Creators, makers, pioneers

More than 12,000 employees, globally active and passionate about innovation — that is the way to achieve both market and technological leadership. We are Körber. Presenting our Group.

To overview

We are Körber

Körber is a leading international technology group that has more than 12,000 employees at over 100 locations worldwide. We are the home for entrepreneurs — we turn entrepreneurial thinking into customers success. Körber AG manages the Group and its four Business Areas: Digital, Pharma, Supply Chain and Technologies.

Insights

The Körber Insights shows the entire spectrum of the Körber world: We give our view of exciting developments and trends, as well as innovations and technologies. We also highlight personalities who drive Körber forward every day with their entrepreneurial spirit and new ideas.

Sustainability

Sustainability

We develop innovative products, solutions and services for a more sustainable tomorrow and introduce the people who make them possible. Find out more in our Sustainability Report 2023.

Online Sustainability Report 2023PDF Sustainability Report 2023

Körber pursues ambitious climate targets

In October 2023, we had the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) verify our commitment to achieving net-zero CO₂e emissions throughout the entire value chain by 2040. We would like to introduce you to some of the measures that will help us achieve this ambitious goal.

Group-wide standards for Ecodesign

We were able to advance our Ecodesign initiative decisively in 2023 after creating a group-wide standard for life cycle assessments (LCAs). Find out more about the first LCAs we implemented and the challenges we overcame.

Data and infrastructure protection

We aim to transform information security into a strategic objective and make it a shared concern for all employees. We provide an overview of the corresponding measures and projects in 2023.

Career

Career

Wanted: team players. The know-how, creativity, and dedication of our employees have made us a successful technology company in Germany and worldwide. Now we want to shape the future — with you! We offer exciting positions for experts, young professionals, university students, and high school students.

To CareerTo the Körber Group job market

"Modern leadership culture has a performance-enhancing effect"

A working climate that promotes innovation, diversity, and the courage to tell uncomfortable truths is more central than ever to a company's success today. In an interview, Gabriele Fanta, Head of Group Human Resources, explains how the new leadership principles at Körber specifically strengthen fruitful collaboration in everyday working life.

What comes after traineeship, Max?

Experience report: After graduating in mechatronics and mechanical engineering, Max Döring became a trainee at Körber. Today, he is Technical Product Manager at our Körber Business Area Pharma.

Procurement and Supply Chain Management

Procurement and Supply Chain Management

Joint future-proof activities are the foundation of sustainable procurement. Körber, as a globally leading technology group, therefore places great value on the optimal purchasing of materials and services.

To our Procurement and Supply Chain Management

Nachhaltige Lieferketten

“Less risk in our supply chains means less risk for our customers”

Körber attaches great importance to ensuring sustainable supply chains and sustainable procurement. This is a complex task, because the Group works together with around 10,000 suppliers in 80 countries   worldwide and purchases about 50 percent of its total output. This means that a large part of the CO₂e emissions are generated in the supply chains.

When selecting and evaluating suppliers, emissions reduction now plays a key role alongside environmental protection, occupational health and safety, social standards, compliance, and the observance of human rights. Thus environmental, social, and company-related criteria are part of the regular evaluation of existing suppliers as well as decisive concerns in the selection of new suppliers.


Our purchasing volume is 1.3 billion euros.
Over 10,000 suppliers from more than 80 countries supply the Körber Group.

Group Procurement & Supply Chain Management and its employees play a key role in turning Körber into a thoroughly sustainable company. They work together with suppliers to advance innovative ideas and ensure sustainable changes along the supply chains.

Marco Kretschmar is the Senior Manager in Procurement & Supply Chain Management who is responsible for risk management and sustainability. Among other things, here he talks about what makes supply chains so complex and how Körber is successfully making supply chains resilient and fit for the future.

You have about 10,000 suppliers in 80 countries worldwide. How challenging is it for Körber to keep track of all the supply chains and monitor them?
It’s a big challenge. For our complex products, we need countless parts that are supplied by different partners from many countries all over the world — by our direct suppliers themselves and by the subcontractors. These partners must comply with all the obligations that are specified by the Supply Chain Act, for example, all over the world. We take this task very seriously, and we operate a systematic risk management system that even goes beyond the existing obligations. That’s because one thing is very crucial for us: Less risk in our supply chain also means less risk for our customers.

The Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains, or the Supply Chain Act for short, went into effect on January 1, 2023. It regulates the responsibility and due diligence obligations of companies to uphold human rights and environmental protection in global supply chains. In the period since the law came into force, companies with at least 3,000 employees in Germany have to be the first ones to meet these requirements. Starting in 2024, companies with more than 1,000 employees will also be affected by the Supply Chain Act.

Do you have an example that illustrates the complexity of a supply chain?
Let’s take semiconductors, which are important for many of our electronic assemblies in machines, as an example. A large number of suppliers are involved in the production of these semiconductors, which occurs upstream along the supply chain. They all perform different tasks, ranging from the production of silicon wafers to photolithography, surface processing, wiring, and testing to the integration into control and drive electronics. All of these suppliers, in turn, have upstream suppliers in their value chains, which are situated in a global environment. And that applies not only to semiconductors but also to other commodity groups for many of our products and services.

Körber not only complies with the applicable laws and obligations but also assumes further responsibility on its own initiative. What measures are helping to make supply chains as sustainable as possible?
It is fundamentally important for us to minimize risks along the supply chains. For example, we have drawn up our own Code of Conduct, which all of our suppliers must comply with if a contract is to be concluded with us. The Code specifies the principles, corporate values, legal requirements, and social standards according to which we intend to work together. In addition, we regularly conduct audits (i.e. standardized surveys) at our partners’ sites in order to identify or rule out any violations as early as possible. To this end, we train our employees on a regular basis. In addition, we use an online monitoring platform, IntegrityNext, to further minimize risks. In-depth market research also helps us to identify potential risks in our supply chains at an early stage and to define countermeasures.

Are there certain areas that are hard to monitor?
There’s no such thing as a perfect or fully automated system. That is why we speak more generally of risk management. It is important for us to gather as much information as possible from all the relevant areas. This enables us to learn how our partners operate and how sustainable their business practices are. If we identify increased risks as part of our continuous monitoring, we obtain further information and conduct an on-site audit, for example. Should a supplier be non-compliant, we define corrective and preventive measures together with our partner. Depending on the severity of non-compliance, we reserve the right to terminate the business relationship immediately.

"Less risk in our supply chains also means less risk for our customers."

Marco Kretschmar, Senior Manager for Procurement & Supply Chain Management at the Körber Group

You’ve mentioned IntegrityNext. How does digitization help you keep track of supply chains more effectively?

Digitization is indispensable for transparency as well as for connectivity with our suppliers. One of the helpful digital tools we can use to monitor our supply chains more effectively is IntegrityNext, where suppliers provide comprehensive information about their business and sustainability practices. The platform thus provides a lot of important information in one spot, for example about how to deal with labor and human rights, anti-corruption and bribery, environmental protection, and CO₂e management.   Companies that position themselves sustainably and transparently have a clear competitive edge. Many companies — including Körber — have already defined sustainability as an important selection criterion regarding suppliers. In other words, if two suppliers offer products or services at a similar price and the same quality, the “more sustainable” one will win the contract.  
Digital platforms thus help us quickly collect and retrieve important information. However, we still ultimately examine special issues such as increased risks of human rights violations ourselves with the support of the aforementioned information systems.

What happens when a risk is identified? What mechanisms take effect in such a case?
If there is any suspicion, we investigate it thoroughly. We then require our partner to provide concrete evidence that our contracts or our Code were not violated. If we don’t receive this evidence, employees from our Compliance department investigate the matter until we can exclude non-compliance  . If this is not possible after an extensive examination, the collaboration is terminated. However, as a rule, we get a long-term picture of our partners and look at how we can make supply chains sustainable and innovative right from the start. At the same time, we make sure that we are never too dependent on individual suppliers so that we can keep our supply chains resilient.

A glimpse of the future: How are supply chains changing, and what challenges do companies need to be prepared for?
We expect regional sourcing to become increasingly important in the future. In other words, wherever possible, we are increasingly sourcing our raw materials and products in the regions where our own production facilities are located. The geographical proximity of suppliers offers us the advantage that raw materials and prefabricated parts no longer have to be transported halfway around the world. This not only reduces our CO₂e footprint but also reduces the complexity of the logistics.

We also need to think about how to deal with further regulation — this includes, for example, the EU’s planned Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, or CBAM for short. This is a pricing mechanism for the CO2 emissions from the production of carbon-intensive goods, such as steel and aluminum, that are imported into the EU. Another issue that is becoming more important is resilience against cyberattacks. Many of our machines and service solutions are operated by means of software. Consequently, we have to make sure that no malware that we could inadvertently pass on to our customers is entered into our supply chains. This too is part of state-of-the-art risk management.

Further exciting insights into the world of Körber can be found at Insights.

Photography: iStockphoto, private

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