Letter from the Chairman of the Board of Management

Dear clients, partners
and colleagues,
 

The coronavirus pandemic has been impacting on the economic and social life of billions of people for more than a year. Many have fallen ill or even died with the virus. The pandemic is dramatically changing economic processes and challenging companies to quicken the pace of technological change and take social responsibility with sustainable business models.

From the very beginning of the pandemic, our ambition in the TÜV NORD GROUP was to use what many assumed would be a complete halt to business activity to continue to develop services and create innovations for people, companies and institutions worldwide. The idea was to enable our customers to carry on doing business as fully as possible, even in the crisis.

New computer-aided remote audits and inspections via digital live streams have proven to be particularly efficient. Companies, administrations, associations and organisations can now carry out parts of their legal or voluntary audits and certifications remotely. This is also resulting in a reduction in travel costs and CO₂ footprints. TÜV NORD has already successfully carried out thousands of remote tasks worldwide. Not only that, but our smart and tailor-made e-learning services are ensuring the continuity of vocational training.

We took samples from deliveries of well over two billion pieces of PPE to carry out laboratory tests of medical and filtering respiratory masks, mainly on behalf of the German Ministry of Health. This enabled much-needed laboratory-tested protective equipment to be provided to staff in hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities. TÜV NORD is going to further expand its portfolio of health protection tests, for example in the form of hygiene audits. Our MEDITÜV company physicians, who have for many years been routinely carrying out flu vaccinations in companies in many German states, can effectively relieve the burden on public vaccination centres and thus significantly increase the rate of vaccination against Covid-19 – always provided that sufficient quantities of vaccine are available.

Although the business units have had to live with considerable restrictions in the course of the pan­demic, our employees at the TÜV STATIONS, in workshops and laboratories, on construction sites and in plants have always been available for their customers and in many cases been able to visit them on site. They have made their personal contribution to maintaining public life, production and trans­port and energy infrastructure in many countries, regions and municipalities. Our special thanks go to all of them. Thanks to the flexibility of our employees worldwide and a consistently liquidity-­oriented corporate management policy, the revenue of the TÜV NORD GROUP decreased year-on-year by only 1.3 percent. The number of employees (14,182) reached a new high. There have never been more people working for our company. At this point, we would like once again to welcome all our new employees to the big global TÜV NORD family. 

With its new “Strategy2025”, the TÜV NORD GROUP is carrying on along the path of development into a customer-centric and data-driven knowledge group. Following on from the successful foun­dation of our Digital Academy in 2017 and many innovation projects in the business units and central divisions, we have now launched an innovation campaign under the banner of “#Go NORD – Innovation by Everyone”. Its goal is to motivate and empower all employees to develop and put into opera­tional practice innovative ideas for new services and processes. With their experience, knowledge and high levels of motivation, our employees have a crucial role to play as we follow our path to becoming a “smart company”. You can read more about this in the HR Report.

The core competence of the TÜV NORD GROUP remains, as it has always been, to ensure the safety and security of new, climate-friendly technologies and thereby to increase their acceptance by the population at large and the economy. Let me mention just one example. To achieve German and European environmental objectives, a rapid market ramp-up of safe hydrogen applications is needed. For this purpose, we have developed the necessary safety services, especially certifications, along the entire value chain for this volatile gas. And when it comes to climate protection, our word is our bond: the TÜV NORD GROUP has set itself the goal of making all its business activities carbon-neutral by 2030.

On behalf of the Supervisory Board, the Board of Management, the Group Executive Committee and the staff councils, I would like to thank our customers and partners for their cooperation and trust – especially in these challenging times. Particularly at this time, we have come to appreciate how valuable and irreplaceable personal contact and dialogue really are. On this theme, I am already looking forward to the opportunity to meet you all in person once again in the near future. 

 

Kind regards,

Dr. Dirk Stenkamp
Chairman of the Board of Management