INSIDE
Editorial
Dear readers,
Have you noticed it too? When we talk about the need for transformation, whether with colleagues, clients or partners, everyone seems to nod in agreement. But nodding is easy. The real challenge begins when we move from agreement to action: when a team has to move away from processes they’ve spent years perfecting, or when leaders need to guide people through uncertainty without pretending they have all the answers.
What has this experience taught me? That successful transformations don’t start with a better roadmap – they start with a harder question: not “what’s our vision?” but “what are we willing to let go of?” Whatever the specifics of a transformation may be, one truth connects them all: what was useful in the past may no longer help in the future. Accepting this is where real transformation begins.
You might assume that the fear of falling behind is what drives both the acceptance and the speed of transformation. In my experience, speed without direction just creates disruption for disruption’s sake. What truly moves things forward is the ability to combine urgency and clarity. And that is exactly what we strive for at GBS every day, in every project we take on with you.
Consider, for instance, how our Digital Operational Management platform is transforming spare parts operations at Siemens Mobility. What used to involve juggling SAP, email, Excel and phone calls across multiple departments is now a single, streamlined digital workflow – operating in 39 countries, supporting more than 10,000 users across 243 teams and handling 2.2 million cases per year.
Or take the Equal Pay Tool, where a legal obligation became a catalyst for genuine change. The EU requires equal pay for workers posted abroad – a regulation that used to require up to ten days of manual coordination per case. We reduced the entire process to ten seconds, covering 27 home countries and 31 destinations.
AI, of course, plays a central role in transformation. For example, we are helping Siemens turn customer feedback into action with AI-powered tools and standardized processes across the company. For Siemens customers, this means faster responses when issues arise, fewer redundant surveys and a consistent experience across interactions with Siemens.
What do all these examples have in common? That transformation is not a destination we arrive at. Transformation is a decision we make every day – in every team, at every level. To let go of what no longer serves us and to build what does.
Already thinking about your next transformation? Let’s talk!
Yours, Eckard Eberle CEO Siemens Global Business Services
Sixty percent less manual work
Direct material purchase-to-pay automation rate
- Manual effort: –62%
- Financial investment < €100,000
- Refinancing period < 12 months
How GBS and Siemens factories in China co-created the future of procurement and logistics
Over 450 suppliers, 100,000+ purchase order items and €300 million in purchasing value – all managed through emails, Excel spreadsheets and manual SAP entries. Every purchase order (PO) confirmation typed by hand. Every delivery date chased via inbox. Every goods receipt a compliance risk waiting to happen.
When Shu Chang Hong, Financial Head of Siemens Smart Infrastructure, Electrification & Automation in China, thinks back to the former work routines in the procurement and logistics function, he can hardly believe that this was the reality for Siemens factories in China only a few years ago.
“The manual workload worsened with increased business volume, leading to more errors. Consequently, a digital solution or tool was urgently needed. As an operating company, we sought a partner to develop this solution rather than creating it ourselves,” said Shu Chang Hong.
Today, the picture looks radically different. The direct material purchase-to-pay (P2P) automation rate at some factories has surged from 20% to over 93% in a single fiscal year. Manual effort has been cut by 62%. The financial investment? Less than €100,000. The time to return on investment? Less than twelve months.
And the solution that made it possible – Digital Procurement & Logistics (DPL) – was not designed in a boardroom and handed down. It was co-created on the factory floor, in close partnership between factory teams and Siemens Global Business Services (GBS).
A blueprint born from partnership
The DPL journey began in December 2021 with a single module – PO Confirmation – at Siemens Switchgear Ltd. (SSLS), Shanghai factory. What followed was a deliberate, step-by-step expansion: goods receipt (GR) automation, outsourcing management, advanced shipping notices, import/export customs automation, e-RFQ, material master data management, and most recently, smart GR and AI agents.
Each module was built through genuine co-creation – GBS experts sitting alongside factory procurement teams, understanding their pain points firsthand: the intransparency of RFQ processing through emails, the inconsistent data standards, the lack of platform-based material management, the double work in goods receipt workflows.
The result? A connected ecosystem that links the Supplier Collaboration Portal, Request Management System, and Robotic Process Automation directly into SAP and other enterprise platforms – giving buyers and suppliers a single source of truth in real time.
Scaling what works
What started at one factory has now been implemented in more than 10 factories across Smart Infrastructure, Digital Industries, Innomotics, and Siemens Healthineers – spanning cities from Shanghai and Suzhou to Beijing, Chengdu and Dalian. The roadmap targets 15 factories by FY27, with projected value creation of €360,000.
But what makes DPL different from a one-size-fits-all rollout? To start with, 70% of business scenarios are covered by standardized modules, while 30% is reserved for customized development tailored to each factory’s unique demands. It’s a model that respects the reality that no two factories are identical – while ensuring that proven solutions don’t have to be reinvented from scratch.
What factory leaders are saying
In a video interview, Shu Chang Hong, Financial Head of Siemens Smart Infrastructure, Electrification & Automation in China, reflects on why his team partnered with GBS, how automation and AI are changing daily workflows, and what other factory leaders can learn from the DPL journey.
For Siemens factories in China, DPL has already shown what becomes possible when business expertise and digital capability come together: faster processes, fewer manual touchpoints, higher transparency and measurable value creation.
Equal pay – from 10 days to 10 seconds
Equal Pay Tool: automates compliance for posted workers across the EU
- 10 days → 10 seconds per salary calculation
- 27 home countries, 31 destinations
- No manual effort for P&O or payroll
The EU requires equal pay for workers posted abroad. A new GBS tool automates what used to be a fragmented process – with full compliance across 31 countries.
A commissioning engineer from Bulgaria receives a new assignment: ten days in Sweden to perform an initial installation at a customer site. Before the trip can begin, a critical question needs an answer: does the employee’s home salary meet the legal pay requirements in Sweden? If, for example, the engineer earns BGN 3,000 per month at home (roughly €1,500) but applicable Swedish pay standards require SEK 40,000 (€3,500), the employer must cover the difference. Until recently, answering this question could take up to ten days of back-and-forth between multiple departments. Today, it takes ten seconds.
A patchwork of rules across 31 countries
Since 2020, the EU Posted Workers Directive has required employers to ensure workers temporarily posted to another EU country receive pay equivalent to local workers – not just minimum wage, but compensation aligned with sectoral collective bargaining agreements (CBAs). For a company like Siemens, where tens of thousands of international trips are made between EU countries every year, this imposed an enormous administrative burden.
In the past, each case required individual assessment. The Global Mobility & Rewards (GMR) team had to reach out to local People & Organization (P&O) teams, request documents, identify the applicable CBA and manually calculate the pay gap. In-company managers, payroll teams and travelers themselves were all pulled into the process. The result: fragmented workflows, inconsistent outcomes and potentially significant compliance risk.
“The complexity was immense,” says Daniela Zachová, Global Mobility Professional and Project Lead for the Equal Pay Tool at GBS. “Every country has a different approach to collective bargaining. Some have dozens of agreements; others don’t publish their minimum salary data at all. As a result, the colleagues from P&O often didn’t know which agreement applied to a specific posting.”
What is the EU Posted Workers Directive?
The EU Posted Workers Directive (Directive 2018/957) ensures employees temporarily working in another EU country receive pay equivalent to local workers performing comparable tasks. Since 2020, this has applied not only to the minimum wage but also to compensation based on sectoral collective bargaining agreements. The directive applies to all EU, EEA and EFTA countries and covers postings lasting up to 18 consecutive months. Beyond this threshold, local remuneration conditions apply.
One tool, one process across Europe
To cut the Gordian knot, the GBS Hire-to-Retire GMR team built a fully digital, end-to-end solution – the Equal Pay Tool. It automates the entire workflow from trip entry to payout, covering 27 home countries and 31 destination countries across the EU, EEA and EFTA. The tool has already gone live in the Central and Eastern Europe Hub and Portugal, with Western Europe following later this year.
Here’s how it works: When an employee enters a trip into the Business Travel Assessment Tool (BTAT), the system automatically determines whether an equal pay calculation is needed. If they are classified as a business traveler performing hands-on work such as installation, commissioning, maintenance or project management work, the Equal Pay Tool automatically calculates the pay difference – this takes no more than ten seconds. The result is routed to the in-company manager to confirm the travel date, then forwarded to the payroll team for processing. The calculation is archived and audit-ready. Standard business travelers – those attending internal meetings or visiting fairs – don’t trigger the workflow, because their activities don’t fall under the equal pay process.
An internal data approach that works
One of the project’s biggest challenges was sourcing reliable compensation data. External providers could offer calculators, but not the underlying CBA data for broader Siemens business activities. Matching the hundreds of internal jobs at Siemens to collective bargaining categories across all EU countries would have been prohibitively expensive.
The team found a better way. Working closely with Global Compensation & Benefits, they leveraged Siemens’ internal remuneration structures, which are already linked to the company’s job grading system and CBAs concluded between Siemens and trade unions. They compared these values against the most frequently applicable sectoral CBAs and found that the differences were often minimal. “The legislators’ aim was to prevent social dumping, not to demand the most detailed calculation possible,” Zachová explains. “It was about ensuring fairness – meaning posted workers earn a comparable salary to local workers based on the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work.’ Our internal data gives us a robust, defensible benchmark.”
In the past, a single calculation could take up to ten days. Now it takes ten seconds.” – Daniela Zachová, Global Mobility Professional and Project Lead for the Equal Pay Tool at GBS.
Built-in compliance safeguard
The Equal Pay Tool doesn’t operate in isolation. It’s integrated within IHRIS NG, Siemens’ global mobility travel system. The remuneration process step is pending until the compliance check is completed, closing a potential gap where the process might otherwise get bypassed. For labor authority inspections – particularly common in high-income countries such as Luxembourg and Switzerland – the archived calculations provide immediate proof of compliance. Without this documentation, companies risk penalties and exclusion from business activities in the host country.
Harmonized for higher performance
The result is a textbook example of end-to-end transformation: a process that once involved dozens of stakeholders, inconsistent methods and significant compliance risk is now digital, harmonized and applicable EU-wide. It protects employees, supports internal teams and positions Siemens as a responsible employer across borders.
What started as a legal obligation has become a competitive advantage – built entirely in-house by a shared services team that understood both the regulation and the technology needed to comply at scale. It’s the ONE Tech Company principle in action. Handle complexity centrally, so individual businesses can focus on what matters most: their customers.
From feedback to impact: how Siemens systematically improves customer experience
Customer feedback only creates value when it leads to action. Siemens has established a standardized framework that turns feedback into faster responses, better decisions and measurable improvements across the entire customer journey.
Monday morning: A sales rep at Siemens Switzerland sends a customer a quote for a drivetrain. Thursday afternoon: That same customer finds a short survey in their inbox asking them to rate the proposal. In this case, the customer’s feedback is negative – something the sales rep spots via an automated alert on their dashboard. That same day, they call the customer and clear up a misunderstanding about delivery terms. The customer is satisfied, the deal secured. None of this is a coincidence – it’s a standardized process that’s part of everyday business at Siemens Switzerland.
Structured chaos
For a long time, the reality at Siemens Switzerland looked different: Siemens interacts with its customers across dozens of touchpoints – from the initial quote through project delivery to ongoing service. But the company’s process for collecting customer feedback on those interactions was a patchwork at best: More than ten different survey tools were used in parallel, from Microsoft Forms to SurveyMonkey. On top of that, individual regions had their own homegrown solutions. For example, one employee called 60 customers per quarter for feedback, logged their answers in an Excel file and sent the results to the team. Dedicated, sure – but not efficient, scalable or comparable.
In short, customer feedback was trapped in silos. Every business unit used its own scales, question sets and processes. Comparable KPIs? Nonexistent. Systematic follow-up? Barely feasible. Lasting improvements derived from the data? Pure luck.
A standard that connects
This is exactly where the Siemens Customer Experience Standard comes in. Initiated and steered by Jaqueline Hitschfeld from Corporate Sales Excellence, it establishes uniform minimum requirements for how Siemens collects, processes and uses customer feedback across all business units and regions.
The standard aligns with Siemens’ ONE Tech Company strategy: With Siemens increasingly operating as one integrated company, the standard enables a consistent and comparable Customer Experience across all interactions.
While Sales Excellence drives the development and governance of the standard, GBS Global Marketing Services ensures its effective operation and adoption throughout the company. “The standard isn’t a rigid set of rules imposed from the top. It’s a framework that sets guardrails – and from an operational perspective, these guardrails make a real difference. They allow us to implement solutions faster, leverage synergies and scale standard compliant setups much more efficiently,” says Dr. Christina Illichmann, Team Lead Market Intelligence Consulting at GBS. The common denominator across all touchpoints is the Customer Experience Index (CXI) – a single metric based on one core rating question that captures the perceived customer experience. This ensures standardization, comparability and alignment across the entire organization.
The framework rests on five pillars:
For Siemens customers, this means:
- Faster responses when issues arise
- Fewer redundant surveys
- A consistent experience across interactions with Siemens
pulse.cloud: the tool behind the standard
As the central service provider, GBS Global Marketing Services (GMS) operationalizes this standard – from questionnaire design to action management and a strong focus on data consulting. The technical backbone is pulse.cloud, a proprietary Siemens survey tool developed in close cooperation between the internal IT organization and GMS. It combines two functions:
The customer sees a consistent interface, whether as a pop-up on a Siemens website, an automated email after an interaction, a feedback button or a QR code. Customers submit their feedback in just a few minutes.
The internal team has access to dashboards displaying all incoming ratings and open-ended responses. When a customer submits a critical rating, the employee responsible automatically receives an alert – complete with a link to the customer record and a clear action directive.
At Siemens Switzerland, two touchpoints – sales and service – are already automated via pulse.cloud, with project delivery set to follow soon. The principle: The framework is global, but every region can implement the standard with its own specific touchpoints and workflows.
Information that belongs to everyone
What’s more, survey data no longer belongs to individual teams. Via the Siemens Data Cloud, the data is available company-wide – anonymized and pseudonymized. This protects sensitive information and meets compliance requirements. Only employees with the appropriate permissions see personal data. The broader insights, however, are open to anyone who wants to learn from them.
The Siemens Customer Experience Standard opens up many possibilities. The aim is that business units can compare touchpoints, identify best practices and learn from each other. Who performs best during the quoting phase? Which region has the highest customer satisfaction in service? “The real value of a standardized customer experience approach across Siemens is not in the individual tools or processes, but in the ability to systematically turn customer feedback into action at scale. For the first time, we can compare performance across touchpoints and business units, identify what works and consistently improve the customer experience across Siemens,” says Christoph Waldenberger, Business Field Head Market Intelligence Consulting at Siemens GBS.
AI scans and pre-sorts
Processing large volumes of customer feedback can be time-consuming. What matters is how quickly teams turn it into action – and ultimately improve the customer experience. AI helps put customer feedback to work faster:
How the standard is being rolled out
Currently, 11 Siemens business units are working with the new framework, and 13 more are in the process of adopting it. “Colleagues from different business units have agreed on one standard and are driving it forward together in the spirit of ONE Tech Company,” says Christina Illichmann. To her, every new project proves that “standardization doesn’t mean making everything the same. It lays the foundation for everyone to benefit from each other.”
Customer experience at Siemens
touchpoints along the customer journey
customer responses per year
maximum response time for critical feedback
Customer feedback is still fragmented across silos, tools and methodologies – our Customer Experience Standard defines our path toward a unified approach, with GBS as a key enabler of harmonized and accessible insights. Initial successes clearly demonstrate the value of this direction, even as we continue to advance implementation across the broader Siemens landscape.
Dr. Christina Illichmann,
Team Lead Market Intelligence Consulting at Siemens GBS
From isolated process automation to the full value chain
How GBS drives transformation at Siemens Spain and Portugal
More than a simple service provider: Why Fernando Silva, CEO of Siemens Lead Country Spain, sees GBS as an integrated part of his business.
What does it take to turn a shared services organization into a genuine part of your operations? And to develop its role from a vendor you manage at arm’s length to a partner embedded in everything you do?
As CEO of Siemens Lead Country Spain, Fernando Silva has watched the collaboration evolve through several stages. He knows about the competitive pressures that make this kind of partnership necessary. He is well aware of what transformation actually looks like when two organizations move through it together. And of the question every business leader eventually faces: How do you keep your people focused on their core knowledge and tasks?
In the latest episode of “Impact Unpacked,” Silva shares his aim: to standardize, automate, scale and integrate solutions into each vertical process so it’s possible to offer common solutions to customers across the company.
To get a deeper sense of Silva’s insights, watch the full interview below.
Keep it simple: the digital solution to spare parts management
How GBS’s one-stop shop improves spare parts management at Siemens Mobility
More efficient processes, fewer errors and faster response times – all possible with the Digital Operational Management (DOM) platform by Siemens Global Business Services (GBS): a comprehensive solution that’s now being applied at Siemens Mobility, transforming how it handles its spare parts operations from start to finish.
Like a conductor’s assistant
Think of managing spare parts like conducting an orchestra: just like every instrument needs to play its part at exactly the right time, various spare parts, even discontinued ones, need to be available for customers at the exact time they need them. Sounds complex? It is. Before DOM was launched, Siemens Mobility faced challenges that many large organizations would recognize. Teams that spend too much time on manual paperwork, struggling to track ongoing processes and getting caught in back-and-forth communications. These issues led to delays and inefficiencies across departments. That’s what DOM was created for – a digital solution that’s making a real difference. In general, Digital Operational Management is a case management system coordinating complex business processes across units and organizations. It allows close steering and monitoring, and it simplifies order management processes and lifecycles across a range of applications, systems and channels. It’s like an assistant to the conductor that enables them to successfully and efficiently manage the orchestra.
The platform on which DOM is running operates in 39 countries, helping over 10,000 users across 243 teams to manage an impressive 2.2 million cases each year. All of this is coordinated through a central hub in Lisbon, Portugal, ensuring everyone stays on the same page.
From fragmented to streamlined
What makes DOM special is how it brings everything together in one place. Instead of juggling multiple tools like SAP, email, Excel and phone calls, DOM offers a streamlined digital workflow to manage cases, approve requests and track progress, all while maintaining data privacy.
Accelerating the digital transformation
Since GBS implemented the first process at Siemens Mobility, “Make Material Orderable,” spare parts management has become smoother and more efficient. Teams can communicate better, make fewer mistakes and track progress in real time, which all leads to significantly more efficient processes. However, it’s not just about speed and efficiency – employees can focus on meaningful work instead of being held up by Excel sheet handling, as Rene Fink, Process and Digitalization Consultant at Siemens Mobility, says:
The impact on our business? Significantly more efficient processes. Fewer errors. Faster response times. Better data. And our people can finally focus on what matters – delivering exceptional services to our customers. This digitalization could pave the way for AI integration to offer flexibility to our customers.
There’s an environmental benefit too, as moving to digital processes means less paper waste. While GBS continues to improve DOM with AI capabilities such as an upcoming automated customer correspondence system, the platform is already proving that digital transformation isn’t just about new technology, it’s about making work better for everyone involved.
The successful go-live of the first joint project in October 2025 and the stable operations since then reflect the strong collaboration and commitment on all sides. Building on this foundation, three additional projects – Bid Management, Order Management and European Pricing – have already been launched on DOM as end-to-end solutions and are currently being implemented in the same close partnership.
What made this journey especially remarkable from the very beginning was the close and trust-based collaboration between GBS and the Spare Parts Services team at Customer Service at SMO, as Dimitri Wiederspan, Customer Relationship Manager and Project Manager at GBS, explains:
Even during the most challenging moments, everyone remained focused on the same goal: delivering a functional, reliable solution that truly meets operational needs. This partnership, built on trust, teamwork and continuous mutual support, was fundamental to the project’s success and clearly demonstrates what can be achieved when teams work together in the spirit of ONE Tech Company.
Looking ahead, there’s still more to come regarding DOM’s future developments and impact. But one thing is clear: GBS has created a solution that’s making a real difference in how Siemens Mobility operates, setting a new standard for digital efficiency in spare parts management.
When data reveals more than the truth
How standardized reporting powers smarter decisions
Everyone has it, collects it, produces it: data. And there’s power within it. But this power can only be released when it’s truly understood – by humans and by machines. For businesses navigating complex regulatory landscapes and competitive markets, the difference between success and struggle often comes down to one critical question: Can everyone see the same picture?
Standardized KPI reporting may start with laborious steps like ticking compliance boxes or filling spreadsheets. The shift, however, comes by creating a shared language that transforms confusion into clarity and raw data into actionable insight. When teams across departments, geographies and business units can trust the same numbers, make sense of the same metrics and work from the same foundation of truth, real collaboration and innovation become possible.
Here are two projects to underline this claim.
Shining a light on sustainability: the Sustainability KPI Library
Imagine trying to navigate a city without street signs. That’s what sustainability reporting felt like at Siemens before the Sustainability KPI Library came along.
As regulations like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) demand ever greater transparency on environmental, social and governance performance, companies face a daunting challenge: translating mountains of technical requirements into something everyone can understand and use.
With all these details required, we developed and rolled out the Sustainability KPI Library as a state-of-the-art cloud solution,” says Katharina Brand, project lead. “In year two, we further enhanced the library to meet customer needs even better, evolving from a CSRD-focused tool into a broader Sustainability KPI Library.
Siemens Global Business Services (GBS) took a customer-centric, end-to-end approach: from initial consulting and elegant user design, through agile development, to a smooth company-wide rollout. The result? A centralized platform where anyone at Siemens, anywhere in the world, can explore sustainability KPIs without needing expert knowledge.
Users can filter KPIs by owner or topic, generate new KPIs through an intuitive walk-through, export profiles in Excel, use a search function and trust that the information is accurate. Behind the scenes, tracking capabilities provide aggregated insights into how content is used – helping continuously improve the platform over time.
“The Sustainability KPI Library is one step on the journey of bringing sustainability reporting closer to Siemens employees,” Katharina reflects. “It has made the topic more transparent, efficient and accessible for everyone involved.”
From fragmented to focused: the lead reporting data product
For different Siemens units, inconsistent lead reporting created constant frustration. Different dashboards displayed conflicting KPI values. Tracking lead progression through the sales funnel meant deciphering competing definitions and reconciling contradictory numbers. Without standardized analysis, unified strategic decisions were nearly impossible.
Enter the Lead Waterfall Data Product, a game-changing solution built within the Siemens Data & AI Cloud. Think of it as a ready-to-use LEGO set: complete with all components, clear guidance, quality assurance and business ownership, designed to be shared across Siemens.
“Our Global Marketing Services experts combined their technical and domain expertise to help develop this scalable data product, empowering our customers to excel in their sales activities,” explains Janek Putz, project lead and data consultant.
The project required aligning stakeholders across business units, integrating data governance principles (data mesh, data domains and data products), and implementing the solution using a handful of tools and platforms. The result was a centralized engine applying unified KPI logic based on the waterfall model to lead and opportunity data in the sales tool.
Full transparency. Time-based granularity to track progression. Bottleneck identification. Conversion optimization. And perhaps most importantly: governance rules and business logic embedded right at the data level, removing manual interpretation and delivering consistent, reusable insights.
“This data product has fundamentally changed how we manage and streamline our lead reporting,” says customer Andreas Wunderlich, Head of Digital Insights & Programs at Siemens Xcelerator Digital Experience. “It’s not just about numbers, it’s about clarity, speed and shared understanding across teams.”
“Atlas” and the FICA iceberg
How a deceptively simple question and a seemingly simple tool solved one of business’s most complex compliance puzzles.
The question that launched this project at Siemens GBS sounds straightforward: who owes Social Security and Medicare contributions among Siemens’ foreign national employees in the US – and who doesn’t? But answering this question is not as simple as it might look. Under the US Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), exemption status shifts with visa type, employment history, international treaties, and timing.
A question with no simple answer
For both employees and employers, getting to the right answer has long meant reconciling data scattered across HR and payroll systems, chasing information through email threads, and applying individual judgment that varied case by case. The work was manual, the records were fragmented, and the risk – of inconsistency, of error, of a compliance gap nobody spotted – was real.
Foreign national employees’ situations are often complex and can change over time,” says Laura Suarez, FICA Project Manager. “What we wanted to build was transparency – confidence that the right decision is being made, consistently.
How a deceptively simple tool required input from 45 stakeholders
This was a challenge that no off-the-shelf solution could meet – and the starting point for “Project Atlas – FICA” at Siemens GBS. It took 45 stakeholders across Payroll, P&O Technology, Legal, and Data Privacy to build the necessary transparency into their FICA tool. The solution: a digital process that felt and feels deceptively simple to most of them by design. Each team contributed their piece – their rules, their data, their compliance requirements – without needing to see the full picture. The complexity was absorbed into the architecture, not distributed across the people using it.
The result: a tool that consolidates data from across Siemens’ People & Organization (P&O) and payroll landscape, applies consistent decision-making rules to determine FICA exemption status, and creates a complete, auditable record of every decision and change. Where discrepancies arise, the tool doesn’t just flag them – it routes the right task to the right team automatically. Data privacy and cybersecurity requirements aren’t bolted on; they’re built into the foundation.
What changes when the system does the work
The shift in day-to-day work is tangible. Issues are caught and acted on faster. Less manual rework is required. Accountability is explicit – every action logged, every decision traceable.
“Instead of asking ‘what happened?’” says Suarez, “we can focus on ‘what do we do next?’” That’s exactly what happens when the complexity lives in the system rather than in the people managing it. Like an iceberg, most things stay below the waterline, unseen by the people above the surface.”
Built to travel
The FICA tool is live and processing cases in the United States today. But it was also built to travel. The core architecture – consolidating contributions and exemption data, applying consistent rules, creating end-to-end transparency – can extend to other countries with similar compliance complexity.
We built this to solve a real problem,” says Suarez, “and it’s one that exists internationally.
For the teams who’ll eventually use it, the experience will feel familiar: a clean answer, surfaced simply. Most of the work, as ever, stays out of sight.
Siemens RXD Summit
From concept to event in only seven weeks
3,000 m² of exhibition space, 2,500 attendees, 26 product launches: a look behind the scenes of an award-winning event realized by the successful collaboration between Siemens GBS and Siemens Communications.
Beijing set the stage for Siemens’ inaugural RXD Summit (Real Meets Digital), uniting over 2,500 attendees and nearly 2 million live-stream viewers and launching 26 new, locally developed products based on global expertise – all delivered within an ambitious seven-week timeline. Let’s take a look behind the scenes.
When more than 2,500 customers, partners and industry leaders gathered in Beijing for Siemens’ first RXD Summit, they witnessed a milestone in Siemens’ global flagship series. Over two days, under the motto “Where real meets digital,” the event not only showcased industrial AI in action, it also strengthened Siemens’ brand credibility, boosted market confidence and catalyzed business growth.
Combining the real and the digital worlds
Choosing Beijing as the pilot location was deliberate. China plays an important role in Siemens’ global footprint, and the summit highlighted the sustained commitment to the market. Even as the city shed its early-spring chill, the team transformed 5,000 m² of exhibition and meeting space into a seamless blend of conference halls, demonstration zones and networking areas, proving that real and digital can coexist, inform one another and inspire new ideas.
The final event showed what working together as ONE Tech Company can look like in real life, with global teams from Siemens GBS and Siemens Communications (CM) working together towards one common goal. Inside 3,000 m² of Tech and Eco Zones, attendees explored more than 100 topics across 120 booths and 94 display panels. From digital-twin applications to AI-powered optimization, the summit unveiled 26 locally developed products, such as the Siemens Predictive Analytics System Pro and the SITRANS TS OEM Temperature Sensor, that bring the industrial AI operating system to life. Across 70 sessions and 60 hours of live streaming, 1.95 million live-stream viewers tuned in, and over 272,000 views were registered on Siemens channels. With more than 100 hands-on demonstrations and coverage by 60 media outlets and analysts, the RXD Summit served as a global touchpoint for innovation.
Working against the clock
Delivering an immersive, safe and seamless customer experience in just seven weeks was no easy task. It demanded extraordinary collaboration and speed, achieved through close coordination and regular team updates. “I anticipated this project would be challenging, but I never imagined it would be this intense,” recalls Li Shu Yuan (Amy), Head of Siemens GBS CMS China. While many strategies evolved during the project itself – it was a pilot, after all – the organizing group operated like a high-performance engine during the conceptual and preparation phase, making quick decisions and keeping every detail focused on the visitor experience. Mu Qing-Quennie, Live Experience Team Leader at CMS China, who oversaw on-site coordination, remembers: “It was on the way home from work that I truly understood what ‘collaboration and speed’ really mean: a group of people giving their absolute all, operating at high speed like well-oiled gears. I could always count on the team.” Qu Ming-Sophia, Senior Specialist at CMS China, who led the event’s execution, put it simply: “The team worked around the clock, ensuring rapid feedback that effectively bridged the China–Germany time gap.”
“Bringing AI into the real world requires more than great models”
On the main stage, CEO Roland Busch joined Joe Tsai, Chairman of the Alibaba Group, Wang Xingxing, founder and CEO of Unitree Robotics, and Professor Ni Jun from CATL, to explore what it takes to bring AI from lab to factory floor. As Roland put it, “Bringing AI into the real world requires an industrial AI operating system: a technology stack that connects data, software and intelligent hardware. Here in Beijing, we are showing how this system is advancing – with deeper partnerships and new products built around our customers’ real needs.” In a letter to the organizing team, Roland congratulated everyone for setting such a high bar: “To put an event like this together in such a short time is impressive – you’ve set the bar high. You created the perfect stage to showcase the outstanding products you have developed with China speed.”
Teamwork makes the summit work
Beyond technology, the summit was also a human success story. Yue Yue-Monica, Live Experience Senior Specialist, celebrated the packed halls, validating rigorous crowd-flow simulations and contingency planning. Sven Leverenz, Head of Creation and Brand Services at GBS CMS, reflected on how shared standards for concept and design, paired with a pragmatic, solution-oriented mindset, enabled everything to work out in record time. Joining the team in Beijing two weeks before the event, he and his team were able to solve issues on the spot and act as one team in one joint location. This has proven to add great value to the overall project execution.
The project is a great example of successful collaboration across borders, time zones, businesses and functions. Dr. Xiao Song, President and CEO of Siemens Greater China, captured the spirit of the achievement: “In just a few weeks, an ambitious idea was turned into a highly influential flagship event, demonstrating the true power of ONE Tech Company × China speed!”
Jose Machado, Project Lead from Global Communications, reflected on what made organizing this event special: “It really is impressive how the team came together to make this possible.” Echoing this sentiment, Yun-Claire, Head of Communications in China, added: “It wouldn’t have been possible without the strong trust and collaboration between our global and local colleagues. A big thank you to each and every one of them!”
Besides the excitement around the day itself, the broader significance didn’t go unnoticed. The borderless cooperation across global Communication and Marketing Services and Communications teams is a perfect embodiment of the ONE Tech Company approach. A tight timeline in a joint project can truly challenge the whole atmosphere. And while working under pressure cannot always be avoided, the teams from GBS and CM worked together as one team with mutual trust and fast decision-making. Together with the Project Lead from Communications at Siemens AG, Jose Machado, and the Project Lead from Communications China, Zhao Miaomiao, they ultimately accomplished what initially seemed an impossible task. Stephen Rose, Head of Communication Services at GBS, reflected:
It offers significant insights for organizing further large-scale events in other markets and demonstrates how we can help Siemens convey its identity as a technology company to customers worldwide.
This was just the beginning
From overwhelming daily registration demand to the exhibitions’ unbroken flow of visitors, the RXD Summit unlocked high market potential and delivered a secure, inspiring customer experience. Now, as Beijing’s trees are in full summer bloom, the team is already laying the groundwork for the next chapter – continuing to show how Siemens delivers real-world impact at China speed and beyond.
The Siemens RXD Summit just won “Best International Event” at this year’s ICEN Awards! The combination of global messaging with local relevance successfully turned this pilot into a scalable format. The International Corporate Events Network recognizes in-house corporate event teams and their value-add to business success.
Subscribe to INSIDE for your region
LOOKING FOR FURTHER INSIGHTS? EXPLORE PREVIOUS EDITIONS OF INSIDE HERE: