Be a driving force for intelligent transformation with a stronger belief

Strong sense of responsibility, courage to change, continuous learning, and resilience are the basic traits that a successful entrepreneur should possess. Only by equipping oneself with these traits can organizations and companies have the same qualities and culture

——New Chairman of Siemens China

President and CEO

Dr. Xiao Song

Recently, Siemens held a unique media conference where Dr. Xiao Song, the newly appointed Chairman, President, and CEO of Siemens China, gave his first collective interview to over ten media outlets. He shared his thoughts and insights on industry development, as well as Siemens' business and digital strategic planning layout in China.

Dr. Xiao Song, who made his first public appearance as the "head of Siemens China", left a deep impression on Gong Gong. He was elegant yet graceful, steady yet approachable, which was his first impression on people.

It is understood that Dr. Xiao Song has served as an executive director in multiple industrial enterprises and innovative startups, with over 25 years of management experience in Europe, South America, and Asia, including China. It is worth noting that he also worked at Siemens for more than ten years, responsible for managing the company's previous automotive business, as well as urban and infrastructure related businesses, including transportation, logistics, medium and low voltage, smart grids, and building technology.

For such a senior entrepreneur who has worked at Siemens before and has experience in globalization, cross industry management, and entrepreneurship, I believe everyone will be curious: what drove him to return to Siemens again? What are the different feelings after returning again?

Dr. Xiao Song shared his feelings this time:

The first feeling is that Siemens is a respected brand, and the innovative genes that have been passed down from its inception to the present, the spirit of courage to move forward and change, and the continuous promotion of customer-oriented and growth oriented thinking are all very worthy of our learning. This time when I return to Siemens, I will deeply integrate into China's new development pattern with my Chinese colleagues with a stronger belief, and make new contributions to the high-quality development of the Chinese economy.

The second feeling is that Siemens has undergone many beneficial changes in the past few years. Siemens has now become a technology company focused on the fields of industry, infrastructure, transportation, and healthcare. At the same time, our goals, focused concepts, and strategic priorities are very clear, namely: "customer achievement", "technological advancement", "empowering people", and "growth mindset". Future high-quality growth will also be achieved under the guidance of these four strategic priorities.

Keyword: Continuous Localization

Siemens, rooted in China for nearly 150 years, has become a localized Chinese enterprise, fully integrated into China's economic and social development. Gongkong noticed that in the previously published introduction by Dr. Xiao Song, there was also a sentence describing him as having a profound understanding of the local market.

In recent years, foreign companies in China have started to have Chinese faces with local market experience at the helm, in order to further penetrate the Chinese market and serve local users. Dr. Xiao Song's arrival is believed to be an important strategic decision made by Siemens to further strengthen localization.

For a long time, Siemens has been thinking and implementing how to better empower local businesses and respond faster in the market. In some business lines, Siemens has already established its global headquarters in China. For example, in 2019, Siemens established its global headquarters for low-voltage motor business in China, which clearly demonstrates the value that quick decision-making brings to customers.

Our commitment to China will not change, and we will continue to invest in innovation and talent. The native digital factory in Nanjing, Jiangsu will officially debut in the second half of this year. This is a completely new generation, based on the needs of Chinese customers and efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and digitalization, "said Dr. Xiao Song.

Keywords: carbon neutrality

Coping with climate change is a global issue. Since the beginning of this year, China has successively included the "dual carbon" target in government work reports and the 14th Five Year Plan, further promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of various industries. Carbon peaking and carbon neutrality have also become hot topics of concern for multinational corporations.

As a global technology leader, what is Siemens' understanding and deployment of the dual carbon target?

It is understood that in terms of its own operations, Siemens became one of the first industrial enterprises in the world to commit to achieving carbon neutrality in its business operations by 2030, even before the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015. Since announcing this goal, the company's carbon dioxide emissions have been reduced by more than half. In addition, Siemens has committed to reducing carbon emissions in its supply chain by 20% by 2030 and striving to achieve supply chain carbon neutrality by 2050.

Dr. Xiao Song introduced that Siemens believes that clean energy production, electrification of energy consumption, and energy efficiency improvement are the three major levers for achieving carbon neutrality and low-carbon transformation. Siemens, with its advanced energy-saving and environmental protection business portfolio, helps enterprises of different fields and scales achieve a win-win situation of environmental and economic benefits.

Siemens' product portfolio covers a wide range of fields and is committed to helping customers make more efforts towards achieving carbon neutrality goals through a rich product portfolio.

For example, in terms of energy efficiency improvement, Siemens' low-voltage motor business has planned to replace all about 500 motors in the Yizheng factory with high-efficiency motors that comply with IE3 standards, with an estimated annual savings of 300000 kWh of electricity. At the same time, Siemens is also installing a photovoltaic power generation system for its Yizheng factory. After completion, the project will be able to generate 5 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year and reduce carbon emissions by about 4700 tons per year.

In terms of reducing building carbon emissions, Siemens has a complete digital product portfolio. Through the building energy management system, it can clearly understand the energy usage of every aspect of the building and take timely measures to reduce energy consumption. At Siemens' Beijing campus, a rooftop photovoltaic project has been successfully deployed, which is expected to help the campus reduce over 8700 tons of carbon emissions in the next 25 years.

Keywords: digital transformation

Digital transformation is one of the important focuses for the present and for a long time to come. Over the past few years, Siemens has been deeply involved in the field of digital transformation and has been driving the implementation of digital transformation from various aspects. But Siemens also understands that no single giant enterprise can meet all the needs of digital transformation for enterprises alone.

Digital transformation requires win-win cooperation and leveraging each other's strengths. For example, in China, Siemens' MindSphere industrial IoT as a service solution has been running on Alibaba Cloud since April 2019, and so far about 200 companies have become account owners. In April 2021, Siemens' Mendix low code platform was officially launched on Tencent Cloud.

"Siemens' advantages lie in our industry experience and deep understanding of customers, but Siemens is not an expert in cloud infrastructure. Therefore, we need to cooperate with professional enterprises in these fields." Dr. Xiao Song further added, "AliCloud and Tencent Cloud are ahead of the industry in cloud infrastructure, and we should make good use of their advantages. At the same time, we also welcome more Internet companies to join Siemens' MindSphere and edge computing ecosystem, give play to their respective advantages, and accelerate digital transformation. ”

For all enterprises, in the process of digital transformation, whether it is 5G, edge computing or AI technology, it needs to be combined with specific application scenarios. Although small and medium-sized enterprises may not have a deep understanding of application scenarios as top enterprises, they usually specialize in certain specific fields, have higher flexibility, and can also leverage greater advantages.

Siemens has been focusing on the digital transformation of various types and scales of enterprises, including small and medium-sized enterprises, and has launched lightweight digital solutions to meet their needs, helping them reduce investment in complex IT infrastructure, lower the threshold for digitalization, and drive business growth.

For example, in Zhongshan, Siemens cooperated with local partners based on the Siemens MindSphere platform to establish an industrial Internet enabling center to find customized digital solutions for SMEs.

Another transformation worth paying attention to is Siemens Digital Industries Group. Starting from the fiscal year 2022, the Digital Industries Group will undergo a significant transformation in its business model, with a significant portion of its software business shifting towards a Software as a Service (SaaS) model.

Speaking of this strategic shift, Dr. Xiao Song stated that Siemens will launch a SaaS product portfolio through subscription in the future, which can bring more possibilities to customers, especially reducing infrastructure investment for small and medium-sized enterprises and lowering digital barriers.

For example, in the past, customers may have needed to spend a large one-time investment, but now they can choose which combination is more suitable for the transformation of the enterprise based on the product portfolio provided by Siemens. In addition, Siemens will also develop corresponding product portfolios based on the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises. For example, the SIMICAS lightweight solution that has been launched to support the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises.