Guiding Principles

Our goal: Future security for our customers!

With our technical knowledge, we have been the byword for safety, independence and quality for 150 years. We protect life and goods and help conserve natural resources. With our gaze set firmly on the future, we are using our expertise to ensure that our customers will be even more successful in the networked world. We have brought together our strengths and goals, values and strategic core concepts in a mission Statement: our Guiding Principles.

Why do we need a mission statement?

The TÜV NORD GROUP is the byword for safety. Over the decades, our employees have ensured that we are universally renowned for our knowledge, independence and quality.

We’ve been present at every industrial revolution and have assisted in the development of globally recognised security standards - and we play our part in making the world safe.

Digitalisation, global networking and ever-shorter product cycles are now imposing new, additional demands on us.

We want to know exactly what our customers need from us to be successful. For the provision of precisely tailored digital solutions, we're cultivating closer contacts with our customers and intensifying collaboration between all the business units.

We want our customers to succeed. The mission statement gives expression to this self-image.

The new model honours our successful past and present and sets our trajectory for the digital Age.

Our Guiding Principles for success

With us, top-class performance and responsibility have over 10,000 faces.
As a service provider in the technology and safety fields, we're concerned with finding answers to the important global questions of the future. Every day and all over the world.

Safety, security and success through knowledge.
Technical. Digital. Connected.
Anywhere, anytime.

Technological excellence is our mission.
Future-proof results for our customers are our goal.
Knowledge is the key.

The focus is on our customers.
Our employees are the key to success.
Our integrity is the basis of everything we do.
Our sustainability opens up new paths to a shared future.
Our diversity opens up new opportunities.
Our culture of innovation is trend-setting.

Our strategic core concepts

Our Strategy 2020plus is the lodestone for the future of the TÜV NORD GROUP. And it is in turn based on these core concepts:

Innovation/digitalisation

We are consistently developing our services and coming up with new, digital business models which will generate added value for our customers, now and in the future.

Sustainability

We shape our economic success in line with humankind and nature. Innovation and digitalization are the driving forces behind our sustainability strategy.

Internationalisation

We offer services of the highest quality around the world from a single source. One priority of all activities is to strengthen our international markets.

Employees

The knowledge of our employees is the key to success. We promote a corporate culture based on trust and mutual appreciation.

Operational excellence

Our employees offer the highest quality testing, inspection, consultancy and teaching services in line with globally recognised technological standards. We invest in the training of our teams and use the very best testing technology.

Customer focus

The expectations and success of our customers are at the heart of what we do. This is the ethos of all our services.

Growth fields

We always think entrepreneurially. All the business units are reinforcing their existing business and moving into attractive growth areas.

Expertise for your Success

The slogan for the corporate brand sums up in a nutshell our claim to be a globally active technology group.

Interview with Dr Dirk Stenkamp

Dr Dirk Stenkamp

Chairman of the Board of Management

Dr Dirk Stenkamp

Chairman of the Board of Management

The new Guiding Principles place our clients and employees more clearly at the heart of what we do and highlights change.

Why were the Guiding Principles developed?

The Guiding Principles show our future path and describe where we want to be in five to ten years. It’s particularly important to me that our customers should be even more central to our thinking and action.

Who participated in its development?

We’ve been working with our employees and managers for months now on the issues of vision, mission and values. A lot of them have contributed their ideas and suggestions. We’ve also consulted our customers on the results. The response has been very positive.

What’s the most important finding for you personally?

That's obvious: the vast store of knowledge of our staff is going to be even more important in the digitally networked age when it comes to contributing to the success of our customers. All the areas in the company are working on new business ideas to make products and processes faster and more efficient.

Do we have the financial resources to implement the new Guiding Principles?

We will also continue to invest in the knowledge of our staff, in innovation and in new business models. Here I will confine myself to mentioning only our very own Digital Academy, investments in digital testing technology and new laboratories. In 2017 we invested € 50 million.

Is the strategy as a whole now changing?

Our Strategy 2020plus, with its trinity of growth, internationalisation and innovation, is fundamentally the right path. With the Guiding Principles, we have now further clarified and fleshed out our target vision.

What happens next?

The Guiding Principles offer guidance in our day-to-day business and highlight what we want to achieve in the future. We’re now in the process of breathing life into it and giving it a definite shape - on site with our customers, in laboratories and in the TÜV STATIONS. The Guiding Principles are the foundation on which our prosperous future will be built.

Our lighthouse projects

Lighthouse projects are projects with a particular radiance. They point the way forward and are a means of orientation. With the lighthouse projects we’re breaking new ground or setting new standards in an international, digital market environment.

The Digital Academy is a group-wide project that supports all business units in their digital transformation. The focus is on empowering employees digitally in order to ensure the future competitiveness of existing business and the development of new business.

Combining the aspects of safety and security to form a central Industry 4.0 component proposition requires us to adapt our service portfolio with the aim of providing our customers with a holistic assessment approach for Industry 4.0 processes, systems and components.

TÜV NORD Mobility is participating in the development of guidelines for type tests and test procedures in the context of automated driving, with the aim of getting such vehicles approved for road use.

Big Data technology will make it possible to market all the acquired knowledge of the last 30 years on the Internet. This online marketplace of tomorrow will bring together all the relevant technical, logistical and commercial information which is currently spread across a wide variety of different market participants.