Organization

Organization of BASF Group

The operating divisions, the service units, the regions and the corporate center form the cornerstones of the BASF organization, in line with the corporate strategy.

The divisions bear strategic and operational responsibility here and are organized according to sectors or products. They manage the 50 global and regional business units and develop strategies for 75 strategic business units.

The regional and country units represent BASF locally and support the growth of business units with local proximity to customers. For financial reporting purposes, we organize the regional divisions into four regions: Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and South America, Africa and Middle East.

Research activities that are relevant to several operating divisions are bundled in one central research division. This division is globally organized with research centers in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Together with the research and development units in our operating divisions, it forms the core of our global Know-How Verbund.

Five service units provide competitive services for the operating divisions and sites: Global Engineering Services, Global Digital Services, Global Procurement, European Site & Verbund Management, Global Business Services (finance, human resources, environmental protection, health and safety, intellectual property, communications, procurement, supply chain and inhouse consulting services).

The Corporate Center supports the Board of Executive Directors in steering the company as a whole. These include central tasks from the following areas: strategy, finance and controlling, compliance and law, tax, environmental protection, health and safety, human resources, communications, investor relations and internal audit.

This segment structure enables us to steer our businesses in a differentiated way according to market-specific requirements and the competitive environment. We provide a high level of transparency around the results of our segments and show the importance of the Verbund and value chains to our business success. The operating divisions, the service units, the regions and the corporate center are the cornerstones of the BASF organization. This organizational structure lays the foundation for customer proximity, competitiveness and profitable growth. BASF aims to differentiate its businesses from their competitors and establish a high-performance organization to enable BASF to be successful in an increasingly competitive market environment.

The divisions bear strategic and operational responsibility and are organized according to sectors or products. They manage the 52 global and regional business units and develop strategies for 72 strategic business units.

BASF’s regional and national companies represent the Group locally and support the growth of business units with local proximity to customers. For financial reporting purposes, we organize the regional companies into four regions: Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, as well as South America, Africa and Middle East.

To strengthen our innovation capabilities, we reorganized our global research activities in 2022 and aligned them even more closely with the needs of our customers. As part of this, we integrated downstream research into the divisions and bundled activities with broad relevance for our customers in a research division. This division is globally positioned with research centers in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.

Five service units provide competitive services for the operating divisions and sites: Global Engineering Services, Global Digital Services, Global Procurement, European Site & Verbund Management and Global Business Services (finance, human resources, environmental protection, health, safety and quality, intellectual property, communications, procurement, supply chain and in-house consulting services).

We have driven forward the bundling of services and resources in the Global Business Services unit, making greater use of the digitalization of processes. This aims to achieve annual savings of more than €200 million from 2023.

The Corporate Center supports the Board of Executive Directors in steering the company as a whole. These include central tasks from the following areas: strategy, finance and controlling, compliance and law, tax, environmental protection, health, safety and quality, human resources, communications, investor relations, corporate audit and the Net Zero Accelerator unit.