Automotive Consultancies: How to survive OEM budget cuts
This article is part of Perspectives, our series of practical views on automotive marketing problems.
Why consultancies feel budget pressure first
When budgets tighten inside OEMs, automotive consultancies are often the first line item to be questioned, because it is far, far easier to pause external support than cut internal headcount. Suddenly projects get delayed, scope is reduced, spending gets deferred and your emails stop getting replies. From the outside, consulting looks flexible, but from inside the OEM, you start to look optional. You’re a luxury they can’t afford…
This puts automotive consultancies in a difficult position. You might be delivering important work in UX testing, cyber security, compliance, functional safety, prototyping, or validation, but when the board asks for cuts, your company name definitely appears on the shortlist.
Consultancies that survive these moments are not the loudest, or the best known, or the cheapest. They are the ones that have made themselves hard to remove.
How OEMs actually decide who stays
OEM budget decisions are rarely personal. In these scenarios, consultancies would probably be safer if the decisions were personal, as consultants build rapport for a living.
But OEM buyers are not asking which consultancy they like most, they are asking which spend they can justify keeping. That reasoning has to stand up to scrutiny from procurement, finance, and the senior leadership, none of whom have worked with that consultancy, spoken with the team, or directly experienced their output.
But, if your work is seen as critical to reducing risk, protecting timelines, or supporting approvals, it stays. If it is seen as helpful but non-essential, you’re likely to get cut.
Why most consultancies undersell their role
Most consultancies describe what they do, but internally, OEM buyers need to explain why you matter.
Typical consultancy messaging focuses on capability, methods, and experience. Those things are expected. They rarely answer the harder internal questions.
What decision does this support?
What risk does this remove?
What happens if this work is not done?
Who is accountable if it fails?
When those answers are not obvious, the client has a problem, which means you have a problem. They may believe in your expertise, but they cannot easily defend the spend. That is when work gets reduced or delayed, and you quietly drift into the category of ‘nice to have’.
OEMs are not buying expertise, they are buying protection
Expertise is assumed, protection is not. OEM buyers are worried about exposure. Regulatory exposure, programme exposure, reputational exposure and most of all, their own internal exposure if something goes wrong. This protection applies across specialist consulting disciplines.
Cyber security consultancies are retained because they reduce exposure, support compliance, and provide defensible assurance.
UX, CX and HMI testing teams are kept because they reduce usability risk, brand damage, and late stage rework.
Compliance consultancies survive cuts because they protect launch timelines and approvals.
Prototyping and validation teams stay involved because they prevent costly mistakes downstream.
If your messaging does not focus on this protection, you start looking like the tall blade of grass.
How specialist consultancies should frame their services
To survive budget pressure, consultancies need to frame their work in OEM terms, not in consultancy terms.
What specifically do we mean by this?
Cyber security services
Frame your work around exposure reduction and assurance.
Be clear about which risks you identify, how your findings are prioritised, and how your output supports internal sign-off and audit defence.
Always position your service as ongoing protection against a scaling threat, not a one-off activity.
UX, CX and HMI testing services
Lead with risk to safety, brand, and customer trust.
Explain how your work prevents late changes, reduces complaints, and supports approval decisions.
Make outputs easy to reuse internally, not just insightful.
Compliance and regulatory services
Focus on timeline protection and certainty.
Explain how your work reduces rework, avoids delays, and gives programme teams confidence at key gates.
Be explicit about scope so buyers know exactly what risk you own.
Prototyping and validation services
Frame your value around speed and cost avoidance.
Show how early validation reduces downstream spend and disruption.
Link findings directly to decisions, not just data.
The common thread here is translation. Turn specialist capability into something an OEM buyer can defend.
The assets OEM buyers rely on when budgets tighten
When budgets come under pressure, OEM buyers look for material and answers they can reuse.
They need to explain why a piece of work should continue, what risk it reduces, and what happens if it stops. The easier you make that job for them, the harder you are to cut.
The consultancies that survive budget reviews tend to have a small set of assets that quietly do a lot work internally.
Clear service definitions that explain which decisions the work supports, and where that service fits in vital OEM processes.
Case studies framed around outcomes, consequences, and risk reduction, rather than effort, scope or deliverables.
Evidence that the work is ongoing and dependable, not a one-off success
Explicit boundaries that reduce uncertainty about ownership and accountability
These assets are not sales tools in the traditional sense. They are designed to help an internal sponsor justify their spend, defend their decisions, and remove doubt when scrutiny inevitably increases.
This is where many consultancies struggle, and where small changes in how services are framed can make a disproportionate difference.
How Six Lines helps consultancies stay relevant to OEMs
Six Lines works with automotive consultancies that want to be harder to cut. We help specialist teams translate expertise into OEM-focused positioning, shape services around decision making, and create assets that support internal justification.
We usually help in four focused ways:
Positioning and messaging workshops with technical and commercial leads
Campaign planning, design and delivery
Website and pitch alignment
Support for outreach that leads to credible conversations
If you sell specialist services to OEMs and recognise the dynamics described here, it is probably worth us having a quick conversation. We can look at how your work is currently positioned and where small changes would make the biggest difference when budgets tighten.
