Cost pressure, capacity constraints, restructuring and changing technology are forcing both sides to revisit agreements that once seemed stable. Our work begins where the relationship itself needs to change.

A relationship built for a buyers’ market

For years, carmakers negotiated from a position of strength: orders at short notice, fixed annual prices, pressure passed down the chain. That worked as long as a supplier could be replaced. The logic of “the carmaker demands, the supplier delivers” no longer holds everywhere. Where inputs are scarce for everyone, qualifying a new source takes years, and the financial health of a supplier decides whether the next delivery arrives.

In a 2026 expert survey, 98 percent rated the pressure to transform as high or very high, for OEMs and suppliers alike.

Our own observation: in electronics, glass fabric, laminate and printed circuit boards are allocated today, and carmakers compete for them with many other industries. More on our page on PCB & Semiconductors.

Source: Porsche Consulting, Executive Interim Partners and IfUS, expert survey, 2026.

Four situations where the relationship itself needs to change

Each situation looks different from each side of the table. Both sides sit in it.

1. A price round

The company in the middle negotiates in both directions at once. A carmaker asks for another annual cost reduction. The supplier passes part of the pressure on to its own suppliers and receives requests for indexation and surcharges in return.

What makes it hard: The same number sits in two negotiations at once, and on each side several departments pursue different goals.

What we work on with you: The agreement itself. What is priced in, which raw material movements are indexed and what triggers a review, who carries the risk of volume changes, and what the supplier receives for its commitment.

2. A capacity request

A carmaker wants capacity reserved for years. The supplier invests only if the customer shares the risk.

What makes it hard: Orders are placed with a lead time of weeks, while capacity takes years to build. In the chip shortage, carmakers ordered with lead times of 12 weeks while chipmakers needed up to 24 months. Who carries the risk between order and delivery?

What we work on with you: Capacity reservation, investment, risk sharing, review and exit. They are negotiated together, not one after the other.

Source: Ziegler/Heidling, “The Chip Crisis in the Automotive Industry”, HyValue, 2023 (semiconductors, 2020 to 2022).

3. An allocation shortage

A critical input becomes scarce, and the supplier decides who is served first.

What makes it hard: Volume, forecast quality and the history of the relationship decide. A carmaker cannot simply switch when every supplier depends on the same inputs. The supplier in turn is allocated by its own suppliers while its customers’ prices stay fixed.

What we work on with you: A position toward both sides before the next negotiation begins. What a carmaker can offer for priority, and what a supplier can pass on and what it has to absorb.

4. A restructuring

A supplier has to reduce cost and capacity. The carmaker has to decide whether to support the supplier or replace it.

What makes it hard: The supplier negotiates with customers, suppliers, works council, lenders and shareholders at the same time, and must not lose the capabilities it needs in three years.

What we work on with you: Which sites, products and customers stay. The conversations are prepared in an order that follows the company’s liquidity, and management settles its own position first.

In any one negotiation we work for one side, never both.

We look beyond the immediate negotiation: at the strategy behind the deal, the interests and constraints of the parties, the decision-making inside your company, your alternatives and the consequences of different agreements. Instead of bringing a ready-made solution, we start from your figures, your contracts and your relationships, and we work with the people who have to decide until the agreement holds in practice.

Related topics: Price and terms negotiations · Restructuring and turnaround · Mergers and strategic partnerships

Electronics and materials supply in an allocation market: see PCB & Semiconductors.

From our Insights

Shifting Gears: Europe’s Automotive Industry at a Crossroads, March 2025. Production shifts to Asia, electrification, software and the pressure on suppliers, and which negotiations follow from them. Read the article

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