Software and digital services become mainstays of business success: Bosch exec

By the end of the decade, Bosch wants to generate sales running into the billions from software. For quite some time now, Bosch has been a software company, said Dr. Stefan Hartung, chairman of the Bosch board of management, at the Bosch Tech Day 2024 in Renningen, Germany on Thursday.

According to Hartung, across the company, Bosch's extensive domain expertise allows it to put lines of code directly into products. The software in the products is technology that is "invented for life," improving customers’ lives.

Bosch software can already be found in many areas, including the production lines of major industrial enterprises, many car repair shops, and medical equipment. It alerts drivers to cars on the wrong side of the road, protects valuable assets, controls building technology, and has worked in outer space, on the ISS. All in all, 48,000 associates work as software programmers at Bosch, 42,000 of them in the mobility business sector alone, according to the company.

“The triumphant march of software will fundamentally revolutionize the automotive industry. In the future, cars will be seamlessly integrated into the digital world. As a result, they will be one thing more than anything else – updateable,” added Dr. Markus Heyn, member of the board of management of Bosch and chairman of the mobility business sector.

Exploiting the potential of software across company boundaries

"Software and digital services have now become mainstays of business success at Bosch. They are the driving force and enabler of innovation across company and industry boundaries. With its broad domain knowledge and expertise in mobility, manufacturing, and building technology, Bosch is a sought-after partner for the companies that traditionally lead the IT field.

"To exploit the huge potential of software and AI, we need partnerships of equals. Barely any company can manage this on its own. In this context, open-source software offers an especially useful way of pooling expertise across company boundaries, of saving costs, and of creating standardized solutions,” said Hartung.

"Policymakers can also play an important part: in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), which is becoming increasingly important for software development, companies need planning certainty. That also goes for the AI Act recently passed by the European Union. The EU must now rapidly translate the AI Act into standards, for while regulation is necessary, it must not unnecessarily throttle the pace of technology or even prevent innovation,” Hartung continued.

The age of software-defined mobility starts

In the automotive industry, the new trend has a name: software-defined vehicle. Software is increasingly becoming the starting point for designing and developing new vehicle models. A recent McKinsey study estimates that the global market for automotive software and electronics will reach $462 billion by 2030. From 2023, the share of software in vehicles will triple. Bosch wants to be part of this growth market and to remain the go-to partner for automakers worldwide.

“We’re standing at the dawn of the age of the software-defined vehicle,” Heyn said.

"For Bosch, that’s good news, because we can do both: hardware and software. With software and service solutions such as vehicle health, for example, Bosch helps fleet operators avoid vehicle breakdowns and increase efficiency. And specifically for logistics companies, the Bosch L.OS digital platform facilitates digitalization and simplifies the entire chain of operations.

"In addition, Bosch has developed special software that allows cars to come to an ultra-smooth halt, completely jolt-free, as though a professional chauffeur were at the wheel. With this Bosch “eBrake to Zero” function, not only is braking in stop-and go-traffic more pleasant and relaxed, but the risk of travel sickness among occupants can also be reduced," said Heyn.

Software-defined mobility will also go hand in hand with a changing vehicle architecture: away from a domain-specific IT and electronics architecture to one that is centralized and cross-domain, with just a few computers and sensors that are nonetheless very powerful. At present, there are roughly one hundred control units from various manufacturers at work in one car. In a future software-defined vehicle, control functions will be performed by less than one dozen vehicle computers, Heyn finished.