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Strategic Action Areas and Values

Strategic Action Areas and Values

Our strategic action areas

To reach our goals and be the leading company in the chemical industry for our customers, we are strengthening our performance in innovation and in operations as the leading chemical producer and plant operator. We leverage digital technologies and data to create additional value added for us and our customers. We are embedding sustainability even more deeply into the steering of our business. We want to foster a passion for our customers in all employees. We are expanding our portfolio and refining our organization to better meet customer needs using the power of our Verbund integration. To this end, we have defined six strategic action areas on which will continue to base our activities.

Two BASF scientists examining device
Innovation
Innovation is the bedrock of our success. BASF is an innovation leader in the chemical industry, with around 10,000 employees in research and development and R&D spending of around €2.1 billion. We continue to build on these strengths by bringing research and development closer together and making our customers’ demands a greater part of our innovation process. We involve them at an earlier stage and are expanding our partnerships with customers and external partners.
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Two engineers examining BASF plant
Sustainability
A key driver is sustainability. We want to create value for the environment, society and business with our products, solutions and technologies. For this, we are increasing the relevance of sustainability in our steering processes and business models. This establishes us as a key partner supporting our customers, opens up new growth areas and secures the long-term success of our company.
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Female BASF engineer working on production line
Production
Our core business is the production and processing of chemicals. Our Verbund offers us many technological, market, production-related and digital advantages. Our comprehensive product portfolio, which ranges from basic chemicals to custom systemsolutions, enables us to meet the increasingly diverse needs of our customers with a differentiated offering.
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Female BASF engineer touching digitalized screen
Digitalization
Digitalization is an integral part of our business. We want to significantly improve the availability and quality of our process data. To achieve this, we will digitalize processes at more than 420 plants worldwide by 2022. We will systematically analyze this data to further automate processes and in this way, increase efficiency. Combining internal and external data provides many new opportunities to manage our businesses more efficiently, improve processes and create value added for our customers.
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group of male engineers working in the production factory
Portfolio
With our acquisitions and divestitures, we have oriented our portfolio toward innovation-driven growth areas. The acquisition of the integrated polyamide business from Solvay and the purchase of various businesses from Bayer further strengthened our position in engineering plastics and in the agricultural sector. The Asian market will play a key role in our future growth. Our strong innovation, production and sales base in China enables us to respond to the needs of our customers in a differentiated way. To further strengthen our position in this dynamic growth market, we plan to build an integrated Verbund site in Zhanjiang.
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Two BASF employees working together
Employees
Our employees are key to BASF’s success. That is why we believe that it is important to have a working environment that fosters employees’ individual talents and enables them and their teams to perform at their best. We are giving our employees more individual freedom. At the same time, we encourage and promote a leadership culture that empowers our employees to respond to customer needs quickly and efficiently with a solution orientation.
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Our values

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

Our values
are binding for all employees and provide the framework for our actions

Creative

  • We make great products and solutions for our customers.
  • 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. 
  • We foster feedback based on honesty, respect and mutual trust.
  • We learn from 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.