German multinational Bosch, an aftersales products and vehicle peripherals provider, has creates a new organisational structure devoted to delivering ‘tailored solutions’ to the commercial vehicles and off-highway (CVO) segment.
In this segment, Bosch’s products relate to everything from trucks and 4000-horespower construction machines to forklifts and agricultural combine harvesters, and the organisational development comes as a result of long, hard conversation on the best direction for Bosch’s growth.
Bosch CVO marketing director Anton Bee, noted: “As a cross-divisional organization, CVO can offer the customer ‘big-picture solutions’.
“If the customer wants to increase their efficiency, we don’t just look at the injection system. We consider all the applications (like using rear-view mirrors with camera systems and colour displays to assist the drivers), and that requires the support of multiple divisions.”
“We are not a division and are not comparable to any other known structure from the ‘Mobility Solutions’ business sector,” says Johannes-Jörg Rüger, head of the Bosch CVO organisation.
He stylises the unit instead as a sales organisation dedicated to ‘integrated system development’.
Previously, when left to their own devices, most of the divisions struggled to offer CVO customers tailored solutions. The new stand-alone unit, created at the beginning of this year, should solve that.
Now there will be one specific contact person per Bosch customer – for the whole Bosch product range – mirroring a situation that is already the case in the passenger segment, where manufacturers like Daimler or VW have always had their own salespeople.
Another example of Bosch’s effots the commercial vehicles segment was evident at Bauma, where it presented a driver’s cab developed especially for construction machinery in which vehicle operating data can be analysed to the nearest second on a tablet display.
In the cab, ultrasonic and video sensors monitor the vehicle’s surroundings more thoroughly than any rear-view mirror in an important step towards making construction vehicles more intelligent and safer that can prevent downtime due to accidents.
“We take a machine that weighs several tons and manoeuvre it with millimetre accuracy, eight hours a day. Even the tiniest detail has to be right,” concurred wheel loader operator Roland Ehrensberger.
Rüger added: “Bosch is turning construction machinery into a showpiece technology. The megatrends of automation, electrification, and connectivity don’t stop at the gates of construction sites or mines.”
The development also anticipates a future in which construction machinery will automatically carry out certain tasks, with the driver scheduling those tasks at the connected interface in their cab.
