Schaeffler unveils new world of mobility

Klaus Rosenfeld listens intently as the conversation veers around to mobility and his company’s interests in this space. We are in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and reasonably insulated from the rush hour chaos of Mumbai’s evening traffic.

As Chief Executive Officer of Schaeffler, a company which specialises in rolling element bearings for auto and industrial applications, Rosenfeld is only too aware that the world is changing rapidly. “Mobility is one of the most important drivers of wealth. A country that wants to improve needs mobility concepts,” he says.

Additionally, the rapid pace of urbanisation across the world only means that there is a need for new mobility concepts for people to move around in cities. By this time, Rosenfeld is warming up to the subject as he shows me a picture of an “electrified rickshaw” that the company has developed.

Fresh mobility solutions

Called a Bio-Hybrid, it is supported by an electric powertrain solution. The user can ride it like a bicycle while there is a cover for protection when it rains. Rosenfeld is clearly pleased but still circumspect. “I am scratching my head on purpose because I am not sure if we will earn money on it,” he laughs.

The Bio-Hybrid will, in all likelihood, debut sometime soon and perhaps pave the way for more such innovations. This is when he shows me a visual of the Schaeffler Mover, the other four-wheeled mobility solution for people in cities.

Rosenfeld reiterates that the company remains essentially true to its competence in the B2B space as an ancillary supplier. “If you are conscious about your own product being bought by the end customer, you should not be a supplier. We would like to experiment with these things though,” he explains.

Growing mega cities

This thought process is keeping in line with Schaeffler’s own vision on future mobility and the imperatives of coping with new challenges of urbanisation. As Rosenfeld says, with the increasing number of cars, there is not enough space in the world to be able to keep pace.

As the number of inhabitants also increases, it puts more pressure given that three-quarters of these people are going to live in big cities. Cars, on the other hand, will only be used used five to ten per cent of the time and essentially parked somewhere otherwise. “From an economic point of view, this will lead to shared mobility in crowded cities,” says Rosenfeld.

It is in this context that the Schaeffler Mover will help people get around in crowded cities. It can also double-up for other applications like a mobile pharmacy, for instance. From the company’s point of view, it boils down to offering solutions in a rapidly changing world.

Beyond this, Schaeffler will focus on its core competence of engineering. “We always think out of the box and understand what is happening around the world. The team is agile and open-minded,” says Rosenfeld.

For instance, the head of technology is aged 63 and yet “one of the most visionary people I know”. He is a professor who is thinking about the bicycle of the future or a skateboard that can help people move. Schaeffler, he adds, is an open culture for innovation, which is constantly pushing the envelope.

“In today’s uncertain and volatile world, it is important to have a strong team together and you are willing to communicate with the top people. If you understand the purpose of what you are doing and share it, you can handle difficult situations,” elaborates Rosenfeld.

On the other hand, if there is no common purpose or an understanding of where things are going, it becomes difficult. “In today’s world, the team should be together and work towards the same direction. Concentrate on doing what you can do best,’ he says.

India plans

On the India front, the company recently wrapped up a restructuring exercise where it merged the operations of the unlisted INA Bearings and LuK Bearings with the listed Schaeffler India. “I asked myself why we have this strange structure of having two 100 per cent subsidiaries with different names and one with 48 per cent public shareholding,” recollects Rosenfeld.

For years prior to this, the country was also largely perceived in the narrow prism of being an affordable mobility market. One of the first things he did when he took over as CEO was a reorganising exercise to be able to acknowledge “the big mistake” of India being managed out of China.

Till that time, the Schaeffler world was split into North America, South America and Asia Pacific (Korea, Japan, SE Asia, China and India), managed out of Shanghai. When Rosenfeld took over in 2014, the group decided to manage North and South America out of North America. This basically comprised Canada, US, Mexico and Brazil with a little bit of Argentina.

“We then decided to split China and make it a separate region. The Americas are the biggest because of the US primarily and China is third, though the fastest growing region in terms of size. Then we said we would form one region comprising Korea, Japan and SE Asia called Asia-Pacific managed out of Singapore,” says Rosenfeld.

All the European countries, India, the Middle East and Russia are now part of one region. To some, this may seem an intriguing classification, especially in the case of India, but then there are global banks whose Indian operations are managed out of London.

“I always thought India was closer to Europe than to China. With that switch established, we have started to refocus more strongly,” says the Schaeffler CEO. According to him, India is the fastest growing region in the world with the youngest population. In the Schaeffler business of automotive and industrial applications, there is a lot of potential here in areas like mobility, emissions and so on.

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