The Italian supply base

The report is the first a new series of features on the supply bases of the major European countries underlining how automotive suppliers are coping with global challenges and the local business environment, starting with Italy.

State of the supply baseThe Italian supply base can be described as a fragmented collection of small sized firms, competitive in some niches, significantly reliant on the orders of the national carmaker and increasingly projected into international production in a “follow sourcing” strategy, as well as increasingly tempted by the possibility of relocating to low cost countries. Italian suppliers have managed to weather the downturn and have averted the gloomy predictions of a large number of bankruptcies, mainly thanks to strong orders from Fiat who benefitted from the scrappage schemes in Europe back in 2009.