Watch: Bosch's Adam Olson on digitalisation, de-risking and developing talent

With the rise of AI and digitalisation in the modern automotive logistics sector, embracing emerging technologies and investing in developing a digitally skilled workforce is essential to remaining competitive in the coming years. Speaking on the Red Sofa at Automotive Logistics and Supply Chain Global, Adam Olson, vice president, logistics mobility Americas at Bosch, emphasised the importance of talent development to Bosch's business strategy.

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Earlier this year, Automotive Logistics spoke to Chandan Trehan, digital supply chains and logistics lead at Bosch North America, about how to achieve a people-centred digital transformation

Outlining the company's top priorities, Olson shared that enhancing supply chain resilience, de-risking the supply chain, digitalisation, automation and developing talent are top-of mind for him at the moment.

Resilience in uncertain times

From Covid-19 to recent US tariffs, large-scale supply chain disruptions in the past five years have underscored the critical need to ensure resilience in the supply chain. "We're doing a lot of stuff in that space, primarily around reworking the supply chain to make sure that we're fulfilling the needs of our customers and our suppliers, and then also intensively looking at different scenario planning," Olson explained.

Embracing digitalisation

Olson also identified that digitalisation is one of Robert Bosch's core strategies, with the company focusing on creating end-to-end transparency in the supply chain, as well as promoting "data-driven decision-making" and adopting automation.

When it comes to automation, Olson ponders: "How do we find that balance of giving the highest service level to our customers having the most efficient operations while balancing that cost?"

Retaining and developing talent

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The roles and expectations of those working in automotive logistics have undergone a significant shift in the past few years, as Olson alluded to.  "For me, the role is fundamentally changing," he shared. "So if you look at that role only three years ago, it's probably [centred more around] operational execution, whereas now we see our team members and our leaders are heavily focused on highly strategic decision-making as well as data literacy."

He added: "Our team members are now very proficient in data and that's not just reporting, it's more so [focused on] how you look at that data, how you lean into that data, analyse, understand correlations and different predictive models with that, and then how you tell a story with that data, and with that story start driving actions."

In the interest of promoting skills development and inspiring the next generation of automotive logistics professionals, Olson joined five other industry leaders as part of the student forum at Automotive Logistics and Supply Chain Global discussing strategies for bridging generations and ensuring automotive logistics remains an attractive and dynamic career path.