WACKER will adhere to its fundamental growth strategy over the next two years. Prior to the economic crisis, this strategy enabled us to increase sales and earnings continuously. It also proved robust throughout the downturn and was instrumental in helping us emerge from the crisis in good shape. The three levers of our strategy – expansion into emerging markets and regions, substitution of existing products with WACKER products, and innovations – equip us for further growth.
Making WACKER Even More International
In 2011 and 2012, we will strengthen the Group’s international presence. This goal is reflected in our decision to build our first polysilicon manufacturing plant outside Germany. We intend to not only broaden our sales network and technical support, but also make our production operations more internationally diversified. As a result, WACKER aims to seize local opportunities in various key growth markets, and benefit from the lower factor costs offered by manufacturing locally.
One priority is to safeguard our silicon-metal supply following last year’s backward integration when we acquired the silicon-metal plant at Holla.
Site Management at Burghausen is WACKER’s largest corporate department with over 900 employees. The site has expanded rapidly in recent years and also performs specialist and corporate functions for the entire Group. We therefore took the decision to reorganize Site Management, effective January 1, 2011.
Another key change was the consolidation of our sustainability activities to make us even more efficient and effective in this important area. Thus, we set up a new Corporate Sustainability unit on January 1, 2011. It handles sustainability management for the entire Group.
At Nünchritz, WACKER will have a second, integrated, multi-divisional site alongside Burghausen once the Poly 9 expansion stage comes on stream there. Consequently, we created a new Site Management corporate department at Nünchritz, effective January 1, 2011. We currently do not foresee any other major changes in business policies and organizational orientation.