Siemens wants its part in the industrial takeoff

Siemens is a German industrial giant, but also a global company with a long tradition in Spain, where it has been established for more than a century.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
27 February 2023 Monday 16:36
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Siemens wants its part in the industrial takeoff

Siemens is a German industrial giant, but also a global company with a long tradition in Spain, where it has been established for more than a century. Of its 175 years of history, 128 have been spent in this country, where it arrived in 1895. It is old enough to feel as integrated as any local company and to participate in any industrial modernization plan, as is the case now thanks to the funds Europeans.

"We would have to do it very badly to miss the moment," says the general director of industry for Siemens in Spain, José Ramón Castro. The claim that this sector reaches a weight of 20% of GDP seems distant, but there are signs that point to a change in trend: Europe is aware that it must reduce its foreign dependence and shorten supply chains. The invasion of Ukraine has made this claim urgent.

Siemens Spain is called to play a role in what is to come. It employs 1,407 people in the country, of which some 600 are part of the digital industries area led by Castro. Joint revenues in Spain amount to 524 million euros, although the figure does not fully reflect the national presence of the group, since it excludes the area of ​​mobility and health, which are consolidated separately.

Through its eight national centers, Siemens Spain divides its business between mobility units, infrastructures and industry, in addition to energy, framed in businesses such as Siemens Gamesa, which has just left the Spanish stock market after the takeover bid exclusion launched by the German parent company. The group has spent years preparing a major reorientation of the business to present itself to its large clients as not only an industrial leader, but also a digital one.

The sight is now set on the strategic projects for economic recovery and transformation, the Perte. They will serve to channel a significant portion of European funds after the pandemic to the industry, and Castro is the manager who orchestrates the effort from Siemens Spain.

Over the past fifteen years, he explains, Siemens has been acquiring industrial software companies to take its current form. “We saw an opportunity to bring together the physical and the virtual. We have invested more than 10 billion euros and today we are a leading organization in industrial software”, she affirms. This technology makes him in Spain a great technologist for the Perte promoted by the Government. In the projects, he explains, the company wants to fight for everything that has to do with aspects such as digitization or automation.

The Perte are the great cake of industrial investment for the coming years. These initiatives have pre-assigned almost 41,000 million euros of investment from Next Generation funds, among which 12,250 million for chips, 10,475 million for hydrogen and renewables and 4,295 million for electric cars, which is the investment that is more advanced. There are also 2,790 million to digitize the water cycle or 3,100 million for industrial decarbonization.

Castro cites the naval, food and aerospace industries as areas in which Siemens also wants to be present. “We don't have any favorite part. From the moment it became known that it was going to seek the transformation of industrial chains, Siemens got down to work. We are not European fundraisers, but we are leaders and pioneers, and we want to show that we are a key player”.

The group already has experience in the transformation in Spain of the industrial processes of companies such as the automotive supplier Faurecia, the oil giant Deoleo or the pharmaceutical company Faes. These are recent cases that add to hundreds of examples in the industry. On an international scale, the company entered 72,000 million euros in its last fiscal year and obtained record profits of 10,300 million euros.

Siemens Spain believes that some extension of the deadlines set by the European Commission for the presentation and execution of the projects of the different Perte will be "necessary". “I think the European Union is aware of this because several factors have come together that have not allowed global progress at the desired rate,” he says. In Spain, there has been a "delay" in the allocation of funds, among other things, because "it is not an easy task." "Conceptually we see that they are well focused," he adds.

When analyzing the background situation in Spain, the multinational calls for "a State pact for the industry", which is "at the perfect time to redefine many things". "The pandemic brought reflection on globalization, and now is the time to do so on glocalization, in which it is necessary to redefine the entire European strategy." Castro sees a pact of these characteristics as possible this year, despite the electoral cycle and the replacement at the helm of the Ministry of Industry.