Rock-solid relationship
Katarzyna Dębek: Why does Wrocław attract so much investment?
Peter Baudrexl: We set up our software development center five years ago. What was most important for us was having qualified people for our kind of activities - we're not talking about people who can hold a screwdriver but those who are familiar with very modern high technology. For that you need a very good technical university, such as the one in Wrocław. Such a university must also be willing to cooperate and Wrocław University is also very good in this.
In what ways does Siemens cooperate with Wrocław University?
We place students for internships in our companies, we frequently discuss our requirements with different departments of the university, we do guest lecturing, a lot of different activities. However, the most important one is taking quite a large number of students from the university into the company as interns.
Samsung, a company with an R&D center in Warsaw, recently experienced some difficulties in finding enough educated staff there. Do you struggle to find suitable new staff?
If that's the case, then Samsung should consider changing their location. In Warsaw there are already so many international activities that it's becoming difficult to find very educated people, not only IT specialists. If you're looking for highly skilled sales people or commercial staff Warsaw is the most difficult labor market to find them.
Poles are well educated, but they are also willing to work for one third of what their German colleagues would demand. Isn't that the most important incentive for Siemens?
If you want to go into the money race there are much cheaper places than Poland - you can go to Romania, India, China. Obviously, cost is a very important issue but even more important is the relationship between cost and productivity, quality of people. So for cost reasons alone, we would not invest in Poland.
There has been much talk of Poland becoming a great outsourcing location, but aren't the kind of investments you have made in R&D easier and cheaper to move than production facilities if the market situation changes?
No, they are much more expensive. In the case of a factory, we're talking about conveyor belts, robotic equipment, assembly lines ... you put it in a truck and drive it away, no problem. The only thing we're talking about is land and building. Today, in the race for investment, if you go to a new country, you get the land for a very low price. What is much more expensive is when you invest in people's training and brains because you cannot transfer it. So for me, this is a longer-term investment.
So far, Siemens has invested almost EUR 250 (zł.993) million in Poland. What were the biggest obstacles Siemens encountered when it started investing in Poland?
There weren't any. From my perspective the least positive thing about Poland is it's image internationally, which is not very good. Don't ask me why. Many people don't know Poland very well.
Has this always been the case or has it changed with the arrival of the new government?
I think at the beginning the international perception of the new government was critical, whether it was right or wrong is a different story, but it was critical. Within Poland, I couldn't care less because nothing has been done or decided that would hurt us as investors in Poland. From the perspective of someone who isn't here yet, it might be different because he only knows the country through the headlines of the international press.
Bureaucracy is regarded as very stringent in Poland, but in Germany it's not any easier. If you want to construct a building here, for example, you can get a decision quicker than in Germany in the same circumstances.
You now employ some 700 people in your software development center in Wrocław, and the press recently reported that your firm is considering opening up similar centers in other locations or even moving part of its operations from Germany. How advanced are these projects?
Every development center has a certain limit of people when it's economical to run and this is usually 1,200-1,500 people, but we will not reach this number this year. We might in two years' time when would set up a new center from scratch. And there might be reductions in other companies, not necessarily in Germany but, for instance, in India, because you have better educated people here and there's no cultural issue. In our center we would like to get engaged not only in software development but also in mechatronics as a second possibility.
If there's a decision from Siemens we might look for a second location. But for the time being, we have to use our existing facilities.
Interviewed by
Katarzyna Dębek
