S. Kumar, Commercial Head, Bosch Automotive Electronics India Pvt Ltd., is an alumnus of the Indo-German Training Centre. He has been associated with Bosch since last 12 years and holds his present position since the last 3 years. The IGCC spoke to Mr. Kumar about the IGTC, its students and his own experience of studying as per the German Dual System.
Mr. Kumar, what is your take on the IGTC and the Dual System of training?
IGTC as an institution does an excellent job in nurturing young talents for the future requirements of the organization. We have witnessed how a newly joined candidate acquires organizational etiquettes progressively and develops in each phase of the training and builds his/her behavioural, communication and presentation skills suiting to a multinational environment. At the end of their training, sometimes it is quite amazing to see how an institute could transform a graduate to a well-groomed talented person suited for a multinational organization. This positive approach topped by strong collaboration with German affiliates ensures that the students to get good opportunities to in their career.
What do you think of the qualities and abilities of the IGTC students?
IGTC supports in providing a very highly motivated and competent talents to our organization. The candidates demonstrate high dedication and commitment thereby enabling us to assign them interesting and challenging tasks even during their learning phase. Their high motivation levels aid in achieving good performance since they take up their tasks in a sincere manner.
During their learning phase of dual training, the students are able to understand the organizational needs much better. They gain a good awareness of various functions in the organization for selecting their right career path for the future. We see that the students subsequently joining us as our associates perform their tasks with a lot of passion and enthusiasm, which stems from the satisfaction of having selected the right career.
You are an alumnus of the IGTC yourself. Can you take us through your days at the IGTC and subsequent career path?
Yes, I joined IGTC with Siemens as the sponsoring company in year 1996. I hail from a small town and for me IGTC was already a big cultural shift. It was quite an interesting experience to join a very vibrant batch. We had batch-mates from almost all cities of the country. The curriculum was interesting and also sometimes challenging as it was a multi-disciplinary. Though I was a Cost Accountant while joining, it was still a nice experience to undergo a practical and interactive learning at IGTC. It added to the level of confidence and morale to handle complexities on the job.
I was with Siemens for about two years. I had to then relocate from Siemens to Bosch due to some personal reasons. I joined Bosch in the year 2000 as Officer and countered steady progress over the years. I took the responsibility of Aftermarket Finance in 2002 for the southern region, after which I moved to western region. In year 2003, I relocated to Bangalore and was briefly handling the entire north regional Aftermarket Finance operations. In 2005, I had an opportunity to assist the Joint Managing Director – Commercial of Bosch Ltd. I was in this assignment for 3 years. It was that time when Bosch decided on start up of a new company for Automotive Electronics Division. I took up the opportunity and did a short stint at Salzgitter, Germany for 10 months as part of the Project Relocation.
I returned to India in Jan 2009 and took over the opportunity to head Commercial function at Bosch Automotive Electronics India Pvt Ltd. We built this new company and started the entire Commercial function with a small team as we were still feeling the impact of recession in 2009. We started our operations fully in 2010 with further ramp up in 2011 to touch a turnover of Rs.1500 mil. This year is quite challenging as we relocate several production lines from other countries and we are expected to grow 3 times compared to 2011.
Overall it was an interesting journey so far and my present assignment is a very interesting since I handle all commercial functions to manage the company.
Could you give us a brief profile of your company? Do you plan to continue recruiting IGTC students?
Bosch Automotive Electronics is one of the youngest Bosch group companies in India. We are a separate legal entity, 100% Bosch Subsidiary of Automotive Electronics Division. We manufacture Engine Control Units for Diesel/ Gasoline Systems and Body Electronics for cars like Immobilisers, Body computer Modules etc. We cater mainly to the Indian OEMs but also support the worldwide Bosch customers.
We are associated with IGTC since the year 2010. As a mid-sized and fast growing organization, it gives us a lot of opportunities to award good projects/assignments to attract young talents. We are very happy with the performance of IGTC talents and we certainly encourage more in the upcoming years.
