Bosch, the world’s largest automotive supplier, has announced that it is reorganizing its supplier business to keep up with the trend towards software-based vehicle development. The company’s Mobility Solutions division will be renamed “Bosch Mobility” and will be managed as a separate business sector with its own business responsibility and management team.
The move is aimed at serving existing and new customer needs even better and faster with customized solutions from a single source, according to Bosch. The company aims to achieve sales of over 80 billion euros worldwide with its mobility solutions alone by 2029. This comes as software is expected to account for around 30 percent of development expenditure across the industry in 2030, a share that Bosch already exceeds.
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Bosch Mobility will leverage the advantages of software-defined vehicles, with development speed increasing, and the decoupling of software and hardware development allowing cars to remain “like new” for longer thanks to software updates. However, this will require changes in the hardware, especially in the new centralised electrical and electronic architecture. Instead of more than 100 control units, there will be a few high-performance computers for cockpit and networking functions, driver assistance systems, automated driving, and the powertrain, along with the appropriate software for these.
Bosch Mobility is led by a five-member management team around Bosch CEO Markus Heyn. Heyn notes that “Software wonāt only change how we use and experience cars in the future. It will also change the way cars are engineered. For some time now, Bosch has also seen itself as a mobility software company. Now, in response to customer requirements, our structure is changing to reflect this and to open up further growth.
With around 230,000 employees at over 300 locations in 66 countries worldwide, Mobility is the largest of four Bosch business sectors. The individual business units within the sector will be partly reorganized from January 1, 2024, with additional horizontal responsibilities across all units. This is to better serve the needs of existing and new customers with customized solutions from a single source.
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In conclusion, Bosch’s move to reorganize its supplier business reflects the shift towards software-based vehicle development. With the renaming of its Mobility Solutions division and the creation of Bosch Mobility, the company is positioning itself to serve existing and new customer needs better and faster with customized solutions from a single source.