Tempered by the Crisis, Strengthened for the Future

BOSCH Group celebrates two milestones this year: the 125th anniversary of its establishment, and the 150th birthday of founder, Robert Bosch. This year also marks 150th year for Bosch Packaging Technology, which originated in 1861 as the Hesser company that Bosch later acquired. Today a leading global supplier of processing and packaging technology for the pharmaceutical, food and confectionery industries, Bosch Packaging's strong position in the emerging markets of Asia and Latin America enabled the company to make up for the negative economic impact of the European and North American markets, and allowed it to post sales of €770 million in 2010. Compared to last year, incoming orders at the start of 2011 are up 16% – with more than a fifth of incoming orders come from the emerging market countries, many in Asia. Bosch continues to expand in the region: building a new 33,000-m2 factory in its site in Goa to serve markets not only in India, but also elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa; and doubling the size to 9,000m2 of its Hangzhou facility in China, where the company is already the largest provider of packaging machines. Recent acquisitions – Germany-based drying and granulation equipment specialist Hüttlin and the UK-based Manesty, which specialises in tablet presses and coaters – strengthen its pharmaceutical systems portfolio. Friedbert Klefenz, president of Bosch Packaging Technology, says that even as the company looks back on its legacy, it remains even more committed to company philosophy 'Packaged as Promised' and sets its sight firmly on future growth. Mr Klefenz, who is also the current chairman of the VDMA division for Packaging Machines, explains the underlying reasons for this optimism.

Many companies in your industry have floundered since the last interpack and some have not even fully recovered, whilst Bosch actually acquired market share in that troublesome period after 2008. What accounts for this strength?
We have a worldwide set-up. We have 24 locations where we manufacture packaging and processing technology, and we can more easily strike a balance. We are globally active, and we are in a better position to put our people in regions that are moving.
For example, we have so many facilities in Asia, which have been doing well, and we could use the same sales channel [in Asia] to move the products produced here [in Europe] to the Asian markets.

Then you were not really caught unawares, as you had the people and you had the technology; but how hard has it been to shift people around?
It takes time, but not hard to do. It takes time because we have to build up the know-how. It's is not a problem, just time-consuming.
We were transferring people for a certain time, for example, from our centres of competence here in Europe to Asia, and transferring this know-how with these people to Asia, because you cannot simply transfer on paper – you need the people. We are a people business; we are not a paper business. Some will think, 'Oh, it's a ploy, 95% is on drawing', but the remaining 5% is in the hands of the people. These are their specialities.

How about from the point of view from your customers? Did anything change in terms of their requirements owing to the recession and the financial turmoil?
 I would say that for our customers, there was no [impact from] recession, because everyone has to eat. Our customers were only careful because they didn't know in which direction the economy was going, so they stopped some of their investments. On the other hand, this was one reason our competitors were going down – their customers holding down on iVapormax