Simply over six months into the union of German components large ZF Friedrichshafen and U.S.-based Wabco Holdings Inc., the businesses are making progress in combining their skills to develop applied sciences for business automobiles.
And that is regardless of the problem of a digital integration by the 2 firms with out all the standard handshakes, face-to-face conferences and receptions to get to know one another.
ZF, a provider of transmission, chassis elements and techniques, and steering, braking and energetic and passive security techniques, closed its $7 billion acquisition of the Auburn Hills, Mich., trucking components provider in Might, simply because the business was beginning to ramp up after the pandemic-forced shutdown.
Integrating the 2 massive industrial firms has been distinctive beneath work-from-home stipulations world wide. However ZF and the previous Wabco have synergies in superior driver-assist techniques and autonomous options which have already proved useful, ZF CEO Wolf-Henning Scheider informed Automotive Information.
“It’s the good match, these two firms,” Scheider mentioned. “The present product portfolio of each firms suits collectively very, very properly.
“On the electronics aspect, Wabco had already developed software program elements and ECUs that management the dynamics of the automobile, whereas ZF has a reasonably vital piece within the space of cameras and radars and notion of the automobile,” he added. “That’s an instance the place we put instantly our competencies collectively.”
Scheider mentioned the mix of the 2 firms’ expertise has already resulted in new potentialities, which shall be seen in an as-yet-unannounced product launch subsequent yr. Wabco additionally gave ZF a big place within the Indian market, the place ZF didn’t beforehand have a robust foothold.
The acquisition “helped us additionally to steadiness out our worldwide presence within the business automobile sector on a reasonably equal degree,” Scheider mentioned, “irrespective of in what area we’re working them.”
The Wabco acquisition adopted one other strategic transfer ZF made within the U.S. in 2015, when it purchased airbag and security provider TRW Automotive for $13.5 billion as a part of a shift away from its focus on heavy components corresponding to transmissions and axles. The TRW acquisition helped make ZF a key participant in self-driving and superior security applied sciences.
With $34.23 billion in gross sales to world automakers in 2019, down from $34.48 billion the yr earlier than, ZF is a mammoth swallowing Wabco. Wabco reported revenue of $3.83 billion in 2019, largely from braking management techniques and different security applied sciences for business automobiles.
However Wabco will speed up ZF’s portfolio enlargement now, Scheider mentioned. It already has bolstered ZF’s work in linked automobiles and autonomous vans, he mentioned.
“We’re fairly properly underway now in integrating, already creating synergies, already creating widespread merchandise,” mentioned Scheider, who has been chief government since 2018. “Solely six months after the closing, I am very constructive about this merger.”
Except for having to combine nearly, the Wabco acquisition went largely unbothered by COVID-19, Scheider mentioned.
However like many suppliers across the business, ZF’s general enterprise has been hit by the disaster. The company noticed a 26 p.c drop in gross sales within the first half of this yr.
With Wabco on board, Scheider anticipates rising general chassis integration and automobile dynamics, combining these with automated security features, and offering superior telematics features and connectivity.
“An important matter past buying and gross sales matters is new merchandise and techniques for our clients to an extent that they could not have earlier than,” Scheider mentioned.
Scheider is optimistic.
“I take into account COVID as a reset and a relaunch of issues we’ve talked lengthy about — however at a quicker pace,” he mentioned. “I’d say this has elevated the pace by a minimum of two or three years.
“We determined in March that we cannot develop any merchandise for a standard combustion engine anymore and put our sources absolutely on new merchandise as a result of we simply realized if we do not do it, we can not attain the pace that is needed for this conversion that we’re seeing arising on us.”