One-on-one with Siemens Industry Solutions CEO

The Siemens Industry Solutions Division (Erlangen, Germany) is one of the world's leading solution and service providers for industrial and infrastructure facilities comprising the business activities of Siemens VAI Metals Technologies, Water Technologies and Industrial Technologies. Activities include engineering and installation, operation and service for the entire life cycle. A wide-ranging portfolio of environmental solutions helps industrial companies use energy, water and equipment efficiently, reduce emissions and comply with environmental guidelines. With about 29,000 employees worldwide (September 30), Siemens Industry Solutions posted sales of €6.0 billion in fiscal year 2010.
Jens Wegmann, CEO of the Siemens Industry Solutions Division, has been with Siemens for about 20 years. He started his career within the company in the United States being responsible for building up and running a pulp and paper business in the largest market of the world. Afterward, he took over a global leadership in the iron and steel making environment and was appointed CEO for the Business Unit metals, mining and paper. In October 2008, Jens Wegmann became CEO of the Industry Solutions Division.
Fredrick Royan, Research Manager, Environment & Building Technologies, Frost & Sullivan, in conversation with Jens Wegmann, CEO of the Siemens Industry Solutions Division.

Sustainability is being recognised by businesses as a key driver for growth. What is your vision?
Jens Wegmann: Let me start with what Siemens is all about. It is an integrated technology company with one main mission: We want to create sustainable value for our customers by technology leadership. The overall objective is, thus, to create benefits for our customers, for our investors and obviously also for our employees. Siemens has set priorities working around the Mega Trends as demographic change, climate change and urbanisation.
Especially the industry sector has clearly focused on the last two of these trends. From an industry perspective, we have a good leverage to work on energy efficiency and to enable the reduction of CO2 emissions.

How do you see green solutions fitting into your technology portfolio?
Jens Wegmann: Siemens, in general, is the world's largest provider of environmental technologies, generating some €28 billion - more than one-third of its total revenue - from green products and solutions. To achieve this, it is clearly not enough just to call our portfolio green. We have defined three areas - renewable energy, environmental portfolio and energy-efficient solutions - which have to reach Key Performance Indicator targets. On company level we have even established a Sustainability Board. On division level we are also driving sustainable solutions; the Industry Solutions Division generates about 6 percent of the total Siemens revenue created around the green portfolio.

One of the big areas of demand is definitely water; almost 1 billion people worldwide have only inadequate access to clean drinking water. Water treatment and transportation require a lot of energy. Therefore, our solutions focus on energy efficiency. Talking about water, energy and CO2, you can't separate one from another - they are all interdependent.

An interesting development I've read recently is the launch of the Eco-Care-Matrix by Siemens.
Jens Wegmann: The development of the Eco-Care-Matrix has been a joint effort with the University of Copenhagen. With this tool we bring togetheNike Magista Obra