Bosch Puts Service First

By Phil Latz | 4th April 2024 |

Person training a group of students with bicycle — Bosch’s Kieran Bennett explains the latest updates to the diagnostic tools to a group of attentive bicycle dealers.

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The team at Bosch eBike Systems are about to embark on their annual Dealer Training national tour. All Australian bicycle dealers and their teams are welcome to attend what is arguably the most extensive and best-resourced dealer training series that any bicycle related company conducts in Australia.

The lengths to which Bosch goes to meet face to face, educate and support their dealers reflects core elements of the company’s philosophy.

Everyone in the bicycle trade has heard of Bosch, who not only pioneered eBike drive systems and standards, but still to this day has by far the largest market share, both within Australia and globally of all eBike drive systems. But few people know about the unique company history and structure, that has been a catalyst for this success.

Person teaching in training room — Ross Wilkinson instructing dealers during a training day last year.

Charity-Owned with a Long Term Outlook

Robert Bosch founded the company in his back yard in Germany way back in 1886. The company developed electrical components from the very earliest days of the automobile and grew in sync with that industry.

It’s now a true global conglomerate, creating products across many industries with 421,338 staff in 2021 and total sales that year of €78.74 billion (A$130 billion). Uniquely, Bosch is 92% owned by a charity, the Robert Bosch ‘Stiftung’ (Foundation) that donates its dividends to a range of health, education, social and other charitable causes. The remaining 8% is owned by the Bosch family. The charity has no voting rights. Therefore after 138 years Bosch is still a family-controlled private company with incredibly stable ownership.

This unique ownership structure allows Bosch to take a long term view on all product development and strategic planning – free from the usual shareholder and media pressure with every quarterly earnings report that their publicly owned competitors face.

This allows Bosch eBike Systems to pour huge resources into areas where others are under pressure to cut corners.

For example, in terms of keeping spare parts in stock, Bosch prioritises service of existing components over new sales.

Even when supply chains were under severe pressure, Bosch maintained healthy levels of inventory in terms of warranty spare parts and after sales parts in Australia throughout the covid demand surge.

Bosch sees education as a core function. They want to interact with all levels of the supply chain, from importer, to dealer, mechanic and consumer.

Product shot of e-bike drive unit — Bosch PerformanceLine SX drive unit.

Full Local Support Team

Bosch founded Bosch eBike Systems, starting in Europe in 2009. Then in 2015 Bosch created an Australian office and local product support.

Bosch eBike Systems Oceania’s primary focus is to support dealers across Australia and New Zealand.

Today the team consists of:

Ross Wilkinson, Team Manager for eBike Oceania, based in Melbourne

Matt Hopper, Technical Representative based in Brisbane.

Philip Wood, Technical Representative based in Melbourne.

Kieran Bennett, Technical Representative for New Zealand, based in Nelson.

David Geen, Service Manager, based in Melbourne

Hannah Bayard, Marketing & Communications, based in Melbourne

BikeSportz (Aus) and Marleen Wholesalers (NZ) are the respective Bosch Service Partners responsible for technical enquiries and warranty support.

Product shot of e-bike battery — Bosch CompactTube 400 battery

2024 Dealer Training Sessions Starting in April!

Each year the Bosch team go on the road making it as easy as possible for dealers to attend their local Dealer Training Session. All Dealer Training Sessions are free of charge, including full catering.

Although you will see in the schedule below that there are multiple days in larger cities, they’re all the same one day training sessions, repeated each day. This not only allows dealers to pick the day that suits them best, but it means dealers can spread their staff attending across different days to minimise disruption to their store.

There is no limit to the number staff from any store, but total capacity is capped to approximately 30 people per day. Larger cities will sell out, so be quick!

Each day runs from a 10am start to a 4pm finish.

Attendees are presented with an eBike training certificate to say that they’ve attended training, that they might choose to put onto their workshop wall or website.

Mobile mechanics and workshop based businesses are also welcome to attend, but they must have an account with BikeSportz to access spare parts and all applications to attend are checked manually by Bosch. No consumers are admitted.

What Will You Learn?

The training is multi-faceted. Most importantly, workshop is only one part of it.
It’s not just about diagnostics and other information for mechanics to fix problems although this is one key element.

The ultimate objective is to minimize down time for consumers. In the rare event of a problem, being able to quickly diagnose the problem saves time.

But beyond diagnostics – Dealer Training will make it easier for dealers and their teams to explain the Bosch products and how their products benefit consumers.

These days Bosch eBike Systems are more complex and include features such as anti-theft, navigation, connectivity, anti-lock braking and more.

Leading stores understand the importance of training to enhance product knowledge of their team members. Many eBike consumers are savvy, conducting their own research before they go into the store.

The store member must be equipped to answer their questions on various features.
Even if you attended last year, dealers need to attend every year because
there’s plenty of information to absorb and the product range is developing so quickly.

The days of bike shops being able to succeed without knowing how to sell and service eBikes are gone. eBikes have grown our industry and broadened our consumer base, which is great, but it doesn’t come for free and there’s now an onus on all dealers to invest the time in understanding how to service this new market.