When we talk about the success stories, Bosch’s success story is the greatest of them all. Like many other big companies, Bosch started its journey from a house’s backyard, after multiple ups and downs, and about 130 years later, the company is a multinational and is known to all. Bosch is a conglomerate, having its specialty in four major areas, i.e., mobility (including hardware and software), consumer goods (i.e., household appliances and power tools), industrial technology (drive and control), and energy and building technology.
About the Company
Robert Bosch GmbH is a conglomerate founded by Robert Bosch on 15 November 1886 as a precision mechanics and electrical engineering workshop. The company has its headquarters based in Gerlingen, Germany, and offers its services globally. It is a private company, Robert Bosch Stiftung having 92% of its shares under their name. BSH Hausgeräte, ETAS, and Bosch Rexroth are its major subsidiaries, and over 400,000 people are working for the company globally.
According to the 2019 records, Bosch made revenues worth €77.721 billion and holds total assets worth €89.030 billion. The company specializes in products manufacturing and supply, including Automotive parts, power tools, security systems, home appliances, engineering, electronics, cloud computing, IoT.
Founding of Bosch
The history of Bosch dates back to 134 years ago when on 15 November 1886, Robert Bosch started to make truly reliable ignition gas engines in the backyard of a mechanical and electrical workshop. The first product of the company was a low voltage magneto for gas engines, and in just a few years, Company became the only supplier of a truly reliable ignition within the industry. In 1902, the company launched the first high-voltage magneto ignition system with a spark plug, a revolutionary product that helped in the growth of the company.
In 1901, Bosch opened its first factory in Stuttgart, and in the next ten years, moved to a bigger plant in Feuerbach. In the coming few years, the company also started to make headlights, windshields, wipers, injection pumps for diesel, power drills, car radios, etc., for automobiles. By 1917, it was a corporation.
The expansion for the company started when it acquired the gas appliances production from Junkers & Co., followed by the founding of Dreilinden Maschinenbau GmbH in Kleinmachnow near Berlin and Elektro- und Feinmechanische Industrie GmbH in Hildesheim. The company also had a great role to play in the second World War, as it produced accessories for German Luftwaffe aircraft, equipment of tanks, tractors, and trucks of the Wehrmacht, starter elements for tanks, etc. During the same time, the company had grown to about 210 plants in 100 different locations.
The end of the Second World War was the new beginning for Bosch. It partnered with a Japanese company named Denso and in 1968. , founded a new development center in Schwieberdingen. In 1987, Bosch acquired Telenorma, which was renamed Bosch Telecom GmbH. The company has many inventions under its credits, including the traction control system (1986), the xenon light for cars (1991), and the electronic stability control (1995), etc.
The company also expanded its operations into other fields. The company invested in security products and systems like CCTV, public address system, etc., and acquired Philips CSI in 2002. The company also acquired companies like Telex Communications (2006), Electro-Voice (2006), Mannesmann Rexroth AG (2001), and ZF Lenksysteme (2015).
The Company Today
Bosch is one of the largest conglomerates and operates through its about 440 subsidiaries in around 60 countries. The company specializes in manufacturing, engineering, and sales. Other than that, the company is also into healthcare and medical technology (Bosch Healthcare Solutions), software technology (Bosch Software Innovations), venture capital (Grow Platform GmbH and Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH), etc.
Other than its 4000,000, the company has employed about 64,500 research associates in its research and development centers. In May 2019, the company announced that it will be “fully carbon-neutral” by 2020, and for that, the company has initiated multiple clean electricity and ambitious carbon offset programs.
The Founder
Robert Bosch the founder of Robert Bosch GmbH was born on 23 September 1861 in Albeck, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Confederation. Bosch went to the Realschule (secondary-technical school) in Ulm in 1969 and then started working as a precision mechanic apprentice. In the first seven years of his career, he worked for multiple companies in Germany, the US, and the UK. During the same time, he also worked for Thomas Edison in New York. After gaining enough experience he then started his own workshop on 15 November 1886, which later became today’s Bosch.
Under Bosch’s leadership, the company made multiple inventions and started to operate out of Germany as well. He is also credited to introduce the eight-hour workday, He was also among the ones who supported the resistance against Adolf Hitler and employed about 20,000 forced laborers (prisoners of war) from the war. Bosch is one of the greatest personalities of Germany and was awarded the “Pionier der Arbeit” (Pioneer of Labor). Robert Bosch died on 12 March 1942.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.