Bosch Middle East and Africa, the regional arm of the global automotive aftermarket supplier, has announced a 15 per cent growth target across the region for 2014, built on a four-way strategy.

Andreas Bodemer, vice president for Bosch Automotive Aftermarket, Middle East and Africa, said the four pillars to achieve the target 15 per cent growth by the end of the year include retail, sales programme, and service centre expansion, along with an invigorated promotional campaign.

He delivered that message to a regional audience of more than 50 Bosch representatives from 16 countries at the recent annual Bosch Customer Convention in Dubai.

“For the last two years Bosch Automotive Aftermarket has enjoyed double digit growth across the Middle East and Africa region, but rather than rest on our laurels, we want to keep on growing and increase our market share,” said Bodemer.

“There are four blocks of success which will take us to our 15 per cent target growth by the end of the year.  Firstly we need to increase our visibility by doubling the number of retailers that supply our products. We would also like to increase the number of Bosch service centres by 2015 to 400.

“The service centres are large consumers of our automotive parts and this strong forward integration can account for more than 20 per cent of the aftermarket parts sales,” he added.

“We need to expand our sales programme so that we are selling more units to a larger number of customers through our existing channels, thus spreading the Bosch brand deeper and wider in the market.

“Finally, in order to be on ‘top of mind’ for retailers, 2014 will be the year of new and exciting promotional campaigns, spearheaded by a series of at least 30 ‘Sales Blitz’ events targeted at retailers across the region,” Bodemer concluded.

Bosch Automotive Aftermarket Middle East and Africa currently has 220 Bosch Car Service workshops, 15 Express Car Service Centres, 50 Diesel Service workshops, and six Bosch Diesel Centres across the region, bringing the total tally of automotive aftermarket service centres to 291.

Recording double digit sales growth across all its main automotive parts divisions in 2013, the big focus for 2014 will be on braking components, rotating machines, batteries and wipers, along with workshop concepts and selling to its existing network of workshops. – TradeArabia News Service