Siemens – Story of the Largest European Industrial Manufacturing Company.
Siemens AG is a German-based publicly traded company based in Munich. The company was founded more than 170 years ago when Germany was still famous as the Kingdom of Prussia. Werner von Siemens is the founder of the company who incorporated the business in late 1847 along with Johann Georg Halske. Siemens today represents a wide range of products and services and its principal divisions are industry, energy, healthcare, and infrastructure, and cities. The products of the Company are very diverse ranging from developing enterprise software to railway vehicles. The company is a multinational company that provides its service globally and currently employs 293,000 people. Currently, the CEO of the company is Roland Busch and its headquarters is based in Munich.
The Initial Journey of Siemens
Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske co-founded Siemens & Halske in October 1847. Their business evolved around an invention that used a needle instead of morse code to point the sequence of alphabets. The company was then known as Telegraph-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske and they opened their first long-distance telegraph line in 1848. This construction took place in Europe and covered a total length of 500km. Starting in 1850, the company started expanding its business in London and also developed long-distance telegraph lines in Russia. In 1867, Company successfully completed its Indo-European telegraph line from London to Calcutta. Werner retired from the company in 1890 and left the company’s responsibility to his brother and sons. After a couple of years, Company received a huge contract for the construction of the Hobart electric tramway in Australia.
Siemens During Nazi Germany
In the 20th century, several activities of the company Siemens & Halske were merged with Schuckert & Co Nuremberg and the company’s name changed to Siemens-Schuckert. After the merger, Siemens-Schuckert became the seventh-largest company in Germany in terms of the number of employees. In 1932, another merger took place between Siemens and the other two companies which formed the present-day Siemens AG. Since Siemens was a German company, it didn’t have a good reputation in how it treated the laborers in the extermination camps. The company had a plant in Auschwitz and the company was known for supplying electrical parts to these Nazi camps.
Expansion of the Company
From the 1950s, the company started manufacturing computers, semiconductors, pacemakers, and washing machines. In 1980, the company rolled out its first digital telephone exchange and also started acquiring several companies. Some of these companies include Plessey, a UK defense and technology company, three solar module plants from ARCO, Nixdorf Computer AG, Industrial Systems Division of Texas Instruments, and many more. The company also started a joint venture with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) which enhanced the business in the American market. In the late 1990s, Company opened its subsidiary, Siemens Financial Services for managing financial risks in the company. In 1998, the company made a big acquisition of $1.5 billion when it bought Westinghouse Power Generation and became a pioneer in the power generation market.
Company in Digital Era
In the 21st era, Company expanded its services and also started joint ventures with several companies. The company acquired the rail division of Invensys followed by LMS International NV in the same year. Nokia and Siemens started a joint venture and started Nokia Siemens Network but in 2013 the partnership came to an end when Nokia proposed a buy-out and acquired the entire Nokia Siemens Network. The same year, Company landed a huge deal with a middle east company called Saudi Aramco for manufacturing power plant components. The company also acquired the gas turbine and compressor energy business of Rolls Royce in 2014. Recently, Siemens Energy became an independent company and is not a part of SiemensAG anymore. The company is currently making efforts to expand its Healthline division and is planning to buy Varian Medical Systems for $16.4 billion.
About the Founder
Werner von Siemens, famous as the founder of SiemensAG was an electrical engineer and an industrialist by profession. His contribution in the field was so immense that his name was taken for the unit of electrical conductance. He completed his education at Prussian Military Academy’s School of Artillery and Engineering. After returning from the war, he devoured himself towards technology and soon invented the telegraph as the replacement of the morse code. He died on 6th December 1982.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more