About the session
Cosworth Group had to learn the hard way about reinvention and rebuilding its supply chain for growth. In 2004, the motorsport engineering company was told by its single customer, Ford, that it would be leaving Formula One - a "sink or swim" moment - but the speaker (Cosworth's CEO) had already laid out plans to leverage the Cosworth brand into new markets in aerospace, defence, electronics, and data acquisition and monitoring. Their strategy was to take cash from the core business and spin out into one of three areas: new territories, adjacent markets and high-performance sport - but only if they could understand the challenge properly and provide solutions based on their core engineering knowledge. This approach worked: Cosworth is predicting 20% compound growth in 2012, the third consecutive year of such performance. However, 2012 is a year of uncertainty, as defence industries retrench. Cosworth has identified that smaller budgets will present opportunities in unmanned vehicle development. The cost of getting diesel into military theatre, for example, varies between $11 and $22 a litre, as there is a need for "things to go further than we’ve been used to". The speaker warns of encroaching protectionism around the world, and that the UK has to respond to this, before finishing on the skills supply chain. We need to feed bright, motivated kids into industry that want to make manufacturing and engineering their careers. Every job in engineering brings approximately eight services and administration jobs with it. “Be bold, and do something different – today,” he told the audience.
