and even profit margins are to some extent on the table, and the profit margins of first-tier suppliers may not be as considerable as they used to be.
Some media reported that among the new power vehicle factories in China, the one who does a better job in supplier management should be ideal, which not only manages second-and third-tier suppliers, it will also designate first-tier suppliers to use a large number of second-and third-tier suppliers of their own choice.
The report also said that ideal engineers go to second-and third-tier suppliers more frequently than first-tier suppliers manage their own suppliers.
Is the zero-zero relationship really “tense”? To a certain extent, all of the above shows that the whole car factory and the supplier are at both ends of the balance, and it is difficult to balance it up and down for a short time.
It seems that judging from the current situation, the whole car factory is at the height of the balance.
But does this mean that the whole car factory is using its “chain owner” position to crack down on subordinate suppliers? Maybe not exactly.
According to the results of the Galaxy survey, 65% of the respondents still believe that the current relationship between the entire car factory and suppliers is in a general balanced state, which is not too deteriorating.
As for the question of which side of the vehicle factory and the supplier has a greater impact on the determination of the final annual decline plan, 49% of the respondents believe that the two sides have been determined through consultation, and the proportion of opinions is almost the same.
At the same time, however, 39% of the respondents believed that the opinions of the whole vehicle factory had a greater impact on the final annual decline plan.
Xu Daquan, executive vice president of Bosch (China) Investment Co., Ltd., once vividly described the delicate relationship between the vehicle factory and the supplier in the interview.
“Let me vividly describe our relationship with the mainframe factory,” he said.
For example, the head of the supply chain business of a mainframe factory, I used to come to his office, he stood and bowed to me.
The goods were out of supply two years ago, so he personally came to my office.
He bowed and I immediately fell to the ground.
Therefore, this relationship will remain the same, and the future will be the same.
” Tu Yuan: Geely, Xu Daquan believes: “the mainframe factory and parts are a symbiotic and prosperous relationship and a community of life.
” There is a profitable mainframe factory, so that our parts suppliers can also make a little money, so that everyone can be sustainable.
I think high-quality development is not a loss on one side or a loss on both sides, which is not sustainable.
With profits, we can continue to invest and continue research and development.
Only in this way can we have a good relationship between principal and zero.
” In other words, no matter how the relationship between the vehicle factory and the supplier changes, the relationship of mutual restriction and mutual need between the two is essentially unchanged.
According to Gaishi Automotive observation, when the price of lithium carbonate, a battery-grade raw material, fell below 80,000 yuan / ton, the contradiction between supply and demand of superimposed chips gradually eased, and the self-supply capacity of the whole car factory was enhanced, and the whole car factory gradually stepped out of the period when it was previously subject to core suppliers.
Slowly grasp the right to negotiate with suppliers.
In the past, the whole car factory, which has been aggrieved to complain about “working for the Ningde era”, is not as heavily restricted by suppliers as it used to be, and has more power to “bargain” with suppliers.
It is still undeniable that the consensus formed in the industry is that the traditional automobile supply chain relationship in the past has been gradually deconstructed and a new type of supply chain is being formed.
As for what the zero-to-zero relationship of the automobile industry will look like in the future, Xu Daquan has expressed his personal prediction: China’s automobile supply chain may be changed into China’s automobile ecosystem.
The boundary of the “chain” will gradually disappear, and the ecology of a healthier “circle” will be formed in the win-win relationship of cooperation between the whole vehicle factory and the supplier.
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