Opportunity Management System

WACKER’s opportunity management system is a divisional and Group-level instrument. We identify operational opportunities and exploit them in our business divisions, which possess the detailed product and market expertise needed. We continuously use market observation and analysis tools to obtain a well-structured assessment of, for instance, market, industry and competitor data. Plus, we hold customer interviews to evaluate future opportunities. The monitoring process – how WACKER perceives opportunities – is based on key indicators (such as rolling forecasts and current-status reporting).

Strategic opportunities of overarching importance – such as strategy adjustments, potential acquisitions, collaborations and partnerships – are handled at the Executive Board level. Such opportunities are incorporated into WACKER’s annual strategy-development and planning process, with current issues being discussed at regularly scheduled Executive Board meetings. We use various scenarios to develop risk-opportunity profiles for these issues before decisions are reached.

Over the next few years, we will focus our efforts on ensuring that WACKER is ideally positioned not only to supply tomorrow’s growth markets (such as Brazil, China, India and Russia), but also to maintain our strong presence in established markets (such as Europe and the USA). We see the greatest overall economic growth opportunities in tomorrow’s markets. The prime objective is to significantly increase sales and grow profitably – especially in China, already the world’s second-largest chemical market. If the economic recovery continues to make an impact through 2010, we see chances for increasing our chemical sales volumes to an even greater extent than planned.

The key drivers for further growth are global megatrends. WACKER has an excellent product portfolio for serving these megatrends and taking advantage of the sector-specific opportunities they provide.

Megatrends Continue Seamlessly

At the forefront is the energy megatrend, especially in the solar industry. Given the finite nature of oil and other fossil fuels and the growing importance of climate protection, an increasing number of countries are harnessing ever more renewable energy sources. Falling prices for solar modules, cells and starting materials in 2009 have helped to make solar energy increasingly competitive. This will push up demand for solar installations. WACKER POLYSILICON will profit from this as a producer of hyperpure polycrystalline silicon and as a cost and quality leader. By continuing to expand capacities, we want to meet this rising demand.

WACKER POLYMERS is contributing decisively to saving energy and cutting greenhouse-gas emissions with its innovative thermal-insulation products, for example. Now that our Nanjing plant – China’s largest production facility for dispersible polymer powders – has come on stream, we can supply the country’s dynamic construction industry with high-quality polymer powders. The Chinese government has cited energy conservation as one of its key environmental goals for the next few years. Thanks to our products, we can play a significant role here.

The energy megatrend is also being strongly driven by our customers and development partners from industry. With manufacturers of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) specifically in mind, WACKER SILICONES developed high-performance optical-grade silicones that can be used to produce heat-resistant, photostable lenses. These are created directly on an LED chip in a single production step, without injection-molding or shaping processes. Simplifying the procedure in this way reduces manufacturing costs and makes cutting-edge LED technology accessible to the mass market.

With Asia’s growth markets and other regions’ emerging economies enjoying greater prosperity, demand for high-quality products has grown. WACKER SILICONES, in particular, has a diverse product range to boost living standards. In almost all sectors, we offer products and solutions that increase prosperity, and promote urbanization, infrastructural expansion and environmental protection.

The world is becoming ever more digital. As a manufacturer of silicon wafers for the semiconductor industry, WACKER profits from this development. The increasing digitization of products and ever-greater demand for silicon in consumer electronics are driving volume growth, especially in Asia. The share of 300 mm wafers is particularly high. Through Siltronic, we profit from this growth – we have recently expanded 300 mm capacities in Burghausen and Freiberg, and are continuing 300 mm expansion in Singapore.

Production-capacity expansion opens up strategic opportunities for WACKER. Last year alone, we spent about €708 million on capacity expansion. With a further polysilicon facility starting up at Nünchritz in 2011, we will be able to profit from solar-sector growth. Thanks to WACKER BIOSOLUTIONS’ future focus on food, agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and biotech products, the Group is harnessing new customer potential in dynamic-growth sectors. WACKER sees further opportunities to sustainably secure the Group’s innovation leadership in numerous fields by bringing even more innovative, high-quality products to market.

By Expanding Polysilicon Production Capacity, WACKER Profits from Solar-Industry Growth

WACKER’s greatest chances to boost performance stem from the “Wacker Operating System” (WOS) program. Dedicated projects underscore our constant efforts to boost productivity and enhance our cost/benefit ratio.

WACKER’s in-house engineering teams provide a wealth of outstanding plant expertise, enabling new production facilities to come on stream faster than scheduled – particularly for polysilicon. This expertise also allows us to supply high product quality and boost productivity beyond nominal capacities. WACKER sees further opportunities here to gain cost and quality advantages over competitors. On the maintenance front, the Group’s engineering strength is reflected in high plant availability and low specific operating and maintenance costs. Our engineering units collaborate with plant and production teams, assuming major tasks and providing expertise that goes beyond regular maintenance work.

By expanding our sales organization and setting up new technical competence centers, WACKER has opened up opportunities to gain additional market share. We are well positioned to generate growth with products tailored to local markets – thanks to our complete dispersions/dispersible polymer powders supply chain and production sites in Europe, the Americas and Asia. When it comes to ethylene-based dispersions and polymer powders, WACKER is the only company worldwide that has a complete supply chain for these products’ key markets – Europe, North America and China.