Bosch, leading global supplier of technology and services in the areas of mobility solutions, industrial technology, consumer goods, and energy and building technology, is celebrating 100 years of presence in the Indian market. On the occasion, the company has announced an investment to the tune of Rs. 2,000 crores in advanced automotive technologies and digital mobility solutions over the next five years to further strengthen and expand its presence in India.
Bosch opened its first sales agency in Kolkata in 1922, making 2022 the company’s 100th year of operations in India. The company now encompasses 18 manufacturing sites and 7 development and application centers, employing close to 31,500 associates in the country. Its century-long journey, rooted in a legacy of excellence, has always been about moving into new business areas. Over the next five years, Bosch India will invest more than Rs. 1,000 crores in the localization of advanced automotive technologies, and in this way support Atmanirbhar Bharat, the vision of making India self-reliant. In addition, it will pump in another Rs. 1,000 crores towards digital mobility solutions in the country.
Shaping Mobility in India
Bosch has always focused on technologies for a mobility experience that is economical and sustainable, safe and secure, convenient and exciting in the future. This will be accomplished via new platforms to meet changing requirements of legislations and user experience. Bosch is taking further strategic steps towards a leading position in the software-dominated future of mobility by combining its‘ automotive know-how, wide-ranging electronics and software expertise. In mobility hardware and software development, BGSW is the largest R&D center outside Germany with 20,000+ engineers.
Bosch is the market leader in the Powertrain business. It is convinced of a technology-neutral approach with regards to powertrain, be it gasoline, diesel or electrification. Considering the ever-changing needs of mobility Bosch provides more than one powertrain technology to make mobility more sustainable.
In electric powertrain solutions too, Bosch is a global leader. The company estimates that by 2030, every third new vehicle in India will be an EV. At the same time, dependent on use case / customer strategy, the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) could also be electrified with mild and strong hybrids. The ICE remains an important part of the powertrain mix especially in commercial vehicles and off highway segments.
Bosch supports govt vision to reduce road accidents by over 50 percent by 2025. Bosch’s expertise in assisted and automated mobility ranges across passenger and commercial vehicle driver assistance with India-specific object identification technology, motorcycle safety and rider assistance, and braking and occupant safety (4W and 2W). Bosch India has invested INR 380 crores over the last 10 years and an additional INR 238 crores is planned over the next 5 years in safety domain.
Going Strong across Business Sectors
As an AIoT company, Bosch India is leveraging AI, IoT, automation, and digitalization to develop smart, secure, efficient, and sustainable smart products of the future. Sales of connected power tools, household appliances, and heating systems alone have grown by 50 percent within one year – from four million units in 2020 to more than six million in 2021 globally. With the Bosch Center for Artificial Intelligence (BCAI), the company has established a strong unit in the field of AI that has already contributed some 300 million euros to result.
Bosch will continue to invest heavily in India to expand its portfolio close to 7 percent of total net sales. Backed by the biggest R&D team outside Germany – Bosch’s Beyond Mobility business works to the highest international standards of manufacturing, product, and service quality to formulate indigenous, affordable, and India-specific innovations.
Bosch remains committed to improving quality of life through advanced technology. Having aided the construction of “modern India” over the past 26 years, Bosch Power Tools aims to increase its localization share by more than 10 percent by 2025. And BSH Home Appliances recently expanded its production capacity at its Chennai factory for manufacturing refrigerators towards an ambition to achieve up to 75 percent of localization by 2025.
Bosch Rexroth continues to offer smart, innovative, and energy-efficient products and solutions with a seamless digital experience across touch points. It is at the forefront of transforming the factory of the future through IoT products, smart automation capability and connected manufacturing setup.
Bosch Automotive Aftermarket is the largest multi brand car service center in India (expansion to 1000 locations by 2025); largest chain for unit repair (diesel and electrical service centers to grow to 2000 outlets by 2025) and has developed a state-of-the-art digital ecosystem for workshops that would give data insights on workshop operations, digitally diagnose and repair, and order spares via ecommerce.
Bosch Building Technologies in India is additionally making buildings intelligent, secure, energy efficient and future-ready while consolidating its localization program to achieve close to 40 percent of local content by 2030.
Mobility Marketplace
Bosch is well prepared to make a leap through a digital marketplace which aims to be the one stop shop for all mobility-related assets – Mobility Marketplace. As an innovation plus transactional platform, it focuses on improving utilization and efficiency elements across the ecosystem. It is a neutral platform with digital assets focused on mobility solutions powered by Bosch expertise in mobility domain. Not only does the marketplace provide significant value for buyers by offering curated and secured content, but it also enables the sellers to realize additional revenue channels through new business models. The platform aims to expand the portfolio of digital assets from APIs to data to end-to-end solutions, services and hardware covering a wide range of services in an automotive lifecycle such as road/ weather data, telematics, navigation, point-of-interest services (parking, EV infra, etc.).
Bosch aims to bring more diversity for its digital savvy buyer segments (OEMs, fleet management providers, smart cities, logistics service providers to name a few) by offering ready to use complimenting solutions.
Mobility Cloud Platform
The evolution of a digital era comes with technical and operational challenges – from choosing the most appropriate technology stacks to adapting to ever-changing regulatory requirements. With the objective of addressing these challenges faced in digital product innovation in the mobility domain, Bosch is has created the Mobility Cloud Platform (MCP) – a launchpad and ecosystem for developing, implementing and scaling IoT enabled digital products for advanced connected mobility solutions. The Mobility Cloud Platform helps its customers to focus on their core product features, optimizing their lifetime product costs by upto 25 percent and improving the time to market by upto 3 times. With complete flexibility and no lock-in, Bosch has developed the Mobility Cloud Platform to help new-age mobility startups, SMEs and corporates alike to scale their business.
Fit for the Future
Since 2020, the Bosch Group with its more than 400 locations worldwide has been carbon neutral. But that’s not all: Bosch wants to shape climate action and also systematically reduce upstream and downstream emissions, which it aims to reduce by 15 percent by 2030. Bosch will embark on the next one hundred years in India by making a swift transition to Industry 4.0 and focusing on increasing its local capabilities. As a part of the company’s future strategy, improving lives of young people and supporting the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, Bosch wants to increase the employability of young people in India by 2030 through active partnerships with Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and Government interventions.
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“Bosch India has brought together the best of German engineering and Indian entrepreneurship to develop innovative products across all segments. I wholeheartedly congratulate the management and associates of Bosch India on reaching this milestone without compromising on performance and consumer trust.
– Dr. Stefan Hartung, Chairman of the Board of Management of Robert Bosch GmbH
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“Bosch’s 100-year journey in India is a testament to the passion, hard work, and dedication of our associates. I sincerely thank our associates for the part they have played in this. Bosch India will remain true to its roots and evolve, innovate, and spark the next wave of big-ticket products and services. We will continue to pursue this vision for a digital, sustainable, efficient, self-reliant, and future-ready India.
– Soumitra Bhattacharya, MD, Bosch Limited and President Bosch Group in India