"India is not just a research and development location, but also a location where we are prepared to shift more competence, responsibility and accountability, in particular, on the software side. On the software defined vehicle side but also on the application side," explained Pillin on the sidelines of the recently concluded IAA Mobility Show in Munich to Autocar Professional.
Bosch India has 27,000 engineers on its rolls spread across 10 locations and 7 application development centres. And with that kind of bench strength it is fast transforming the entity from a "software application work" base to a more “systems and service development” organisation.
Pillin says Bosch knows the Indian market very well and he had visited the country in August to take stock of the role the country is going to play in the future of its Mobility Division.
According to him, Bosch is basing much of its software development on the expertise of India. On the changing landscape in the country, he explained, “It’s amazing what one gets from universities in India. In the past, basically they did software application work, but now we are prepared in the course of what we call Software Defined Vehicle (SDV), to empower them and shift even more responsibility to India. So it's not just application work being outsourced to India, but it is increasingly transitioning into operating system and service layers.”
Automotive software market to triple by 2030
Bosch estimates that the automotive software market will grow to 200 billion Euros by 2030, which is almost three times the 2020 industry size and it is aligning its organisation to participate in this fast-evolving space. Earlier in May this year, Robert Bosch restructured the organisation and carved out a new Bosch Mobility business, which Pillin leads as its Chief Technology Officer or CTO.
This change in structure was announced with an eye on transforming Bosch as a “mobility software company.” Some of the business sector’s individual divisions will be redrawn effective January 1, 2024, and all divisions will be given horizontal, cross-divisional responsibilities as well. With its mobility solutions alone, Bosch’s aim for this new structure is that it will generate sales revenue of more than 80 billion Euros worldwide by 2029.
With the share of software development in the overall development cost touching 30 percent, at Bosch, almost half of the engineers are working on software, with a major share of development work coming from India.