Business success through innovation and responsibility

RUAG combines outstanding technological expertise with a high degree of foresight and responsibility. Collaboration, high performance and visionary thinking: every day, these clear values set the tone for how we think and what we do at RUAG. They form the foundation both for an uncompromising dedication to our customers and to service and for a commitment to security and progress in society.

RUAG's strategy is based on the expectations of the Federal Council of the Swiss Confederation as owner. These are formulated in the strategic goals for 2016–19. The core of these expectations has always been RUAG's ability to reliably support the Swiss Armed Forces as technology supplier even in crisis situations. As a result, RUAG's strategy will evolve in parallel with the continuing development of the Swiss Armed Forces. As is true elsewhere, information technologies are steadily growing in importance and digitalization is becoming an ever greater priority for the armed forces. New technologies and their applications therefore increasingly originate in the civil world, and innovation clusters are often located outside Switzerland. As a result, RUAG's mission is this:

We support the Swiss Armed Forces as a reliable technology supplier on the path to digitalization. To achieve this we develop and build the requisite capabilities in Switzerland and, when necessary, abroad. The civil sector, due in large part to restrictive export conditions for military equipment and dual-use goods, plays an increasingly important role in these efforts.

From this we derive the three pillars of our strategy:

Combining civil and military applications

RUAG is active in both civil and military markets and takes advantage of the resulting synergies. Military applications benefit from technological advances in the civil sector, for example in telecommunications, self-driving vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles, and simulation software. The civil sector benefits from the strong military basis that RUAG possesses as technology supplier to the Swiss Armed Forces.

Focusing on core business

RUAG's activities are broadly diversified across numerous competencies in aerospace, security and military technology. At the same time, RUAG systematically focuses its activities, both as a Group and in the individual divisions, on specific core competencies. In these areas the Group strives to differentiate itself with mission-critical technical components and undertakes focused investments for growth.

International growth

As an international technology corporation, RUAG has operations in Europe, North and South America and the Asia / Pacific region. It has production sites in Switzerland, Germany, France, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Australia and the USA. The corporation already generates over half of its sales outside the Swiss domestic market and is working actively to penetrate international growth markets.

The focus for RUAG is on profitable, sustainable growth. This is essential if RUAG is to continue to fulfil its mission in the future. The top priorities for achieving these goals will be expanding the space business, extending cyber security and further developing aerostructures. In addition, international market positions in all of our businesses will be strengthened in a focused way through product and service innovations, with local activities where necessary.

To implement this strategy RUAG has developed a set of ambitious medium-term goals for 2020. These are:

• Keep pace in key performance indicators with international peers in the aerospace and security and military technology sectors
• Sustainably achieve an EBIT margin of 8 percent
• Generate sales of CHF 2,200 million
• Transact 30 percent of sales outside Europe
• Be capable of self-financing all capex investments over a three-year planning period