Global reshaping of competitive relationships in Auto industry

Business environment at the beginning of the 21st century is characterized by disruptive and frequent changes. These changes lead to restructuring of some traditional industries, such as automotive industry. Great recession, technology innovations and changes in government regulations unfreezed the structure of automotive industry. Consequently, competitors in the industry have to fit their strategies to new reality. Great recession resulted in financial troubles or even bankruptcy of some significant incumbents and created market space for late followers from emerging markets. Digital innovations have created preconditions for emergence of autonomous cars and carsharing and ridesharing service industry. Global pollution puts pressure on national governments to establish higher gas emission standards and ban diesel vehicles in city centers, which encourages development of electric cars. It is hard to predict the course of development of carsharing service industry, autonomous and electric cars due to high risks and uncertainties. Therefore, auto companies focus their efforts on some smaller market segments, form strategic alliances and acquire targets with complementary resources.