Integrated Company Report 2018
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OUR
Corporate
Strategy

As a service provider in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development and international education work, GIZ is a leader in planning, implementing and optimising measures for sustainable development worldwide. Our framework for action in this context is the global 2030 Agenda. This also provides the basis for our Corporate Strategy, with which we pursue two key objectives: to keep getting better at what we do and to develop and disseminate effective solutions with our partners.

ʻWe work to shape a future worth living around the world’ – that is the vision that we are pursuing with our Corporate Strategy 2017–2019. What did we achieve in 2018, the second year of strategy implementation? We are now even better at working in extremely challenging conditions in our partner countries. We engage in more intensive dialogue with our stakeholders, have expanded our business and document the results of our work more systematically. The four strategic areas of action, and the corresponding objectives and results from the previous year, are outlined briefly below:



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We meet the expectations of our partners, commissioning parties and Shareholder by producing tangible, sustainable and measurable results.

We develop economically viable business activities together with our commissioning parties.

We mobilise expertise by harnessing the skills and motivation of our staff, working with strong cooperation partners and forming strategic alliances.

We remain cost-effective and ensure compliance by using our resources efficiently and responsibly.

CORPORATE STRATEGY

EFFECTIVENESS

OUR OBJECTIVE: We meet the expectations of our partners, commissioning parties and Shareholder by producing tangible, sustainable and measurable results.

RESULTS: In 2018, we developed new and digital solutions to issues addressed in the 2030 Agenda. To be able to present and communicate the results of our work faster and more effectively, results data was collected for the period from 2015 to 2017 in an IT-supported process involving more than 80 per cent of our projects worldwide. As a result, we now have access to facts and figures about our results at global and regional level, as well as in individual countries that we can make available to our commissioning parties, partners and the public.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

OUR OBJECTIVE: We develop economically viable business activities together with our commissioning parties.

RESULTS: The volume of our commissions in 2018 increased both in our core business and as a result of special initiatives and new donors. In 2018, we focused on economic transformation in Africa – with an emphasis on job partnerships and strengthening small and medium-sized enterprises there – and on digitali- sation in addition to our existing priority areas of displacement and migration, security and stabilisation, and climate and energy. Strategically, we are looking to the future to better prepare ourselves for future issues and challenges in our partner countries, and we are also working on improving the implementation of our ongoing projects.

EXPERTISE AND ALLIANCES

OUR OBJECTIVE: We mobilise expertise by harnessing the skills and motivation of our staff, working with strong cooperation partners and forming strategic alliances.

RESULTS: In fiscal 2018, we paved the way for enhancing our implementation expertise and for increasing our attractiveness as an employer. With the collective bargaining partner and staff representation bodies, we negotiated and introduced flexible forms of assignment to make foreign assignments more attractive. We also worked on the role and development opportunities of national personnel in our partner countries. We reached new company-wide agreements on mobile and flexible working that are now being implemented. We also further expanded our partnerships with other state, private sector and civil society actors in 2018.

VALUE FOR MONEY

OUR OBJECTIVE: We remain cost-effective and ensure compliance by using our resources efficiently and responsibl

RESULTS: GIZ’s activities are financed primarily by federal budget funds, i.e. by German taxpayers. This is another reason why it is extremely important to use these funds responsibly. With this in mind, new billing rates have been agreed and implemented with our biggest commissioning parties in Germany. To increase transparency about how and for what purposes we use our funds, we are introducing a new cost-output monitoring system. And to improve efficiency and value for money, we standardised and part-digitalised internal processes in 2018 and established virtual cooperation formats such as IDA (Integrated Digital Applications) – GIZ’s internal digital platform that enables international teams to work together. We set up the DIGITS (Digital Transformation and IT Solutions) Department in 2018 to coordinate GIZ’s digital transformation and, among other things, further increase process efficiency.

Compliance and risk management

As a federal enterprise, it is also our responsibility to set an example in matters of compliance. In fiscal 2018, we improved our compliance management and risk management systems and adapted processes throughout the company. Both systems will be even more closely dovetailed with our Corporate Strategy in future. With this, we are taking account of the fact that financial and increasingly non-financial risks, such as political changes and staff and compliance risks, play a key role in strategic corporate governance. This is an important step towards integrated corporate governance.

Would you like to know more about our corporate strategy? Click here for extensive information on the contents of our strategy architecture:



Excerpts from the Environment and Trend Report can be found in the Annual Statement of Accounts 2018.