How does a mid-sized company build a new plant in North Africa within a few months – in the middle of a pandemic? I have been asked this question many times since the opening in Tangier. The honest answer: not through haste, but through clarity.
A product that is hard to automate
Everyone knows Bowden cables from their bicycle – as brake or gear cables. In a car, they are used wherever something is moved mechanically: folding down the rear seat, opening a door, the bonnet or the fuel flap. SCS Stahlschmidt Cable Systems supplies such systems to carmakers and suppliers.
The cable itself is not the product. We deliver complete systems with fastenings, damping elements and attachments – which means a lot of manual assembly. For comparatively low revenue you need many people. In this business, labour costs decide between success and failure.
Our plants in Poland and Hungary, in operation since the early 2000s, were under exactly this kind of pressure: wages rose year after year while market prices for our products fell. We had to decide how to stay competitive in the long term.
Why Morocco?
We compared several countries. Costs mattered – compared with Eastern Europe, labour costs in Morocco are around one fifth. But the decision was driven by several factors together:
- Political stability. Our customers pay close attention to the country they are supplied from. A second production base in China also ensured we did not depend on a single site.
- Logistics. The port of Tanger Med, the largest in the Mediterranean, is around 20 minutes from the plant. From Tangier we supply customers in Europe, North America and Mexico.
- Energy. In the first two years we did not have a single power cut – and Morocco generates a high share of its electricity from hydro, solar and wind. For carmakers’ CO₂ targets, that has long been a real argument.
- Investor-friendliness. In the free zone we had one fixed point of contact – from company formation to organising construction. We hardly experienced bureaucracy as we know it.
- People. A good network of universities and training centres and a structured system for onboarding and qualifying new employees.
Speed comes from clarity
In autumn 2020 we decided on Morocco, in December we officially started the investment, and in February 2021 construction began in Tanger Automotive City. Half a year after the start, the first phase of around 9,000 square metres including the administration building was complete, and around five months after groundbreaking the first production was running. Since early 2023 the entire area has been completed.
On 22 June 2022 the plant was officially opened in the presence of Morocco’s Minister of Industry, Ryad Mezzour, and the German ambassador. On a plot of 21,400 square metres, an investment of MAD 107 million created room for up to 1,075 jobs.
The first thing that impressed me was that the first phase of the factory was already standing six months later.
This speed was no accident. It came from the fact that the fundamental questions had been decided early – location, product scope, sequence of relocation – and that everyone involved knew where they stood.
Five lessons for mid-sized companies
- Decide early – and stick to it. In projects, most time is not lost in construction but in hesitation. A clear, well-founded decision saves months.
- Take local partners seriously. Ministry, free zone operator, chamber of commerce and development bank: in our case, Germany’s DEG supported the financing through its AfricaConnect programme. Without these partners, this pace would not have been possible.
- People before machines. A plant only becomes a plant when people master it. Qualification, onboarding and building local leaders belong in the project plan from the start – not only in the ramp-up phase.
- Think about customers and quality from day one. Every relocated line has to be re-approved by the customer. Planning sampling and re-certification early avoids supply risks.
- Focus instead of footprint romance. A mid-sized company cannot afford a network of many small plants – every new site brings complexity and fixed costs. Better one strong, well-run site than three half ones.
And today?
At the end of 2023, more than 500 people were already working in Tangier; the target size was around 1,000. Since 2024 the plant has been part of India’s Suprajit Group; I led the integration into the new group until 2026 as Managing Director of Suprajit Germany GmbH. In 2025 I was one of the winners of the first HANNOVER MESSE Africa Leadership Award for building the plant.
One insight remains above all: for German mid-sized companies, Morocco is not an exotic option but a serious alternative – provided the decision is well prepared and then implemented consistently.
Sources
About the author
Friedemann Faerber is Managing Partner of FAERBER Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH in Stuttgart. A mechanical engineer by training, he spent more than eight years as CEO of international automotive suppliers and almost nine years as a restructuring consultant. Today he is available to industrial companies as CEO and managing director – permanently, on an interim basis or on an advisory board.
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