This time the meeting took place at the Headquarters of Siemens-Austria, in Vienna.
Siemens is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe. It is headquartered in Munich and Berlin and has several foreign branch offices, of which an important one is based in Vienna.
With its 311.000 employees worldwide, Siemens generated 2022 a revenue of 72 bn. Euro and an operating income of 7 bn euro. Siemens manages many projects in the fields of Digital Industries, Smart Infrastructure, Mobility and Healthcare (branded Siemens Healthineers).
According to Kurt Hofmann, Project Business Excellence Coordinator and host of the meeting, the number of projects will continue to increase in bringing together the core business activities with the digital business activities at Siemens. This is why the qualification and certification of project managers through the own, internal PM@Siemens programme or alternatively with IPMA is so critical. The certification scheme consists of 4 levels A, B,C and Small – corresponding 1:1 to the 4 levels for project managers which are certified worldwide through the certification body network of IPMA.

This time, the meeting at the company’s headquarters was the occasion to deepen the role-based certification as in some sectors the specialisation of project manager roles and responsibilities is increasing. Roles such as “Project P” or “Project Management Office” specialists have among some Global Customers increased over the years and call for the need to develop together with IPMA-adapted certification products. This is an opportunity to increase the IPMA ecosystem on the one hand side and also share the new products with other Global Customers who attended the meeting. This time in addition to Renault, Siemens, Alstom and Naval Group, the companies Thales, Siemens Energy and Siemens Gamesa attended the meeting.
They contributed to the lively discussions and workshops addressing the Individual Competence Baseline of IPMA which helps project managers to get a common understanding and development of practice, perspective and people competencies.

The meeting was also the occasion to share ideas on how to increase the Global Customer base as this is a wish expressed by the participants. This enlargement should take into consideration topics of common interest. The meeting helped to show that the IPMA ecosystem of products and services includes common areas of interest such as Young Crew (which are project managers below 35) and Talent Management. Indeed, the potential cooperation between Global Customers and IPMA in this area needs further deepening in the future. The same applies to the IPMA Project Excellence Awards with their different categories for small-medium, large and megaprojects. The Awards are critical means to promote project excellence among large organisations such as the ones present in Vienna.

Lastly, the IPMA Global Customer meeting helped to develop creativity and support each other in moving the discipline and passion for projects forward.

At the upcoming IPMA Project Profession Forum in Sevilla on 21 and 22 of September 2023, the organisers are working on a special Global Customer round table with the aim of deepening the co-creation of past meetings and attracting new Global Customers even further.
Hasta luego in Sevilla!