BERLIN, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- Siemens Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Joe Kaeser has denied reports on Friday which claimed that the German industrial giant would lay off up to 20,000 workers as part of a new "Vision 2020+" corporate restructuring program.
The job cuts first referred to by the weekly "manager magazin" would "not take place in that shape," a statement issued in response by a Siemens spokesperson read. The company said that it could not understand how the figure had been arrived at on the basis of conversations between Kaeser and investors cited by "manager magazin".
Nevertheless, some of those investors reacted with irritation at Siemens' attempt to downplay the scale of what they view as necessary organizational changes at the company. "In doing so, Kaeser is endangering his own credibility among shareholders," an unnamed fund manager told "manager magazin" on Friday.
Kaeser has recently announced the launch of a further round of corporate restructuring at Siemens as the CEO prepares to step down from his post in 2021. The "Vision 2020+" strategy is officially aimed at decentralising the management of the sprawling industrial conglomerate and granting individual divisions more autonomy.
"The core principle of the corporate strategy 'Vision 2020+' is to give the individual business significantly more entrepreneurial freedom under the strong Siemens brand," a statement by the company explained. Siemens hopes to achieve better mid-term growth in this fashion, achieve higher returns and thus achieve annual cost savings of around 1.7 billion euros.
"The times in which we could centrally and efficiently direct project-, product-, software- and service companies with their diverse requirements are over," Kaeser said. If implemented, Vision 2020+ would therefore result in a much slimmer corporate headquarters with more employees being posted directly at Siemens' global network of subsidiary firms and business units.
For Kaeser, the restructuring effort could become his final legacy at Siemens as most of the projects outlined in the plan are scheduled for after the expiry of his contract. The CEO argued earlier that Siemens was now well-positioned to enter into a new phase of development as most of the goals of his earlier "Vision 2020" strategy had already been met.
So far, labor representatives at Siemens have cautiously welcomed the reforms. The path outlined by Kaeser was "correct in principle", supervisory board member and IG-Metall trade union executive Juergen Kerner said. An IG-Metall spokesperson emphasized on Friday, however, that its support for the strategy was conditional on assurances made by Siemens managers would not just be a "veiled job elimination program."
