Siemens 2011 Annual Report Download - page 165

153 D. Consolidated Financial Statements
273 E. Additional information
143 C.2 Additional information for supplemental
financial measures
145 C. Siemens AG (Discussion on basis of
German Commercial Code)
151 C. Notes and forward-looking statements
140 C. Information required pursuant to Section  ()
and Section  () no.  of the German Commer-
cial Code (HGB) and explanatory report
142 C. Compensation report and Corporate Governance
statement pursuant to Section a of the German
Commercial Code (HGB)

approach throughout the Company to increase the quality of
its products and processes. Siemens has defined binding stan-
dards in the areas of quality responsibility, quality controlling,
process quality and quality awareness for all Siemens units
worldwide.
The quality management organization, with some 10,000 em-
ployees in our continuing operations, is well-established at all
levels of our business and is operating actively for quality
management and quality assurance within our Sectors, Divi-
sions, Business Units, and regional Clusters. In particular, it is
important to ensure that quality is measurable and transpar-
ent. Our main objective in terms of quality is high customer
satisfaction, which we measure using the Net Promoter Score.
For further information on the Net Promoter Score, see
C... Distribution and customer relations. Internal audits
and assessments, together with regular benchmarking, help
us to ensure the effectiveness and further development of our
quality management. The Siemens Quality Management
meets – and in many respects exceeds – the requirements of
relevant recognized international standards.
The quality of our products and processes critically depends
on the capabilities of our employees. Training on quality is
an integral part of our corporate culture. Siemens provides a
comprehensive range of opportunities for quality managers,
managers and employees to develop their skills. The profes-
sional development options include web-based solutions,
training plans specific to particular target groups, and on-the-
job training. The customized portfolio of training courses is
regularly expanded to complement the traditional areas of the
Siemens Quality Management approach like quality manage-
ment in projects, inspections and audits as well as quality
tools. Training courses are developed in cooperation with ex-
perienced internal personnel and experts from universities
and partner institutions. In this way, we ensure that there is a
high degree of transfer of expertise within the Company as
well as with external specialists.
Product safety is an essential aspect of product quality and an
element of technical compliance. For this reason product safe-
ty is also a comprehensive objective of the entire value-added
process. Safe product design encompasses the safety of all
products and services developed, manufactured and sold by
Siemens. It involves and defines requirements for just about
every function in the Company und addresses the entire lifecy-
cle from development, production and maintenance / repair to
enhancement / modification until final disposal. Accordingly,
we consider legal requirements and relevant standards as well
as the current state of science and technology.
C... DISTRIBUTION AND CUSTOMER RELATIONS
Our Sectors, Divisions and Business Units have global respon-
sibility for their business, sales and results. They are able to
support customers around the world directly from their re-
spective headquarters, especially for large contracts and proj-
ects. However, most of the Siemens customers are small and
medium-sized companies and organizations, which require
local support. To address local business with them, Siemens
is able to draw upon a large global sales force which is steered
by our regional companies. They are responsible for the distri-
bution of the Siemens portfolio across our Sectors and Divi-
sions in their respective countries. This keeps Siemens close
to its customers around the world and offers them local part-
nerships that provide fast and tailor-made solutions to their
business needs. We believe that our presence in around 
countries gives us an important competitive edge in our mar-
kets. Because of our long-lasting local presence we are often
perceived as local citizens. Taking the fast-growing BRIC coun-
tries as an example, we founded our first subsidiary in Russia
in , opened our first permanent office in China in ,
founded our Brazilian subsidiary Siemens do Brasil in 
and our first Indian subsidiary in . An elementary compo-
nent of all our global marketing and selling activities is com-
pliance with applicable laws and internal rules and regula-
tions. For additional information regarding our Compliance
Program, see C... Compliance.
An important driver of customer orientation at Siemens is our
Executive Relationship Program which focuses on our large
customers and which we further expanded during fiscal .
It is our way of establishing and shaping long-term relation-
ships with executives of around  of our customers. We
have established this program on a Managing Board level: all
members of our Managing Board keep in direct contact with
key customers, and thereby maintain a constant dialogue
with them as well as personally listen to their needs. In addi-
tion, this program was introduced on a country level involv-
ing senior management representatives from our regional
companies.
Building long-lasting and customer-focused strategic partner-
ships is important for Siemens as our portfolio primarily fo-
cuses on capital goods and related services, often with long
lifecycles. We therefore have a structured key account man-