AutóPRO - profi és prominens

Mr Klujber is optimistic about the future of the automotive industry, and he is not so pessimistic about the present either

The services of AIB-VONCOTTE Hungary Kft are wide-ranging, you offer environmental inspections, education, examination of Hungarian power plants etc. How significant of a factor is the company in the automotive industry?

VINCOTTE is very strong in this field both in Hungary and worldwide. We are the auditors of several plants of Suzuki and Honda, but we also inspect Toyota, Mercedes and Audi factories. In addition, we examine several suppliers of these companies, and we have been providing type approval for a number of European models by carmakers such as Nissan, Mazda, Subaru, Lamborghini and Volvo. In Hungary we are market leaders in ISO/TS 16949 automotive classifications, and our customers from the automotive industry include Suzuki, Rába and Videoton.

So, you must be quite up-to-date regarding the domestic market, I am very much interested in your opinion about the following: many say that those who survived the last few years could become stronger, so the crisis in this sector is over. Is that true?

Last autumn, while preparing for this year, we visited eight or ten automotive companies, and this year we have visited four or five companies during our scheduled audits. We have discussed this with Mr László Bogdanovits, the general secretary of MAJOSZ, who has also visited several companies, and we can safely say that generally, there is neither critical nor crisis mood at these companies.

So, is there a crisis, will there be a crisis; or maybe wasn’t one at all?

Yes, there was, however, it was over last year, at least at those companies that supply to several OEM companies, and our data from this year also support this statement. I can tell you on behalf of both VINCOTTE and MAJOSZ, which is the largest automotive association when taking into account the size of its membership, that we are in a close relationship with companies, and we can follow with attention their growth. There were companies where we were told that their year previous had been phenomenal, and they were expecting the same from 2012 as well. Fortunately, this is not a unique example, the vast majority of suppliers are operating just fine. Only those suppliers might have problems which only have one major customer and haven’t been trying to stand on more than one leg. Though their situation is not lethargic, they are not that happy either.

Did the automotive industry experience the crisis differently because it has a much larger market? A supplier manufactures its product, then it is assembled somewhere else; after that it is irrelevant for the supplier whether the finished car is sold in Berlin, Moscow or Beijing. However, it’s not the same in the case of local bakeries for example.

Absolutely, automotive suppliers produce for a global market, which is currently growing significantly thanks to Asia. Many carmakers have already built assembly lines in Asia.

Do companies trust the Hungarian market? Does it represent quality when someone points out that a component was “made in Hungary”?

Generally speaking, we manufacture good quality products. We are present at lots of Hungarian factories and we often experience that within company groups it is the Hungarian subsidiaries that win quality awards. In my opinion the risk that many feared earlier, namely, that manufacture will be relocated to neighbouring countries, such as Romania or Ukraine, has little to no reality. Production in these countries is not or hardly any cheaper than here in Hungary, and Hungarian quality is often considered as outstanding.

And what about Asia? From a European point of view people there work for “starvation wages” and not just 8 hours a day.

This is not improbable, however, I’ve heard of companies who had already returned from Asia. And moreover, Hungarian automotive factories are characterised by expansions, which provides further opportunities for domestic suppliers.

Finally, what are your plans for 2012?

Mercedes have brought quite a serious change, though I think it is nearly impossible to get in there as a Hungarian company at first, as they brought their existing suppliers. However, in the market of services in connection with production local companies will be faced with opportunities much earlier, as companies providing services in training, headhunting, workforce-leasing, supplier selecting, maintenance and the manufacture of special-purpose machines offer local services, which is a necessity for the factory. The same thing was experienced in the case of GM and Audi: initially, companies were able to get in from these fields. That is to say, there is a “stir” around Mercedes. Preliminarily, I’m expecting a better year in comparison with the previous ones, and moreover, reading the sales data from last year, the Hungarian and European markets were characterised by a slight growth in 2011. There’s no reason to be overly optimistic, but not for a crisis mood either.

Interviewer: Gábor Pataki