Roadmap 2025 presented by webcast at 5th Schaeffler AG Capital Market Day

Strategy, implementation program, and medium-term targets as the three pillars of Roadmap 2025

Group CEO and CEOs of the three divisions outline growth opportunities and value creation potential

Medium-term targets for 2025 set at Group and divisional level

Klaus Rosenfeld: “We want to remain the preferred technology partner for our customers.”

The global automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler presented its Roadmap 2025 today at its 2020 Capital Market Day (CMD). The Roadmap 2025 updates Schaeffler’s business strategy to 2025, sets out a program for its implementation, and includes a set of medium-term targets. The medium-term targets for 2025 had been published after the markets closed on November 17 and were explained further at today’s CMD. The main part of the event comprised presentations by Schaeffler’s three divisional CEOs, who discussed the growth opportunities and value creation potential of their respective divisions.

Strategic priorities in the Roadmap 2025

At the start of the event, Klaus Rosenfeld, CEO of Schaeffler AG, emphasized that the Roadmap 2025 does not mark any radical change in strategic direction. The approach is rather to hold to the current course in areas where continuity has proven successful, to focus even more clearly on the company’s strengths, and to improve in areas where there is ground to make up. The new corporate claim, “We pioneer motion”, expresses Schaeffler’s commitment to continuing to shape motion and progress by being a diversified automotive and industrial supplier with a global reach, he said. This will require even more effective use of the synergies available within the Schaeffler Group, he added. The company’s success will continue to be based on its four proven key differentiators of innovation, manufacturing excellence, top quality, and system understanding. At the same time, he said, Schaeffler also needs to continue its transformation and to focus on core expertise and its consistent implementation.

In the Automotive Technologies division, this essentially means accelerating the portfolio’s transition towards electric mobility and chassis applications. The priority in the Automotive Aftermarket division will be to maintain the existing high margin, while focusing on utilizing opportunities for growth in the independent aftermarket segment. The Industrial Division will be looking to enter new growth sectors and consistently continue to increase its profitability, he said.

All of these measures will continue to be implemented consistently and with strict operational discipline. The focus here will remain on the creation of free cash flow and the convincing allocation of capital within the Group. The objective is to sustainably create added value in the long term.

Rosenfeld identified five key future trends that open up special opportunities for the Schaeffler Group: (1) sustainability and climate change, (2) new mobility and powertrain electrification, (3) autonomous production, (4) the data economy and digitalization, and (5) demographic change. Based on these trends, Schaeffler has formulated five areas in which the company wants to further enhance its position. These areas encompass the products and services of all three divisions as well as the ten cross-divisional customer sectors and sector clusters.

The Schaeffler Group sees strong growth potential in sectors such as hydrogen technology, for example