Thread regarding Siemens layoffs

@pa1 Couldn't agree more. YDH comes across as incredibly two-faced.

And SSB? The moment he got promoted, he started acting all high and mighty, as if the title suddenly made him better than everyone else.

WYS is even worse. He gives off that classic "Everyone else is a fu--ing id--t, and I'm the only genius in the room" attitude. Arrogant, condescending, and completely full of himself. I honestly can't imagine what brilliant insights he could possibly bring to these Verticals beyond the same old playbook: spare parts, services, retrofits, framework agreements, and MTS.

Different industries, same recycled ideas. Apparently, that's what passes for industry strategy these days.

Looking back at FY26, I believe many colleagues across Vertical share the same feelings: disappointment, frustration, endless internal friction, and forced compromise.

We acknowledge that YDH is an excellent speaker. But being good at giving speeches doesn't automatically make someone a good leader, let alone someone with a sound business strategy.

Throughout FY26, almost every Vertical employee seemed to have produced an astronomical number of PowerPoint slides.

And for what? Who actually reads them? What business value did they create?

At the end of the day, it often felt like we were simply producing PPTs to satisfy YDH's personal vision rather than solving real business problems.

Meanwhile, the Vertical Heads seem to have no independent strategy of their own. Instead of challenging YDH's unrealistic ideas, they simply go along with whatever he says and pass the workload straight down to frontline employees.

Management comes up with the fantasies. Employees do the homework. And nobody seems accountable for the results.

FY27: We Expected Change. We Got Another Organizational Circus.

Many of us genuinely hoped senior management would finally recognize how dysfunctional the Vertical organization had become — the endless reporting, unclear priorities, and huge disconnect between management expectations and actual business value.

Then, just before FY27, we received a Circular from YDH, apparently addressed to himself.

And that's how we discovered the organizational changes: through an incredibly vague, barely readable organization chart buried in a Circular.

Seriously, if you're announcing an organizational restructuring, could you at least check the image resolution before sending it?

I've seen adult videos with better picture quality than that organization chart.

Then came TTW, a newly appointed leader perceived by some as being close to YDH, taking over several of COE's most prominent Verticals.

A new virtual organization called PIT was also established, which raises another question: is this really about improving business performance, or are we witnessing yet another internal power struggle, this time involving PIT and PSE's Dr. Y?

And then comes my favorite part of the Circular:

"Process Industry: The LS, CPG, and W&W Verticals will report to CHEM & ENE delegated by the Head of Verticals & Process Industry Transformation."

And:

"Discrete Industry: The Batteries, E&S, ILOG, and SL&PE Verticals will report to AUTO & Tire delegated by the Head of Verticals & Process Industry Transformation."

Seriously?

If you want to promote SSB and WYS, why not just say so? Why dress it up in such ridiculously complicated corporate language?

During the Vertical Townhall, employees were explicitly told that the other Vertical Heads were not being downgraded.

Yet the reporting lines in the organizational system were subsequently changed, apparently without a clear explanation to the employees affected.

So what exactly are we supposed to believe?

The reassuring statements made publicly at the Townhall, or the organizational hierarchy quietly updated in the system?

If these changes are not intended as demotions, then management should explain the rationale, the actual decision-making authority, and what has changed for each Vertical Head.

You cannot tell employees that nothing has changed while quietly changing who reports to whom and expect nobody to notice.

The Three Most Useless Organizations for Sales in DI CN

1. SW — An Organization That Doesn't Even Know Where Its Responsibilities Begin or End

An organization with incredibly unclear roles, responsibilities, and boundaries.

From a sales perspective, the only things people really associate with SW are probably Eigen and WinCC.

Managing list prices, producing endless PowerPoint presentations, and talking up technologies at trade shows. That's about it.

But when it comes to actually helping sales win business, what meaningful value does SW bring to the table?

1. MB — Talent Without We-pons

WZL is undoubtedly a talented person, but what can even the most capable leader achieve without the tools or authority to make a difference?

MB is expected to develop markets, support sales, and fight competitors, yet lacks the commercial leverage to influence actual business decisions.

You can't win a war by sending talented people onto the battlefield without we-pons.

1. Vertical led by YDH — Probably the Most Toxic Organization in DI CN

And then there's Vertical, led by YDH.

From my perspective, YDH comes across as arrogant, dismissive of employees, and completely disconnected from the realities of frontline business.

We get endless strategies that are nearly impossible to execute, unrealistic ideas that sound impressive in PowerPoint presentations, and management expectations that have little connection to what is actually happening in the market.

Meanwhile, there's still this fantasy that traditional spare parts and retrofit business will somehow generate significant additional orders, as if recycling the same old ideas could magically deliver growth.

What do customers actually want? How is the market changing? What challenges are salespeople facing every single day?

Does any of that actually matter to him?

Instead of understanding these problems and helping solve them, the response too often seems to be shifting responsibility back to the SUs and frontline sales.

Sometimes it genuinely feels as though YDH believes everyone in sales is an id--t, while management can do no wrong.

To me, Vertical has become one of the most dysfunctional and toxic parts of DI China.

The real tragedy is that frontline salespeople are fighting competitors every day, while these organizations seem far more focused on producing strategies, presentations, and internal reporting than actually helping us win business.

As an SW employee, I honestly feel confused and lost about where we're heading.

First of all, management doesn't seem to have a clear idea of what we're actually supposed to do, let alone how we're supposed to do it.

From my perspective, management rushed to appoint middle managers without first figuring out how the organization should actually operate.

Team structures, division of responsibilities, organizational boundaries, operating models, and even individual job descriptions — everything seems to be an absolute mess.

It feels like management was more concerned about filling leadership positions than defining what these teams are actually supposed to deliver.

How are employees expected to execute a strategy when management itself hasn't clearly defined the roles, responsibilities, or direction?

@p9w I genuinely feel sorry for our colleagues in MB and SW. As if doing business in this market wasn't challenging enough, now they have to worry about keeping ZJS happy just to get things done.

In today's increasingly challenging business environment, MB and SW will quickly lose market visibility if they have no real leverage to influence business decisions.

Let's face it, SUs are highly pragmatic organizations. The vision behind One Tech may sound great on paper, giving MB responsibilities such as market development and OEM machine-type analysis. But here's the reality:

If MB cannot even offer competitive pricing support when we're fighting competitors, why would salespeople bother involving MB in the first place?

Regional TS teams can already handle most technical and application-related issues themselves. Without meaningful commercial influence, what additional value can MB actually bring to the table?

It's a vicious cycle. Sales stops involving MB, MB loses access to frontline opportunities, and market transparency gradually disappears.

Give it six months. Without real decision-making authority or commercial leverage, MB could become completely disconnected from the market.

And by the time management realizes what's happening, it may be too late.

The market won't wait for DI China to figure out its internal power struggles. Our competitors will simply take it away.

At this point, I almost hope Inovance puts up an even stronger fight. DI CN is digging its own grave.

Management spends every single day talking about how to beat Inovance, while running the business through an absolutely f***ed-up decision-making system.

Who the he-l thought it was a good idea to announce a price increase almost a month in advance, and then effectively prevent customers from placing orders before the new prices take effect?

Seriously, what kind of business logic is that?

You tell customers prices are going up, but when they naturally want to buy ahead of the increase, suddenly that's not allowed?

And then, without giving a damn about the pressure on frontline sales, management expects us to tell customers to wait until AFTER the price increase to place their orders.

Are you f***ing kidding me?

So apparently, salespeople are id--ts, customers are id--ts, and the only genius in the entire organization is ZJS.

Keep talking about beating Inovance. With decisions like these, Inovance doesn't even need to fight us. We're doing their job for them.

What we need is leadership that truly understands the industry, the technology, and the business to make pricing decisions. Leaders who understand our customers, support frontline sales, and recognize the realities of the market — rather than concentrating so much decision-making power in the hands of one individual.

ZJS spent most of his career within the SUs, and expectations were high when he moved to Domain. But more than a year into the One Tech transformation, where are the tangible improvements? What has actually been achieved?

From the perspective of frontline sales, the tensions between SUs and Domain seem even worse than they were under the old BU structure.

Wasn't One Tech supposed to break down organizational silos rather than create even bigger ones?

ZJS make the mistake，all sales take the responsibility.

Need PIP to ZJS@p5e

@nyq From the perspective of frontline sales, DI CN is effectively run by ZJS — not YXN, and certainly not Achim.

Before FY26, DI China typically announced price adjustments only about a day before they took effect. While this approach gave customers limited time to prepare, it also helped prevent excessive advance ordering and artificial demand spikes.

Then came FY27.

For reasons that remain difficult to understand, DI decided to announce its price adjustments almost a month in advance.

The consequences were entirely predictable.

Customers pulled forward future purchasing requirements, distributors increased inventory orders, and genuine market demand became mixed with stockpiling driven by the upcoming price increase.

And then came another brilliant management innovation: the SPR Quota System.

Domain allocated a limited amount of special pricing capacity to each SU. Once an SU exhausted its quota, further SPR requests could effectively be blocked from receiving ZJS's approval.

Instead of addressing market competitiveness and actual customer requirements, management created an internal competition for limited pricing resources.

Suddenly, the key question was no longer which customer or project genuinely needed support.

It became: Who controls the quota, and who gets access to it?

This raises serious governance questions about quota allocation by Channel Heads, including WB in RC and WQ and YLF in RE.

Are there transparent, consistent, and auditable criteria for these decisions? What safeguards exist against preferential treatment, conflicts of interest, or misuse of approval authority?

And where is Compliance in all of this?

Shouldn't a system that concentrates such significant commercial discretion in the hands of a few individuals be subject to stronger independent oversight?

The most frustrating part is that senior management can change pricing rules overnight, while frontline salespeople are left to deal with the consequences.

Years of customer relationships, built through countless meetings, negotiations, and hard work, can be damaged by one poorly designed management decision.

Management creates the problem. Sales takes the blame.

Another uncomfortable question is what DI S CN SW and MB will actually contribute if they have little meaningful influence over pricing, commercial decisions, or resource allocation.

Without these capabilities, are they at risk of becoming another Vertical in the eyes of frontline sales?

An organization with limited influence on real business decisions, but plenty of capacity to request reports, chase action plans, introduce additional processes, and produce endless PowerPoint presentations that nobody can translate into actual business value.

Sales teams do not need another layer of management asking for updates.

They need business partners who can influence decisions, remove obstacles, improve competitiveness, and help win projects.

Under ZJS, pricing authority for the vast majority of DI China's products has become increasingly centralized, creating what looks more and more like a management system built around a small circle of decision-makers.

But here is the real question: Has this concentration of power actually improved commercial judgment or decision-making efficiency?

Approvers such as XQK and ZYX may not always have sufficient visibility into customer situations, competitive dynamics, or the realities of individual projects.

How much independent commercial judgment can they really exercise under such a structure?

Are pricing decisions genuinely driven by market conditions, or are approvers increasingly reluctant to escalate requests to ZJS because they fear being challenged?

When avoiding internal challenges becomes more important than winning business, pricing governance stops being a commercial tool and starts becoming a bureaucratic obstacle.

Are we managing prices, or managing people's fear of challenging their superiors?

China DI's decision-making failure in the DOMAIN pricing increase process this time has further eroded and collapsed the trust relationships with customers, Siemens sales, and distributors. Head of domain ZJS, who practices cronyism and has brought loyalists such as XQK along all the way from RE, always plays the role of a one-man show and a dominant authority. He should be held responsible for this incident, and it is hoped that he will resign and take blame.

Happy new FY guys

@bf2 Siemens layed off 2 weeks ago over 100 engineers at the Sacramento location and more to come.

So when the news is gonna be out... Have been waiting for the change.

As an employee of DI China, I can only say that all crows are black—there isn't a single manager who is clean. WHB is the emperor of DI CN, and YDH and his ilk are henchmen and accomplices. Dr. X, LL, WZL—are they supposed to be excellent managers? That's laughable. Think about why Dr. X left the company back then, and how he magically transformed from a "loser" into the CEO of CN? Was it because of his own ability? As for LL, the decline of MC in the CN market wasn't entirely his doing, but he bears undeniable responsibility. WZL's AP career can be described as a complete failure—the failed S200 product ended up with the PO being laid off as the scapegoat. MC's business has been plummeting year after year, with a feudal and arrogant leadership, and yet some people here call them qualified leaders—that really makes me laugh out loud.

From an organizational development perspective, DI China is currently being heavily drained by the uncertainty caused by frequent restructuring.

Frontline employees are concerned about job security and are therefore forced to continue carrying a heavy execution workload under significant pressure. Middle managers, meanwhile, are worried about whether they will still have a suitable position after the next round of organizational changes. As a result, a considerable amount of their energy is being diverted to upward management, internal resource competition, and formalistic reporting. In some cases, the focus has clearly shifted from real business impact to visibility management.

At the same time, GMs who have already secured relatively stable positions are increasingly focused on preparing for their future scope of responsibility and organizational positioning, with less attention being paid to current business priorities. Those GMs who have not yet secured their next roles are also unlikely to fully commit their energy to the current quarter’s business delivery.

As a result, the final quarter is likely to fall into an imbalanced state: some GMs may become passive or adopt a wait-and-see attitude; middle managers may intensify their efforts to demonstrate visibility through frequent initiatives and formalistic projects, preparing themselves for future interviews or role competition; and frontline employees will end up carrying the extra workload, helping middle managers and unsettled GMs create their final “performance proof points.”

The real issue is not a lack of effort from employees. Rather, organizational uncertainty is systematically eroding business focus, management efficiency, and frontline execution capability.

@5b7 I have left the company a couple of months ago, and so far I have not seen anyone seriously doing AI. You can see some local efforts here and there, probably from bored people trying to catch up and train themselves to get a better CV, but the fact is that the whole company is lagging behind by many years. Siemens just realized that the "Metaverse" is DOA and became an internet meme 4 years ago, now they realize that AI is everywhere and they need to pivot. Siemens reminds me of Intel, stuck in their bubble, arrogant because too big to fail, but missing all the GPU/AI revolution happening at the same time. At the end they will just buy Nvidia tech at a premium.

@3ea I really doubt that if they sell digitalization and AI to customers in real.

The DI China released the new GM or Not？ ZJS is still the new Domain Head？WZL for Machine Builder？He was not haapy to handle with PMA and Tiger bsineess.

@3b7 YDH is useless except for brown-nosing WHB; he doesn't have any achievements worth showing.

Does anyone actually care about the situation product managers are facing?

Almost every issue now eventually gets pushed onto the product managers. Customer issues, delivery problems, after-sales topics, hotline cases, process gaps — in the end, product managers are expected to absorb the pressure, explain the situation, coordinate across functions, and take responsibility. The hotline and after-sales mechanisms, which are supposed to play a meaningful role, have essentially become ineffective. They neither help to properly distribute the workload nor genuinely reduce the pressure on the frontline teams.

What is even more concerning is that, apart from a few practical and committed leaders such as WZL, many people in Domain management seem to be spending most of their energy securing their own positions. Under the current organizational changes, people appear more focused on where they will land personally than on whether the business can continue moving forward, whether the products can still earn customer recognition, or whether the operating model can continue to function properly.

If no one is truly taking responsibility for the fundamentals — business, product, and operations — then the impact will not be limited to product managers. It will ultimately weaken the organization’s execution capability, customer trust, and long-term competitiveness.

@3gz The issues facing China's DI may be more serious and complicated than imagined. Since Dr. X took office in 2021, he has been attempting to dismantle the China DI empire and weaken WHB's authority and influence, but after five years, it seems little progress has been made.
The management team at DI China lacks leadership and even basic professional ethics—this goes far beyond the individuals mentioned above. Some senior executives have been given the nickname "Doctor of Five Poisons" by their subordinates, a clear indication of the corruption and incompetence within this management group. Meanwhile, Roland Bush and Dr. X constantly shout grandiose slogans under the banner of "AI," yet internally the company is unable to eliminate counterfeit or substandard products, and its channel and pricing management is extremely chaotic—truly hard to believe!

@3fx This is exactly the level these people are at.

They have occupied management positions for years, yet they cannot provide real business insight or solve actual frontline problems. And now they are shouting in the comment section about firing employees.

If management truly has capability, then they should face customers themselves, solve business problems themselves, and prove the real value of Vertical themselves. Instead, they pass pressure downward layer by layer, push endless materials onto the team, and then package the frontline’s hard work as their own management achievement.

If YDH gave you homework, please finish it yourself, Tracy.

Stop treating the entire team as your PowerPoint outsourcing factory. Stop treating frontline employees as raw material for your upward performance. A truly capable manager secures resources upward, protects the team downward, and creates value externally. A weak manager flatters upward, squeezes employees downward, and creates anxiety internally.

If you really believe the employees are not capable, then please prove that you are capable first.

@3fx The people who should truly be eliminated are not the frontline employees who are still fighting for customers, solving problems, and delivering projects. They are the people who have long occupied management positions while lacking even basic international communication capability.

Every day, they talk about global mindset, international leadership, and cross-border collaboration. But when they speak, it is stiff Chinglish. When they write materials, it is empty templates. When they report to headquarters in Germany, they rely on buzzwords, PowerPoint packaging, and superficial narratives. The people who truly understand the business are being consumed on the frontline, while those who cannot communicate clearly, cannot manage effectively, and cannot create real value continue to occupy high positions through titles, relationships, and upward reporting.

Internationalization is not about throwing out a few English words. It is not about mechanically translating Chinese management slogans into English. And it is certainly not about using fancy-sounding but empty phrases to impress headquarters. Real international communication capability means being able to explain business logic clearly, convey customer issues accurately, drive effective cross-border collaboration, and help headquarters understand the real situation in the Chinese market.

If a manager does not understand the business, cannot communicate effectively, and only knows how to package empty talk in half-baked Chinglish, then what he occupies is not a position. It is a black hole of organizational efficiency.

So the people who should truly be reassessed are not frontline employees, but those who have survived for years through rhetoric, packaging, and upward management.

@2e9 The current situation of DI in China is essentially a change brought about by the rise of Chinese manufacturing. Especially after the epidemic, Siemens' delivery crisis has given domestic brands a good opportunity. Many customers feel that it is okay after being forced to use domestic systems. Coupled with the rise of domestic brands such as Inovance, it has put great pressure on Siemens. However, we have indeed seen Siemens' further investment in China, especially increasing its research and development. Compared with other international brands, Siemens' investment is still very large. I hope these investments can bring changes to Siemens and let employees see hope.

@3gs A tool so called “Outreach” is occupying all of DI sales energies currently?The funny thing is that all the sales, line managers, and regional GMs in different level are doing FC from every Friday to next Monday.All of frontier sales have to put his sales jobs aside every Friday and have been turned into a simple mathematical game. For the sake of prediction, even if the order comes, it can't come in! Roland Bush mentioned that customer centric is a key strategy during Siemens transformation. What was thinking behind about such request by HQ decision maker against customer centric expectations from Siemens CEO?

@3fx In fact, DI is the same all over the world. Hundreds of thousands of groups are all tossing organizational change. How to be customer-centered? During the avalanche, no snowflake is wronged!

@3ec A group of boring people complain here every day. You can report it. There are various channels to report it! You still sneak over the wall here every day to have fun! Judging from your speech, people like you should have been fired long ago, and you still pretend to be an expert to point out!

Recently, checking the comment section every day has almost become one of the few sources of enjoyment in my workday.

The reason these posts have triggered so much resonance is not simply that people are venting emotions. It is because many employees are finally saying out loud the issues they have kept inside for a long time. Different people are adding information from different angles, and when these pieces are put together, what emerges is no longer just a problem of one department, one individual, or one round of reform. It is a broader picture of DI China’s organizational governance, appointment logic, business compliance, and management culture.

I will try to summarize the main points currently mentioned in the comment section.

First, the original intention behind headquarters’ large-scale reform may have been good. In the face of market changes, cost pressure, AI disruption, and organizational efficiency challenges, reform was indeed necessary. The problem is that once the reform landed in different countries and regions, its execution took on a very different shape. In some regions, the reform did not truly break the old power structures. Instead, it became an opportunity for certain people to continue occupying their own territories and repackaging their power and interest networks. DI in the United States and DI China have been repeatedly mentioned because many employees believe that reforms meant to improve efficiency and transparency were absorbed, distorted, and even turned into another round of internal power redistribution by local management.

Second, personnel appointments in DI China have been widely questioned in many posts as a systemic issue. The comment section has repeatedly mentioned that the old management system centered around WHB allegedly placed trusted people and inner-circle figures into key GM-level positions. YDH then allegedly arranged a group of Vertical Heads represented by WYS, many of whom were perceived as having highly overlapping career paths, relationships, or management styles with him. Under WB’s line, JHH, FGW, MQ and others have also been repeatedly mentioned, together with rumors of buying and selling positions. Regardless of how these specific allegations are ultimately verified, at least from the perspective of employee perception, the credibility of key appointments in DI China has been severely damaged. What people are questioning is not one ordinary promotion, but a long-standing appointment logic: do capability, business results, and customer value truly matter more than relationships, taking sides, and upward management?

Third, the ASP concept within the CS business has been repeatedly questioned. The comment section argues that while ASP appears on the surface to be about service ecosystem development, partner authorization, and capability expansion, it may in fact have provided a “legalized” cover for gray interest chains within CS subcontracting. ASP is described by some comments as a concept heavily promoted during YDH’s tenure in CS, and interpreted by some as a way for him to demonstrate value to the WHB system and consolidate his own position. What truly needs to be reviewed is whether ASP authorization fees, project referrals, service orders, subcontracting arrangements, partner ROI, price concessions, and ultimate beneficiaries formed some kind of opaque resource loop.

Fourth, the MTS business has also been repeatedly called out. Posts questioned whether, during YDH’s tenure as MTS GM, certain project configurations, order packaging, or system disassembly were used to amplify and sell high-value parts of the MTS system, especially S120 and motors, creating room for benefit extraction. WYS, as MTS BD at the time, was perceived as being involved in key areas such as pricing, SPR, resource allocation, or special price approvals. The real questions are: were the relevant orders and configurations entirely based on real customer needs? Did price approvals and resource allocation fully comply with company processes? During periods of shortage and allocation, did certain channels or related parties receive abnormal resource favoritism?

Fifth, the Vertical organization has been heavily criticized in the comment section for unhealthy culture and unclear value. The management capability and industry experience of some Vertical Heads have been questioned. Many employees believe that Vertical should have served industries, customers, sales, and cross-BU or Domain resource coordination. But in actual operation, it increasingly looks like a large PowerPoint production center. A huge amount of employee time is consumed by pipeline collection, material preparation, story packaging, and upward reporting. The final PowerPoint output appears to mainly serve YDH’s upward management needs, rather than customers, sales, or real business growth.

Sixth, the positioning of SAC and Vertical has also been repeatedly questioned. Many frontline employees do not understand what real problems these two organizations have actually solved. They do not look like frontline organizations truly accountable for business results, nor do they look like support organizations with real product depth and industry capability. In many cases, they seem more like new middle layers: collecting data from the frontline, reporting upward, creating horizontal processes, but not truly reducing the pressure on sales and technical teams.

Seventh, WHB and WB have been accused in the comment section of failing to follow regular intern recruitment processes and arranging for their own children to intern at the company. If true, this would not only be a question of fairness in hiring, but also a question of whether management follows the company’s basic processes and compliance boundaries. Ordinary employees and external students must go through rounds of screening, while the question is whether management relatives enjoyed special channels. This is something the company should answer directly.

Eighth, WB has also been accused of bringing his own child to internal dinners and accepting benefits from employees. Such matters may look like “small things” on the surface, but they have a very negative impact on organizational culture. They make employees feel that management can mix company resources, personal relationships, and family interests together, while grassroots employees are expected to strictly follow every process and compliance requirement.

Ninth, the comment section has repeatedly mentioned the RNE employee depression and su----e incident, linking it directly or indirectly to the management responsibilities of YDH, WB, and JHH, while also claiming that the relevant people were protected by the WHB system. Regardless of how responsibility is ultimately determined, such an incident should never be forgotten by the organization, nor should it be buried under job changes, organizational restructuring, or the passage of time. At the very least, the company should re-examine whether there were serious gaps in management pressure, role transition arrangements, mental health support, incident review, and accountability mechanisms at that time.

Tenth, many people believe that the previous round of reform in DI China was a complete failure. After the reform, the GM positions and core management roles that truly influence organizational culture and resource allocation did not fundamentally change. The old people remained, the old circles remained, the old interest structures remained, and the old management mindset remained. Some people may even have used the reform to complete new position arrangements, power restructuring, and resource redistribution. In the end, the organization names changed, the reporting lines changed, and the PowerPoint templates changed, but the real problems did not change.

When viewed together, what the comment section is expressing is not simple complaint. It is collective organizational disappointment.

Employees are disappointed that reform has not truly brought fairness or efficiency. They are disappointed that capable people are not necessarily promoted. They are disappointed that people who do real work are constantly consumed. They are disappointed that certain managers continue to occupy key positions through relationships, packaging, and upward management. And they are even more disappointed that the company keeps talking about compliance, customers, digitalization, and transformation, while internally it remains dragged down by old power structures, gray interest chains, PowerPoint culture, and relationship-based politics.

If the company truly wants to face these issues, it cannot treat the comment section merely as an emotional dumping ground, nor can it simply dismiss this as dissatisfaction from a small number of employees. There are too many specific names, business lines, career paths, project models, organizational relationships, and compliance clues being mentioned. What the company truly needs is a systematic, penetrating, and independent review: a review of personnel appointments, ASP, MTS, CS subcontracting, the real value of Vertical, the RNE incident, intern recruitment, and issues involving management relatives.

Otherwise, so-called reform will continue to remain superficial. Employees will continue reading the comment section, continue adding details, and continue losing trust. The real danger is not that the comment section is becoming more active. The real danger is that more and more employees no longer believe the company still has the ability to correct itself from within.

For a technology company that constantly promotes “digitalization,” “industrial AI,” and “smart manufacturing,” the greatest irony is that internally, we still rely heavily on astronomical amounts of PowerPoint slides, spreadsheets, and outdated workflows.

A huge amount of time every day is not spent on customers, markets, products, or technology. Instead, it is spent on round after round of upward reporting, internal packaging, and storytelling for headquarters in Germany. Grassroots and frontline employees can hardly do any real work during the day. Their main tasks have become revising PowerPoint decks, filling out spreadsheets, updating pipelines, adjusting forecasts, repeatedly aligning narratives, and turning real business problems into polished materials that look presentable and suitable for reporting.

This creates a huge contradiction with the image of a company that claims to be a digital technology leader.

If a company repeatedly calls itself an industrial AI technology company, yet still relies heavily on outdated workflows, PowerPoint-driven management practices that many advanced companies have already moved away from, poor internal business platforms, inefficient legacy booking and travel systems, and management models built on layers of approvals, repeated reporting, and manual data transfer, then it has no real right to talk about true digital transformation.

Digitalization is not about selling solutions externally, telling customers attractive stories, or creating beautiful presentations for headquarters. True digitalization should first happen inside the company itself. It should be reflected in more efficient collaboration processes, less repetitive manual work, more transparent data systems, faster decision-making mechanisms, and stronger business support for customers and the frontline.

But the current problem is that the company is selling digitalization and AI to customers on one hand, while still operating internally in an extremely outdated way on the other. Employees are trapped in inefficient platforms, repetitive spreadsheets, endless PowerPoint decks, and rigid processes. The time that should be used to create real value is constantly being squeezed. In the end, the so-called digitalization vision becomes an external marketing narrative rather than an internal capability.

If a company cannot modernize its own workflows, cannot improve the efficiency of its internal systems, and cannot free its employees from low-value repetitive work, while still claiming that it wants to lead the industrial AI era, then it will be left behind completely in the AI wave.

The AI era will not wait for companies that only know how to tell digitalization stories but cannot complete their own digital transformation. The real danger is not that external competitors are becoming stronger. The real danger is that the company itself is still operating in the previous era while mistakenly believing it still stands at the front of the future.

@2e9 gossip behind the scenes

@2e9 This is a global issue for DI, not a problem unique to China at all.

@2e9 It’s all sh-t

@2wk YDH does not understand MTS's business either.

I've read these comments, and frankly, they're all just venting of personal frustrations. DI's problems are now a global issue; there's a massive global organizational transformation underway, with multiple adjustments made to organizational structures over the past two years. This isn't just happening in one country, but a global shift in organizational structure. In reality, upon closer inspection, this change lacks innovation; it's simply a shift from a vertical to a horizontal structure, and from decentralized to centralized control. DI's biggest problem now is that it's constantly tinkering with its organizational structure, neglecting to focus on technological and product innovation—this is the most worrying aspect.

In fact, what the company should pay the most attention to now is the younger generation of managers and high-potential talents.

Under the current chaos, internal friction, and crisis of trust, many younger managers may be forced to step onto the battlefield earlier than expected. Ideally, they should grow in a relatively healthy, transparent, and orderly organizational environment, gradually accumulating business experience, team experience, and management experience. But now, what they may be facing is an organization that has already been seriously distorted by the previous round of transformation: unclear rules, blurred responsibilities, entrenched circles, declining trust, and exhausted frontline teams.

Why did the previous round of reform in DI China gradually lose its original meaning? I believe the most fundamental reason is the loss of ownership.

A transformation should have energized the organization and created more space for people with real capability, responsibility, and business understanding. But what the previous reform actually brought to many young employees and young managers was the opposite. Those who were highly motivated, willing to take responsibility, and eager to prove themselves through professionalism and performance were repeatedly frustrated during round after round of organizational adjustment. What they eventually saw was a harsh reality: in DI China, capability often matters less than relationships, professionalism matters less than taking sides, and doing real work matters less than reporting well.

Once the younger generation sees this clearly, ownership naturally collapses. People begin to ask: if those who truly do the work are not necessarily seen, if those with real capability are not necessarily promoted, and if those who create value are not necessarily given opportunities, why should I still treat the company’s business as my own? Why should I devote myself fully to an organization that is unfair, opaque, and does not truly respect execution?

As a result, more and more people no longer focus on how to do their jobs well, how to serve customers, or how to win in the market. Instead, they focus on how to please leaders, how to stand on the right side, how to appear important in reports, and how to use various methods to satisfy their direct managers and senior leaders.

This is not a problem of one department, nor is it simply that a few employees have changed their attitude. It is a systemic failure from top to bottom. And the source of this failure, to a large extent, comes from the management logic formed during the WHB era: placing loyalists and trusted insiders into key GM-level positions, while those GMs further copied, amplified, and solidified the same culture downward. In the end, the entire organization developed a dangerous inertia: people at the top select their own people, and people below do the same; the top values relationships, and the lower levels follow; the top values packaging, and the lower levels continue to package.

The loss of ownership directly causes frontline employees to lose passion for their work. In the past, many employees were proud of SIEMENS. They were willing to fight for customers, projects, and technology. Back then, even though departments also faced pressure, many teams still had a sense of “small family culture”: people trusted each other, supported each other, and were willing to go the extra mile for a shared goal.

But now, frequent reorganizations have broken many previously stable team relationships. Newly appointed department leaders often neglect the cultivation of departmental culture. They do not care whether the team still has cohesion, whether employees still feel a sense of belonging, or whether grassroots employees can still withstand the pressure. What they truly care about is often where they will go next, how to present themselves upward, and how to secure their own positions in the new organization. As for the team, they rarely exert positive influence, let alone build trust, inspire morale, or develop talent.

Enough names have already been mentioned in the comment section. What people truly care about is not simply attacking one individual. The real question is this: among those who have held, or still hold, GM positions, middle-management roles, or key resource positions, how many can withstand a truly transparent review? How many of their promotion paths, resource allocations, project flows, and team management practices can stand up to the combined scrutiny of compliance review, employee feedback, and business results?

If DI China truly wants to rebuild organizational trust, it cannot rely on superficial reform. It cannot simply change organizational names, reporting lines, or PowerPoint templates, nor can it continue to make grassroots employees bear the cost of reform. What is truly needed is a thorough reselection and cleanup of management and middle-level leadership.

A short period of pain is better than prolonged suffering.

If the old system, old circles, and old mindset continue to occupy key positions, any reform will be absorbed, distorted, and turned back by them. Only by truly clearing out the harmful management inertia left from the WHB era, breaking the culture of favoritism and taking sides, and allowing a new generation of managers with real ownership, capability, customer awareness, and organizational responsibility to step forward, can DI China truly release the value of reform.

Otherwise, so-called reform will continue to consume the frontline, exhaust young talents, and turn excellent employees from people who were once proud of SIEMENS into people who simply stand aside, disengage, and lie flat.