In our view, partnership is about listening to the other person and meeting at eye level. We need to understand what our partners want, and address their needs in a transparent and professional way. Being honest and keeping our word creates trust, which is the base for long-term business relationships. With our various products and services, we offer reliable and sustainable solutions to many different industries, always striving to add and share value.
This partnership approach refers to business relationships with suppliers and customers, but also with authorities, financial institutions, service providers and many other external partners. In the materiality analysis, our external stakeholders attribute to us a good partnership attitude, which is a feedback that we are proud of. In some business areas, we already cooperate with universities and research institutions to stipulate innovation. However, strengthening the dialogue especially with key customers and suppliers, develop solutions and innovate together, is an aspect that we want to put even more focus on in the coming years.
In addition to the external partnerships, we also link our competencies internally and collaborate on various topics in an interdisciplinary and international manner. Targeted cooperation that transcends activities and regions often opens up new possibilities and offers the benefit of synergies. Expertise and resources, for example, can be pooled in a systematic way to add value. In addition, solutions that are scalable along the international value chain can be provided to meet the individual requirements of customers who are either suppliers themselves or users of the end product. In recent years, group-wide collaboration has been strengthen in many areas already – setting up a Group Safety Team, a Sustainability Group, an Innovation Team, regular exchange between our international Human Resources managers or the launch of our international ‘Next Generation’ Talent network are only a few examples of recent developments.