Our Strategic Action Areas

To reach our goals and be the leading company in the chemical industry for our customers, we want to strengthen our performance in innovation and in operations as the leading chemical producer and plant operator, leverage digital ways of working across the entire company, and integrate sustainability more deeply into our business decisions. We want to strengthen our passion for our customers in all employees. We aim to strengthen our portfolio and further develop our organization to better meet customer needs using the power of our Verbund integration. We have defined six strategic action areas through which we will sharpen our customer focus.¹

Action areas sharpen customer focus

Innovation

Our ambition is to be the most attractive partner for our customers whenever they are confronted with challenges that can be approached with chemistry. Our research and development competences are unique in the chemical industry. We aim to build on and leverage our position as a leading innovator to jointly develop innovations for our customers. We will design our innovation chain to be as seamless as possible so that we can bring products to the market more quickly. This means fostering a higher level of excellence throughout the entire innovation process, starting from the lab all the way to the customer.

Sustainability

We are successful in the long term when our products, solutions and technologies add value to the environment, society and the economy. We want to be a thought leader in sustainability and increase the relevance of sustainability in our decision-making processes and business models. This secures the long-term success of our company, creates business opportunities and establishes us as a key partner supporting our customers.

Operations

We are committed to running our production safely, efficiently and reliably so that we can deliver products to our customers on spec and on time. We aim to further improve the reliability and availability of our plants, as well as our agility. Above and beyond this, continuous process improvements and effective debottlenecking of our existing asset base are paramount to ensure our competitiveness.

Digitalization

We want to make digitalization an integral part of BASF’s business. This will create additional value for our customers, grow our business and improve efficiency. By promoting comprehensive digital skills among our future leaders and our entire workforce, we will ensure that the necessary resources are available.

Portfolio

We will sharpen our portfolio and focus our capital allocation more towards growing business areas. We will focus primarily on organic growth through capital expenditures and innovation, but also make targeted acquisitions where this makes strategic sense and creates value. The new segment structure will create a higher transparency regarding the steering of our businesses, the importance of value chains and the role of our Verbund. The physical, technological, market and digital integration of the Verbund continues to be at the core of our portfolio and our unique strength.

Employees

We aim to clearly position each business against its relevant competitors and establish a high-performance organization to enable us to be successful in an increasingly competitive market environment. We will adapt our business models and organizational structures so that each business unit can optimally serve its market segment. Our people are what will make the implementation of our updated strategy successful. We rely on the engagement of our employees and give them the tools and skills necessary to be able to offer our customers differentiated and customized products and services.

How we act is critical for the successful implementation of our strategy: This is what our values represent. They guide our actions and define how we want to work together – as a team, with our customers and our partners. Our updated strategy affirms our four core values – creative, open, responsible, entrepreneurial – and adjusts the descriptions slightly.

Creative: We make great products and solutions for our customers. This is why we embrace bold ideas and give them space to grow. We act with optimism and inspire one another.

Open: We value diversity, in people, opinions and experience. This is why we foster feedback based on honesty, respect and mutual trust. We learn from our setbacks.

Responsible: We value the health and safety of people above all else. We make sustainability part of every decision. We are committed to strict compliance and environmental standards.

Entrepreneurial: We focus on our customers, as individuals and as a company. We seize opportunities and think ahead. We take ownership and embrace personal accountability.

The BASF brand

BASF’s success as an integrated global chemical company relies on having a strong brand. Our brand and mission are manifested in our strategy and our corporate purpose – “We create chemistry for a sustainable future” – as well as our values. “Connected” describes the essence of the BASF brand. Connectedness is one of BASF’s great strengths. Our Verbund concept – realized in production, technologies, the market and digitalization – enables innovative solutions for a sustainable future. The claim that “We create chemistry,” as stated in the BASF logo, helps us embed this solution-oriented strategy in the public perception. Our brand creates value by helping communicate its benefits for our stakeholders as well as our values.

Wherever our stakeholders encounter our brand, we want to convince them that BASF stands for connectedness, intelligent solutions, value-adding partnerships, an attractive working environment and sustainability. This contributes to our customers’ confidence and to our company value.

We are constantly developing our brand image. We regularly measure awareness of and trust in our brand, and therefore in our company. A global study conducted by an independent market research institution every two years again showed in 2018 that, in terms of awareness and trust, BASF is above the industry average in numerous countries. Our goal is to continue increasing awareness of BASF in all of our relevant markets.