CASE STUDY

SuccessFactors helps Siemens

have the right people, in the
right job, at the right time

Siemens AG
Berlin and Munich, Germany
www.siemens.com
Employees:
370,000
Industry:
Technology
Region:
Global, 190 countries
SuccessFactors Solutions:
Performance & Goals
Compensation
Succession & Development
Recruiting
Learning
Customer Since:
2009

Siemens AG (Berlin and Munich) is a global powerhouse in electronics and

electrical engineering, operating in the fields of industry, energy and healthcare
as well as providing infrastructure solutions, primarily for cities and metropolitan
areas. For over 165 years, Siemens has stood for technological excellence,
innovation, quality, reliability and internationality. The company is the worlds
largest provider of environmental technologies. Around 40 percent of its total
revenue stems from green products and solutions. In fiscal 2012, which ended
on September 30, 2012, revenue from continuing operations was 78.3
billion and income from continuing operations was 5.2 billion. At the end of
September 2012, Siemens had around 370,000 employees worldwide on the
basis of continuing operations.

Challenge
As a market leader across a range of sectors and geographies, Siemens needs to
constantly recruit, develop and retain a highly skilled workforce as diverse as the
company itself. Plus, in a highly competitive market, the war for the right high
value talent is fierce.
The senior HR leadership team knew that sourcing, rewarding and keeping the
right people was critical to Siemens success. In 2008, Siemens was on the
cutting edge of a new global transformation strategy designed to enhance the
employee experience across all the major talent functions. The company was
committed to embed a new standard for world-class recruiting, systematic
development, remuneration and retention of their global talent pool.
However, it was clear that Siemens heterogeneous landscape of HR systems
which included a disparate mix of home-grown and vendor solutions would be
a significant handicap to success.

SUCCESSFACTORS/CASE STUDY

Siemens AG

Managers with cross-border teams had to access

information across multiple systems. There was no
standardization of processes and we had no global insight
for development and workforce planning, says Dr. Jrgen
Siebel, Head of Employee Development.

SuccessFactors has become the global IT

standard for our core HR processes, and
Recruiting and People Development.

Siemens needed a global HR infrastructure that was

harmonized with integrated systems for all people processes
across the company. HR and business leaders needed
one master database on which to base accurate decisions.
In addition, Siemens needed a common language for
matching competencies, evaluating performance, and
ensuring transparency across the entire company.

Solution
SuccessFactors worked with teams across Siemens HR
and with Dr. Norbert Kleinjohann, Siemens Chief Information
Officer, to help them drive their ambitious transformation.
We evaluated around 50 vendor solutions, comments
Kleinjohann. We selected SuccessFactors because it is
a truly global, proven tool that could integrate all our people
processes. It was easy to use, agile enough for fast
implementation and offered flexibility to adapt along the way.

Dr. Norbert Kleinjohann

CIO, Siemens AG

The result was 4Success, the branded global platform that included all the
revamped tools and people processes from SuccessFactors, including: Recruiting,
Performance & Goals, Calibration, Succession & Development, Compensation
Planning and Learning.
Starting in October 2009, the Siemens team rolled out a tailor-made Performance
Management Process (PMP) to 44,000 employees in 190 countries. The PMP
comprises one-to-one target setting and feedback, as well as performance reviews,
called Round Tables. These sessions are attended by management from across the
business and HR, and are designed to validate performance evaluations. By March
2011, more than 120,000 employees were using the tool.
The other SuccessFactors modules have since been integrated, so that Siemens
entire workforce of 370,000 is using 4Success. Recruiting, for example, now
powers efficient and intelligent processing of both internal and external candidates.
SuccessFactors is now advising Siemens on the development of a sophisticated
suite of reporting and analysis tools to support management in their decisionmaking, and add value to the overall business strategy.

SUCCESSFACTORS/CASE STUDY

Siemens AG

Results
4Success is used by 370,000 employees, across 93 countries and in nine
languages (21 for recruiting). Participation is high, averaging over 20,000 logins a
day, and 1.8 million individual targets have been set using the PMP tool. This high
level of compliance with HR processes gives Siemens management global insight
for improved workforce development and succession planning. Employees are
more engaged.
Siemens now conducts 14,000 Round Tables a year, to optimize performance and
ensure a common language is used for target setting, performance evaluation and
reporting. As a result, talent development has been accelerated, has become
more targeted and is truly global.
Senior management can quickly access accurate information to support key
decisions, while enhanced accountability means that HR can easily demonstrate
its value. The introduction of 4Success has allowed HR resources to focus more
on business partnering rather than just providing transactional services.
The integrated system and central database enables cross-border performance
management and merit planning. Siemens knows who its best people are,
where there are gaps and how to best fill them. Now after a little over 2 years,
in excess of 40,000 job requisitions and one million applications have been
processed in 4Success.

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