Abstract
Competition and technological change in the auto industry are rapidly progressing. In the auto industry, it is essential to categorize suppliers and identify their strategic roles, as they are critical to NPD and cost competitiveness. One supplier can transact with multiple automakers and supply a diverse product portfolio. The types of supply strategies that reflect various trade relationships on the demand side and technological diversity on the supply side are presented. The supplier's strategies are divided into four categories based on alliance portfolio diversity and product portfolio diversity: DS(Dedicated Specialist), DG(Dedicated Generalist), MS(Multi- relational Specialist), MG(Multi-relational Generalist). As a result of cluster analysis applied to the Chinese auto industry data for 10 years, it was clearly divided into the presented four clusters, and significant differences between the clusters were identified in the portfolio diversity indices. The cluster with the largest number of suppliers was the DS strategy. The DS is a strategy to gain cost competitiveness by supplying a single part based on trust with an automaker. On the other hand, the MG is a strategy to supply various products to various automakers, and it was confirmed that the search cost can be reduced by supplying various parts with related technologies.
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