Corporate Technology - Rolf Hellinger

Technology-to-Business-Centers
Siemens’ Technology-to-Business
Centers in Berkeley, California,
and Shanghai, China, search for
promising innovators outside
Siemens, incubate new ideas,
develop business plans,
introduce innovative
products to markets, and
launch start-up companies.
Translating Ideas
into Businesses
Siemens Technology-to-Business Centers
(TTB) were founded by the company’s current
Industry, Automation, and Drive Technologies
Divisions together with Corporate Technology.
Their mandate is to systematically explore
and transform external technologies into breakthrough
product innovations — and thus also
promote growth opportunities for Siemens’ core
business. Here, TTBs actively carry out research
at universities, research labs, early-stage companies
and other sources. TTBs analyze new technologies
and business cases — particularly
those that could revolutionize whole sectors —
and then work with inventors and Siemens business
units to launch new products and solutions
on the market.
TTBs may also invest in start-ups that have
strong technology synergies with internal research
and development activities. All of this
provides young companies with the opportunity
to quickly become part of Siemens’ global environment
and exploit associated benefits. As of
September 2008, TTBs had established 29 technology-based
businesses, 19 of which produce
new Siemens products and ten of which are independent
companies with Siemens as a shareholder.
Located near San Francisco, just a stone’s
throw from the campus of the University of California,
Berkeley, and in the heart of the most vibrant
venture capital market on earth, TTB
Berkeley, which was founded in 1999, offers a
channel for Siemens sponsors to access worldclass
high-tech innovations (www.ttb.siemens.
com). Home to a diverse spectrum of research
34 Corporate Technology
and technology centers for global players, the
San Francisco Bay area has drawn in leading
high-tech companies, innovators, and investors,
creating an extremely innovative environment.
TTB Berkeley’s close proximity to this environment
allows it to regularly invite entrepreneurs
and innovators to face-to-face meetings to discover
emerging technologies and gauge the attractiveness
of associated opportunities.
The high concentration of angel investors —
affluent individuals who provide capital for a
business start-up — and venture capitalists in
this area enables TTB Berkeley to discover attractive
opportunities and reduce its investment
risks by entering into partnerships with prospective
start-ups.
TTB Shanghai was founded in 2005 to take
advantage of the opportunities that the world’s
fastest-growing market offers, and to leverage
the country’s potential for innovation. China offers
not only an exciting environment for inventors,
but also the potential of attracting millions
of new customers. Opportunities in China have
drawn a vast number of innovative companies
from all over the world, providing a rich environment
for TTB Shanghai to scout for new start-up
prospects.
Price pressures arising from new and existing
competitors emphasize the fact that cost-effective
and innovative solutions are critical for longterm
success. To strengthen Siemens’ portfolio,
TTB Shanghai is positioned to mine China’s innovation
know-how and use it to develop cost-effective,
groundbreaking solutions that can revolutionize
existing markets.
Selected Projects
Wireless Industrial Communications: Wireless
LAN — also known as WiFi technology —
has become ubiquitous in industry. Many customers,
however, were slow to adopt it due to
concerns about whether it could meet their realtime
information requirements. What’s more,
solutions were hindered by a multiplicity of devices
that were based on different standards.
With this in mind, TTB identified an expert
from Columbia University who had applied economics
models to computer networks and had
shown that special quality of service requirements
could be addressed by standard networks.
His work led to a project developing software
for a WLAN technology for industrial applications
that was capable of guaranteeing real-time
traffic (see p. 6). The resulting project, which