Strategies for Siemens based on SWOT, environmental and stakeholder analysis

Siemens is a German conglomerate and the biggest industrial manufacturing enterprise in Europe. This report presents strategies for Siemens based on the SWOT analysis, environmental analysis, stakeholder analysis, organizational structure and design, ways to motivate employees, recommendations and controls to monitor the progress of the business plans.

Running head: RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER – PART II
Research & Analysis Paper – Part II
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER – PART II
Summary
Siemens is a German conglomerate and the biggest industrial manufacturing enterprise in
Europe, having branches in other countries. The major divisions of the company include
industrial manufacturing, energy, healthcare, home appliances and cities and infrastructure
(Siemens.com, 2018). Thus, it has a large base of the customers across the world. Its mission is
to electrify, automate and digitalize the world all-around by providing the best facilities to the
customers (Karhula et al., 2018). This report will present strategies for Siemens based on the
SWOT analysis done in the previous research paper, environmental analysis, stakeholder
analysis, description of the organizational structure and design, ways to motivating the
employees, recommendations and controls to monitor the progress of the business plans. All
these will be discussed in a comprehensive manner to illustrate the strategic position of the
company.
SWOT - formulating strategies
Strategies based on:
 Strengths:
The advantage of brand name and reputation based on high quality products and services and
product innovations and strong supply chain should be utilized while making new strategies for
business growth. These aspects are beneficial as these focus on creating reputation based on
highly developed and innovating products and services, which is the foundation of the company.
 Weaknesses:

2RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER – PART II
The competitiveness should be increased for high quality products to retain its market position.
Expertise should be increased for forecasting the product demand. To make the business grow,
the marketing activities should be made innovative, extensive, and efficient financial planning
should be done.
 Opportunities:
Strategies should be made to explore the opportunities of IT expertise, green technology, Omni
channel marketing and growing local and global digital market. The world is now heavily
dependent on the technology and hence, it is wise to tap this new aspect of business for rapid and
extensive growth.
 Threats:
Bad and unstable economy in the global market, availability of substitute products from
competitors at lower price, and shortage of skilled workers are major threats for the growth of
the business and Siemens should focus on improving the skills of the existing workers and
innovation capability to handle these threats.
Environmental constraints
PESTLE analysis of Siemens (with respect to Canada)
Political  Stable political situation in Canada, encouraging industry growth
and liberal industry policies (Poirier, 2015).
Economic  Canada is one of the wealthiest and developed countries in the

3RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER – PART II
world.
 It has a stable economy, with largest trading partner being the USA.
US-Canada Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA are beneficial for
international trade and business growth (Innis, 2017).
Social  Growing population through immigration and cultural mixes are
creating opportunities for business growth for Siemens.
Technological  Being a developed country, Canada provides resources for advanced
technology
Legal  Legal systems of Canada are supportive for business growth and
international investments
Environmental  There are regulations for protecting the environment as Canada is an
active member in the international climate change initiatives
(Bulkeley & Newell, 2015).
Global environment for Siemens
Siemens is actively involved in the environment friendly projects, such as, sustainable
development for the cities, producing CO2-neutral power, CSR activities, establishing safety
measures for the employees etc. Thus, the global awareness and concern for sustainability and
protecting the planet is a major challenge for Siemens as it needs to constantly innovate and
upgrade its technology to encourage sustainable practices.
Challenges from environmental constraints
Sustainability challenge is the major environmental issue that Siemens is facing along
with many other companies. Rising carbon level, pollution, receding sources of energy,

4RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER – PART II
deforestation, climate change etc. are major environmental constraints that a company must pay
attention to. As Siemens operates in the energy sector and infrastructure, it is necessary that it
employs technologies supporting the environment friendly developments. Moreover, with
increasing globalization, there has been migration of skilled workers, which affects the
productivity of different branches of the same company.
Siemens has its environmental portfolio that includes projects promoting decarbonizaton,
green projects, usage of renewable energy sources for power generation, smart grids for power
transmissions, sustainable mobility networks, buildings with green technologies and healthcare
projects with environment friendly technologies (Siemens.com, 2018). For the shortage of skilled
workers, Siemens arranges training and developmental programs for the employees. Siemens also
encourage migration for the eligible employees within their branches so that they stay loyal with the
company.
Usage of renewable energies for daily activities and shortage of skilled labor are two major
constraints that create big challenge for the business growth of Siemens.
The technological advancement, CSR activities for community development, brand
reputation combined with economical development and supportive government reputations have
created opportunities for Siemens.

5RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER – PART II
Stakeholders
Employees Pillars of Siemens for handling production, distribution, and all other
business operations
Customers The providers of business and revenues: individual and corporations
Government It is a customer of Siemens and also a tax collector
Shareholders Earns dividends from the company profits for their investments in the
shares
Siemens should give highest priorities to their employees and customers. The customers
or clients are responsible for the business and revenues and the employees are the pillars of it for
handling production and all other business activities.
Organizational Structure and Design

6RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER – PART II
Figure 1: Organizational structure of Siemens
(Source: Siemens.com, 2017)
It can be said from the above organizational chart of Siemens, set up in 2008, that it
follows mechanistic organizational structure (Siemens.com, 2017). As per the chart, it is seen
that the employees are assigned to particular departments and they operate in a predictable way,
which is the fundamentals of mechanistic organizational structure (Kanten, Kanten & Gurlek,
2015). Siemens has adopted divisional organizational design under mechanistic structure. Under
divisional organizational design, the entire business operations are classified under different
divisions based on the sectors and they are given more autonomy to operate as an autonomous
company (Fairfield, 2016). Different sectors of Siemens are classified into industry, energy, and
healthcare, with separate CEOs and separate cross sector business units and regional units. These
divisions help in bringing efficiency in the operations, such as, decision making, reporting,
production, supply and distribution, marketing, sales etc.
Motivating employees
Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory of motivation can be used to motivate the
employees. Appreciation for good work, rewards and recognitions, challenging work,
responsibilities, sense of accountability, career growth opportunities and importance in the
organization, are the motivators, and, salary, benefits, incentives, fringe benefits, etc. are hygiene
factors (Miner, 2015). Siemens should focus on increasing the motivator factors in the workplace
and decrease the hygiene factors. It should arrange suitable training programs for enhancing the
skills of the employees and encourage their career growth, increase their rewards, benefits and
incentives, and give them more importance while decision making. They should also be given

7RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER – PART II
creative freedom so that innovation process is better and spontaneous and employees feel a sense
of importance in the company.
Recommendations
Based on the researches it can be said that for business growth, Siemens should focus on
improving the skills of the existing employees as shortage of skilled labor is a major concern for
the business growth in various locations. As migration of skilled workers is a common issue in
the modern corporate world, Siemens also faces this challenge. This issue affects the business
performance of the company and hence, it is essential that it arranges appropriate training and
development programs based on training needs analysis of the company and train them as per
their capabilities. This would increase their motivation. The company should also give the
opportunity to place the employees in their overseas branches for some time to retain the
employees.
Controls and Recommendations
Control measures should be implemented to assess the progress of the business plans. As
the company aims to increase retention of skilled employees, it should focus on increasing the
skills and motivation of the employees. A separate performance management system and training
needs analysis system should be implemented and employees should be asked about their
preference regarding overseas posting and that would make them feel motivated.
Siemens should use all the three types of controls, namely, feed-forward, concurrent, and
feedback controls to monitor their activities. Feed-forward control is beneficial as the control
measures are taken place prior to the activity to control anticipated problems (Cathcart, Greer &

8RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER – PART II
Neale, 2014). Concurrent control allows the organizations to implement the control measures
while the activity is taking place simultaneously. This is beneficial for the company when it
wants to correct the problems before those become too costly. Lastly, the feedback controls are
those that allow the organizations to take corrective measures once the activity has ended (Serrat,
2017). This measure is helpful for future actions.
Thus, Siemens should conduct a training needs analysis for arranging the appropriate
training programs as feed-forward control. Next, it should make the employees participate in the
programs and have sessions with them during the trainings and workshops as part of concurrent
controls. Lastly, after 3 months, they should conduct a survey for collecting feedback and
opinions of the employees regarding the effectiveness of the training programs. This would be
feedback control measure.
Performance management system should be implemented during and after the training
programs to assess the effectiveness of the programs. Decrease in the employee turnover,
increase in overseas posting of the eligible employees, and voluntary participation in the training
programs will indicate the effectiveness of the control methods.

9RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER – PART II
References
Bulkeley, H., & Newell, P. (2015). Governing climate change. Routledge.
Cathcart, A., Greer, D., & Neale, L. (2014). Learner-focused evaluation cycles: Facilitating
learning using feedforward, concurrent and feedback evaluation. Assessment &
Evaluation in Higher Education, 39(7), 790-802.
Fairfield, K. D. (2016). Understanding functional and divisional organizational structure: A
classroom exercise. Management Teaching Review, 1(4), 242-251.
Innis, H. (2017). The Fur Trade in Canada: an introduction to Canadian economic history.
University of Toronto Press.
Kanten, P., Kanten, S., & Gurlek, M. (2015). The effects of organizational structures and
learning organization on job embeddedness and individual adaptive
performance. Procedia Economics and Finance, 23, 1358-1366.
Karhula, H. O. H., Claeys, C., Pluymers, B., Van Der Auweraer, H., & Desmet, W. (2018).
Innovation through cooperation between industry and university: Siemens Industry
Software–KU Leuven; a golden partnership.
Miner, J. B. (2015). Motivation-Hygiene Theory: Frederick Herzberg. In Organizational
Behavior 1 (pp. 77-90). Routledge.
Poirier, J. (2015). Intergovernmental Agreements in Canada: At the crossroads between law and
politics.

10RESEARCH & ANALYSIS PAPER – PART II
Serrat, O. (2017). Seeding Knowledge Solutions Before, During, and After. In Knowledge
Solutions (pp. 419-427). Springer, Singapore.
Siemens.com. (2017). 2007-2017: Defining digitalization. Retrieved from
https://www.siemens.com/global/en/home/company/about/history/company/2007-
2017.html
Siemens.com. (2018). Energy efficiency from generation to use. Retrieved from
https://m.siemens.com/en/about/sustainability/environmental-portfolio/products-
solutions/