Empowering our customers to build tomorrow

It wasn’t my plan to join Siemens. Growing up in Erlangen, where everyone I knew seemed to work for Siemens, I wanted to do something bigger with my life. However, when a brilliant physicist from Siemens, who was supporting me with my PhD studies, introduced me to the amazing technologies that his colleagues were working on, my plan changed. This I realized was a company that was working to solve the big challenges in the world, on technologies that make a difference.

As I assume responsibility for the new Siemens, 26 years later, this is even more relevant now. Today, Siemens begins a new chapter as a technology company, centered on those industries that form the backbone of economies – manufacturing, infrastructure, and transport. Our company is changing so that we can serve our customers better, by innovating faster. Everything we do will be about empowering our customers to be successful. Everything we do will be about shaping a more sustainable world.

This decade is the moment for industry and infrastructure

Nowadays, every company needs to become a technology company. The pandemic has upended our world and things won’t be returning to the way they were. In this decade, the onus will be on every organization to reduce their carbon footprint and use fewer natural resources. Digital transformation will be imperative for every company in every industry to increase their resilience, to reimagine their operations and business models and to navigate the uncertain times that lie ahead.

Yes, it’s a time of big challenges, but it’s also a time of opportunity. For many of the industries we serve – from pharmaceuticals, to marine transport to building construction, which have low levels of digitalization, the potential to improve productivity, to reduce costs and energy consumption is huge. If this last decade was about connecting consumers, then this decade is the moment for industry and infrastructure.

Transforming the everyday

At Siemens, we’re helping customers to transform their industries – to build more agile factories, more intelligent infrastructure, and more sustainable transport. With our deep domain knowhow and our ability to combine the physical and the digital worlds, we can help our customers to become technology companies too. We’re connecting devices, machines, and entire systems, using IoT and AI to make them smarter, to predict outcomes and prevent failures. We’re using digital twin technology to simulate and optimize design and processes and to accelerate time to market. We’re helping customers to do more with less. And by helping our customers to transform the industries that are the backbone of economies, we’re helping them transform the everyday for billions of people.

Growing together through partnerships

Being more innovative means being more open to change, always learning and trying new things, pursuing new collaborations. In this chapter, we want to grow and deepen our partnerships, so that we can combine our strengths and expertise with others, to develop innovations faster and bring greater benefits for our customers and our ecosystem. Like our recent partnership with Salesforce, with whom we’re joining forces to enable a safe return to work during a pandemic and creating smart, connected workplaces for the future. We want to pursue more partnerships like these because this way we create more value for everyone.

We will also continue to focus our R&D efforts into those technology areas that have the potential to transform industries and solve some of the world’s toughest challenges. Siemens already has a strong innovation ecosystem, where we collaborate with partners around the world from startups to research institutions and we intend to expand our ecosystem much further.

Building tomorrow

It’s been 173 years since Werner von Siemens launched a technology venture in a backyard in Berlin and the journey has been remarkable. From humble startup to industrial conglomerate to three independent, focused companies: Siemens Healthineers, Siemens Energy and Siemens. As I take on the responsibility to lead this new Siemens alongside my new Managing Board team, I am very grateful and humbled. Together with the team, Ralf Thomas, Judith Wiese, Cedrik Neike, Matthias Rebellius, and I look forward to leading our company into the future. Thanks to the leadership team and the efforts of all our employees, Siemens is in a strong starting position. From now until February 2021, Joe Kaeser and I will work together during the transition period. Klaus Helmrich will support Cedrik until the end of March, for an optimal transition. I thank the entire Siemens leadership and I thank the Supervisory Board for their trust in us.

While Siemens has changed over time, the one thing that remains constant is why we are here: to solve our customers’ challenges through innovative technologies. Our customers are the engines that power industries and economies and we’re proud to provide the technologies and solutions to drive you forward. We’re excited about what the new Siemens can do for you, all 240,000 of us in 200 countries around the world. And we’re ready to help you, our customers, to transform the everyday and build what comes next.