A Visit to: SIEMENS CANADA
An interview with its President Dr. Albert Maringer
Deutsche Rundschau: Dr. Maringer, Siemens has played a definitive part in Canada’s impressive industrial history. In your opinion, what are the most significant milestones that Siemens has achieved during the last few decades?
Dr. Maringer: Following the loss of the Second World War, German-based companies in most instances not only lost their overseas assets but also “name rights” were taken away. This, of course, hit Siemens worldwide very hard. It took us until 1965 to get Siemens “name rights” back in Canada. At the same time, it is important to realize that Siemens historically had a strong business base in Eastern Europe and these were cut off by the Iron Curtain. At that time, Siemens’ business interests were never really directed towards the West, however, when Siemens realized that the Iron Curtain would remain in place much longer than anticipated, it began to redirect its business attention and turned its sights towards the West.
In the early 1970s, we began to make inroads in North America, particularly the United States and grew primarily through acquisition of local U.S. based companies. Siemens sent me to the States at that time as one of the first Siemens representatives to a joint venture between Siemens and Allis Chalmers. When acquiring a US company, you usually set a precedent for doing business in Canada at the same time. With some homegrown businesses in Canada, Siemens started to grow its base, but it took almost until the mid-90s to realize that Canada had a growing marketplace, which was sustained on its own merits and was gaining an own identity apart from the U.S., both economically and culturally. Siemens recognized a need for a dedicated agenda for doing business in Canada. Considering the fact that Siemens had a relatively late start in North America, we are currently the largest German-based company in Canada. We recognize that Canada is the seventh largest economy in the world and all things being equal, if Siemens in Canada was the seventh largest company in the Siemens family, we would be a seven billion dollar entity in Canada.
Deutsche Rundschau: Measured relative to the total global results of Siemens AG, of what significance is Siemens Canada’s contribution to the overall bottom line and thereby to the global success of the AG?
Dr. Maringer: We are squarely within the top 20 countries in the Siemens worldwide organization, which operates in over 190 countries. Of course, we can always do much better – nonetheless, we contribute significantly to the overall bottom line and are responsible for a lot of export out of Canada.
[Deutsche Rundschau: And our publication is distributed to “only” 140 countries around the world… You beat us by 50 countries! We have to find out from you which those other 50 countries are!] Yes, it is amazing to think of the number of countries that Siemens does business in and the number of times we have reinvented ourselves over our 157-year history. Siemens’ global strength and diversity is an excellent resource for us in Canada – we consistently learn from other countries and their challenges. This global experience and infrastructure knowledge can provide us with creative ideas and innovative solutions that we can transfer and use to benefit our Canadian customers. Our diversification and our ability to react to ever-changing business environments is what makes us unique.
Deutsche Rundschau: During the 1950s, the trademark “Siemens” was better known in North America in the trade and industrial circles than by “Joe Consumer”… has this conception changed markedly during the last decades? Do you continue to perceive growth opportunities in the Canadian markets? And if so, in which sectors of industry?
Dr. Maringer: Yes, it is interesting that you should say that. My yardstick for “Siemens-recognition” has always been entering the country and going through customs and immigration. Just a few years ago, when I would arrive at the airport in Toronto, officials, not really understanding or knowing Siemens, would always question what kind of a company Siemens was and the type of business Siemens was in – unlike my visits to Europe, where Siemens is a household name. Now however, the response from Toronto customs officials is been: “Siemens, yes; – great products!” Part of this new recognition is due to our marketing efforts. We are now very active in Canada through our focus on sports and charities. We have recently established “The Siemens Network of Caring” (TSNOC), through which, we lend support and channel our efforts to benefit specific charities. In addition to TSNOC, we have expanded our exposure and increased our awareness through our sponsorship of professional sports. On average, a million people will see the Siemens brand during a single NHL game and we do this across Canada — in MontrĂ©al, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. We also advertise with the Toronto Blue Jays in the SkyDome (Siemens technology is responsible for the opening and closing of the retractable roof of the SkyDome), and the Toronto Raptors.
In Europe, Siemens products are well known because their products form a part of everyday life – Siemens is part of the culture – people have grown up with us. Here in Canada, Siemens has always been well known in industrial arenas, but not in the public eye. I am pushing very hard to change this by introducing technological and high-tech commodity products such as cell phones, enterprise phone systems and cordless products – anything which gets our products into the hands of consumers helps to increase our brand awareness. Nonetheless, our base business is still derived from the electrical engineering and electronic sectors (in Canada, Siemens operates in six core market segments: health care, information & communications, energy & power, industry & automation, transportation and lighting) and from infrastructure products. We cannot and do not need to be everything to everyone. The bottom line is, that we focus quite strongly on solidifying the brand name and are trying to avoid any cannibalization of it. Our communications and marketing teams are doing an outstanding job in establishing our brand.
Photo
(left to right: Juri Klugmann, Dr. Albert Maringer, Donald James Dunn)
(Photo: D.L. Leslie)
Deutsche Rundschau: Siemens Canada is represented in the Canadian marketplace with a wide spectrum of products and with a correspondingly full and well-developed service capability. Has the offering of such a broad palette of products been a successful strategy in achieving desired sales targets in today’s highly competitive markets?
Dr. Maringer: Historically, Siemens in North America was structured as a vertical organization and our diverse businesses operated independently of each other – this strategy, however, gave us an illusion of strength, but did not really allow us to grow effectively. The world is not structured vertically – our customers are in need of multiple Siemens offerings and services. Those needs have to be served more in a lateral matrix. Only when you place everything you have to offer on one plate and can deliver totally integrated solutions, are you taking the right approach. Instead of having clients pick and choose suppliers from the phone book, we are offering them a one-stop shopping experience – using shared technologies and our diversity in applications. All of our clients go through a variety of business cycles and we are able to survive the “ups” and “downs” of those cycles, and maintain our relationships with those clients, even when they are not doing a lot of business with us, because of how we are structured. This is important to our success. At the same time, Canada is a tremendous challenge; it has the second largest geographical landscape in the world. As we are an infrastructure company, 50% of all capital invested in Canada is spent in the oil & gas sector and in government, meaning crown corporations involved in uranium mining, diamond mining, and so on, and our offerings are well suited. Unfortunately, when the Good Lord created this wonderful country, He made a design flaw. I argue with Him about this every night. He could have put all of Canada’s great natural resources, such as oil and gas, uranium and diamonds, in a neat and convenient ring around Toronto. Instead, they are located in beautiful but remote places like Fort McMurray, Kirkland Lake and Yellowknife. And, of course, Siemens has to be there where those natural resources are to build infrastructures on site – that challenges us. If you approach those situations in a vertical manner, there is not enough business for anyone to carry, but collectively it’s doable.
[Deutsche Rundschau: Another problem one is faced with here in Canada, of course, is the lack of sufficient market base. South of the border, you have a base of some 260 million people. In Canada the base is 32 million. How does Siemens market its products in this diminutive market base?] The approaches are different between the two countries. Marketing in the US is relatively easy because of the dense population in a rather small geography as opposed to Canada, which is the opposite. However, in spite of this challenge in size, Canada is still an extremely attractive market with a market economy equal to that of the UK or France, where Siemens is doing very well. So, by expanding our portfolio of offerings, one might think that we are diluting our strength but actually the opposite is true. Customers are always looking for new ways to compete and that is what we do – we help our customers become more profitable by providing them with innovative global solutions.
Deutsche Rundschau: Dr. Maringer, you hold important and influential positions on the board of directors of the German-Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Industry as well as on the Scientific Council for German and European Studies at York University. What noteworthy concepts and ideas do you glean from participation in such honorary positions, which you can subsequently apply in exercising your role as president of Siemens Canada?
Dr. Maringer: Of course, my primary function is to run a successful company in Canada. But, in order to be not necessarily the largest but certainly among the most prominent German companies, one cannot escape taking responsibility for the collective of the German community and the interrelationships between its members. Ideas and information obtained from Chamber and Council members can be used to support development within Siemens. The Chamber and Council is dedicated to preserving German interests culturally and economically and promote collaboration. I think we also have a responsibility to unite the different views which are inherent here because of Canada’s cultural diversity and history, by providing for a common path to be followed, a contemporary path for the future. And the Germans as well as other Europeans have tackled such challenges before. When I think of the Club of Rome and the Zero-Sum-Society and the work accomplished thereafter, I see what is still ahead of us here. Canada has not yet gone through this “growing” phase and is still in its developing stage compared to Europe where maturity in contemporary ideas to some degree has already been attained – by this, I mean in the exchange of ideas and learning to help one another. The German-Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is a very important element in this because it represents three basic types of members in its constituency, all of whom – except for the grand Canadian-German or the German-Canadian affiliation – otherwise have little in common with one another. First is the affiliates of German companies run by “Germans” here in Canada; then we have Canadian companies with affiliations in Germany; these two groups have by and large different perspectives on the German-Canadian relationship. Finally, we have German subsidiaries reporting to US-Headquarters or are being managed by Canadian locals – they again may have a different view on the German-Canadian relationship. The common denominator between all of them is the Chamber managing the common interest on the German-Canadian affiliations. As far as the Advisory Council for German and European Studies is concerned, it acts as an advisory board without getting too involved in actual academic matters. It also acts as a sounding board for the associated constituency to reflect what an appropriate mix of contemporary German studies could be, concentrating more on the future than on the past, and on what we can all learn from each other. This is a very challenging task. I recently spent an entire week traveling in Germany with President Prof. Lorna Marsden and with Prof. Webber, both of York University, as well as Prof. LaCroix, President, Université de Montréal, to exchange ideas with academic counterparts in Bonn, Jena and elsewhere. This sort of cross-border venture creates a valuable resource of ideas, which can be applied in Canada.
Deutsche Rundschau: Dr. Maringer, the Deutsche Rundschau wishes to convey its sincere appreciation for your time and effort in participating in this interview.
Donald James Dunn
Juri Klugmann
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