We have wide and deep expertise and interest in industrial manufacturing businesses including electronics, displays, automotive, chemical and pharmaceutical. We are focused on working with clients seeking to industrialise and globalising emerging technologies and processes. The electronics and displays industry is of special interest to us including applications in OLED lighting, light-emitting diodes, mobile phones, laptops, displays, electrical household appliances, electronic medical equipment, microelectronic components, industrial electronics equipment and automation systems to automotive telematics such as on-board diagnostics (OBD), in-car touch screens, parking sensors, cameras and navigation systems. A strong future driver is expected to be IoT hardware and software for smart homes, cities and factories.
We also have deep interests in automotive supply chain related to advanced materials, electrification and software applications for autonomous navigation. In terms of future, the car’s interior which has been a relatively stable component, has now become real estate for enhancements of safety or entertainment. New technologies such as smart glass, haptic sensors and augmented reality head-up displays are offering the potential of driver alerts, safety aids and warnings on invisible screens embedded in the windshield. Large navigation and entertainment display screens in the dashboard offer Web-based information and media as well as data arrays picked up from networked roads and other cars. The autonomous car will further this trend and soon change the “living space” dimension of automotive interiors. The front seat may be reoriented to face the back seat, so passengers can converse as they would in their living rooms while the car cruises to a destination. Or seats could face a windshield that’s become a large movie screen. We forecast that this will also lead to vehicle electronics accounting for up to 20 percent of a car’s value by 2022.
Many of the new features going into cars require the expertise of software engineers, who by and large prefer the ostensibly more dynamic work environments of Silicon Valley start-ups to those of the automotive industry. As a result, some of the recent mergers and acquisitions in the automobile sector were undertaken to augment in-house technical knowledge and capabilities. For instance, German supplier ZF Group, paid US$12.4 billion in 2015 to acquire TRW in order to expand into the electronic safety and connectivity market and also took a 40% stake in vehicle radar supplier Ibeo Automotive Systems in 2016. We have deep experience of software development for autonomous navigation and this is available for our clients. We can also offer our large entity clients in Asia, access to highly innovative companies in Europe, providing a route to rapid development of applied technologies and new product introductions.
Other industries where we are active includes manufacturing of pharmaceutical materials, capital equipment, low carbon processes for manufacture of steel and chemicals, design and manufacture of electric mobility devices and related components.