Announcing fourth-quarter and full-year results earlier this month, German industrial giant Siemens warned that revenues will again be flat in 2015. 

The group is “facing an uphill struggle” to compete with its rivals and blames its poor performance on geo-political tensions and “shifting customer demand” for power gen-eration equipment. Its fourth-quarter performance was undermined by large project-related charges; for example, the wind division incurred 223 million euros in charges due to bearings and wind-blade repairs.

Siemens said that its revenues fell by 2% in the year to 30 September — the second consecutive year of decline (its rivals ABB and General Electric have seen an increase of around 4% over the past couple of years). Chief executive Joe Kaeser said: “We are lagging behind in growth; we must improve here.”

Mr Kaeser described the “current business environment” as “complex”. Customers are deferring investment decisions, he said, due to a variety of international crises, such as the situation in Ukraine and Syria. He added that Siemens is also facing lower demand for its large gas turbines as its customers turn to smaller decentralised systems. This has left it with too much production capacity.

He told Reuters Television that he is on a mission to simplify the conglomerate, selling — or fixing — under-performing businesses (he has already sold a hospital IT unit and the group’s stake in home-appliances joint-venture SBH). Meanwhile, he has bought oil-field equipment company Dresser-Rand to help the energy unit exploit the US shale boom. “Next year will be one of consolidation. We still have a few challenges to overcome, and we’ve had a few setbacks.”