PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) recently published its 12th Annual Global CEO Survey. In a special summary on the automotive sector, PwC reports some interesting items. Some the key data points follow.
37% of surveyed CEOs feel they need to focus on greater penetration of their existing markets, while 24% felt that new product development was the key to future success. This is a reversal of priorities from a year ago. A whopping 92% of the responding CEOs acknowledge that innovation is key to their long term success, but most feel the current priority is on short term survival. This latter point is not too surprising in a climate when auto makers in many countries are getting government assistance to stay afloat.
The report cites a few specific examples of innovation coming from auto manufacturers, but these are not necessarily surprising new lines of thinking. All the cited examples are in the area of alternative fuel technologies. While these are welcome advances, they can hardly be called highly original at this point in time. But then originality doesn’t look like it is in the cards for the automakers.
While 95% of the CEOs mentioned that information about the customer was important, the report talks about understanding customer preferences. Now in all fairness, this could be a defect in how the questions were posed by PwC. But if we assume that this is in fact what the automakers are actually interested in (and historical behavior would support this assumption), then the automotive CEOs are content to drive their businesses by looking in the rear view mirror. They should be interested in looking beyond mere preferences to understand what the unexpressed desires and aspirations of their customers are relative this product which has secured such an important role in their lives.
The report is an interesting snapshot of an industry in the spot light. You can find the PwC automotive summary report here.
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