Engineering from everywhere

With future growth in car and truck sales coming mainly from emerging markets, companies are realigning their engineering operations accordingly.

Significant salary differential is not a bad reason in itself for a supplier to establish an engineering center in an emerging market. Neither is customer proximity. Combined, those two reasons constitute what might be considered an irresistible case for setting up an engineering shop in an emerging market.

Irresistible perhaps, but not bulletproof. After all, there is the small matter of executing the tech center project. Execution blunders of sufficient size can turn what may have seemed like a can't-miss undertaking into a failed enterprise.