In addition to the general challenges posed by the ongoing transformation, the automotive industry is currently confronted with changing customer requirements and product life cycles, new competitors and trade disputes. At the same time, technical and strategic challenges faced by some customers and their relocation of development activities abroad are leading to short-term product and project postponements as well as reduced capacity call-offs in the Bertrandt Group, resulting in lower capacity utilization than expected.
"Although we expected and prepared for a change in order policy, the dynamics were not foreseen. The market is currently changing sustainably and rapidly. We will not be able to compensate for the lack of capacity call-offs in Germany in the short or medium term without taking countermeasures," says Michael Lücke, member of the Management Board of Bertrandt AG.
In order to remain competitive, the Group is positioning itself more broadly and internationally, systematically optimizing its product portfolio and thus adapting to changing market conditions and customer needs. Bertrandt is responding to the current market trend with an earnings optimization programme already announced in the summer, which includes structural and infrastructure adjustments in Germany as well as portfolio measures. After examining various restructuring scenarios and initiating intensive measures in advance, job cuts in Germany in the order of 800 to 1,200 across all divisions are, however, unavoidable. Some of these have already been implemented in recent months. In particular, the Bertrandt site in Tappenbeck (near Wolfsburg) is now affected with a reduction of around 600 jobs.
Bertrandt believes that these steps will make it future-proof and competitive so that it can continue to respond flexibly and quickly to megat trends and customer requirements and invest in important future technologies. As a global engineering service provider, collaboration across national borders will therefore increase significantly. Bertrandt has described the topic of global delivery in particular in its Strategy 2027 and is working sustainably on further international positioning. The Group sees good opportunities for further growth here.
About Bertrandt
Through our development performance, we accelerate technological progress and make a relevant contribution to a sustainable future. We are an independent and international development service provider with many years of automotive expertise. With cross-industry know-how and a holistic understanding of systems and products, we create technological solutions along the entire value chain. We deal with a focus on trend topics such as digitalization, e-mobility and autonomous systems, mainly for the automotive, aviation and mechanical engineering sectors, and consistently facilitate the development of tailored solutions in these areas. We work on this every day – with around 14,500 employees at over 50 sites worldwide.
