Siemens 2009 Annual Report Download - page 45

43
 Our structure
48 Pushing innovation to new heights –
Our Inventors of the Year
50 Integrity and responsible value creation
Electric mobility is another field in which our company has always been a pioneer.
We began manufacturing electric cars back in . One early model was the Electric
Victoria, which began rolling through the streets of Berlin as a taxi and delivery vehicle
in  – technologically way ahead of its time. In cooperation with specialty manufac-
turer RUF Automobile GmbH, we recently unveiled the eRUF Greenster, a converted
Porsche that demonstrates just how attractive electric vehicles can be today.
. Worldwide presence – A strong local partner to our customers
Serving our customers as effectively and quickly as possible, all around the globe – this is the second key
enabler of profitable long-term growth. We have to keep expanding our local presence to ensure that we
can respond rapidly to changing market requirements. After all, market proximity is not something that
can be created at company headquarters. It can only be cultivated by maintaining close customer relation-
ships and a strong local presence. That’s why we make sure that we’re always where our customers and
markets are and where growth is strongest. This is particularly vital in view of the increasingly noticeable
shift in the balance of economic power. According to current forecasts, by , economic growth in to-
day’s emerging countries will be twice as fast as in the industrialized nations. The economies of the BRIC
countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – are expected to grow three times as fast as those of their more
industrialized counterparts. In terms of economic performance, the emerging countries are continually
narrowing the gap to the industrialized world.
To ensure that we participate in this growth, we launched the top+ SMART initiative in . SMART
stands for Simple, Maintenance friendly, Affordable, Reliable and Timely to market, and the initiative aims
to offer products, solutions and services for the fast-growing low- and medium-end market segments. This
approach has two clear advantages. First, it enables us to move into additional markets. Second, it makes
it harder for our competitors to penetrate our established markets, because it forces them to compete with
us on their home turf. But it means that we have to give our local managers the leeway they need to make
decisions. And it also means that we have to serve the entire value chain – from sales and procurement to
production and product management – from local markets. That’s the only way to develop and launch
competitive products tailored to specific market requirements as quickly as possible. And it’s the only way
to support our customers worldwide – and acquire new customers – via our local service network. What’s
more, in the medium term, we can also leverage the product knowhow and cost-optimization expertise we
gain in low- and medium-end markets to develop products for high-end segments.