Company Profile

NI Culture and Stakeholder Engagement

The company's long-term view, known as the 100-year plan, looks decades into the future to help ensure the needs of all National Instruments stakeholders – employees, customers, suppliers, and shareholders – are given appropriate consideration. In its 100-year plan, NI believes that its greatest and most sustainable long-term competitive advantage is its culture and employees because this group directly impacts the success of the other stakeholders.

Central to achieving customer success, the NI Vision inspires employees to innovate while also ensuring quality processes and products that respond to customer needs. This balance creates highly differentiated products that also deliver a high value for customers.

To ensure the long-term success of this approach, NI founders identified a set of characteristics, known as the NI Way, which defines how employees work and interact with each other to excel. These characteristics include deriving inspiration through the NI Vision and behaving opportunistically with integrity, iron will, and a lack of bureaucracy.

Also central to the NI 100-year plan are the NI core values that must always be reflected in the decisions and actions of NI employees. These include:

• Constant respect for people
• Uncompromising honesty and integrity
• Dedication to serving customers
• Commitment to innovation and continuous improvement

Building on its 100-year plan and core values, the following statements and tools serve as a way of ensuring the company's performance meets its standards:

Statement	Implementation
Company Mission and Vision Statements	At NI corporate headquarters, the new employee training program and Leadership Development Series cover these core principles. At branch offices, the local leadership is responsible for integrating these principles into their branch organizations.
Citizenship Mission Statement	In 2010, NI corporate headquarters added a new component to the training program for new employees to cover this principle. Branch leadership is responsible for integrating this principle into their organizations.
NI Code of Ethics	Refer to the Work Environment section of this report.
Supplier Code of Conduct	Refer to the Supplier Responsibility, Environmental Management, and Manufacturing Operations section of this report.

Learn more about the NI culture.

Stakeholder Engagement
The following table lists examples of how NI engages with its key stakeholders.

Stakeholder Group	Tools and Processes	Frequency
Employees	Company meetings	Semiannual
	Employee Appreciation Week	Annual
	Business alignment discussions	Quarterly
	Town hall gatherings	Ongoing
	Performance reviews	Annual
	An open-door management policy known as sneaker management	Ongoing
	Philanthropic funding advisory council	Annual
	Departmental citizenship road shows	Ongoing
	NI Talk internal collaboration tool	Ongoing
	Internal e-newsletter	Weekly
	NI Web intranet and wiki	Ongoing
Customers	NIWeek , the company's annual customer and technology conference, and regional NIDays held at NI branch offices around the world	Annual
	Online discussion forums and user community	Ongoing
	User group meetings around the world	Ongoing
	Direct sales force	Ongoing
	Contact forms , including technical support, customer service, and product feedback	Ongoing
	Customer loyalty surveys	Semiannual
	Customer advisory boards and regional advisory councils at which NI facilitates discussion with key customers about its products, technologies, and industry trends	Ongoing
	Lead user program to identify opportunities and receive product feedback	Ongoing
Suppliers	Procurement and purchasing resources	Ongoing
	Supplier appreciation event	Annual
	Business reviews with key suppliers	Ongoing
	Business review presentations by suppliers	Quarterly
	Supplier citizenship survey	Annual
Shareholders	Earnings conference call and webcast	Quarterly
	Reports	Quarterly/annual
	NIWeek investor conference	Annual
	Shareholder meeting	Annual
	Financial community event participation	Ongoing
	SEC filings	Annual

 

Through the various means in which NI engages with its stakeholders, the company's management gains visibility and creates alignment with key citizenship priorities and concerns, as shown in the following examples.

• Employees – In an effort to ensure the citizenship reporting process is a vehicle for two-way communication with employees, the cross-functional core NI citizenship team began conducting departmental road shows in 2010. Members of the team attended various department staff meetings to discuss employees’ top concerns and discuss the company’s citizenship efforts. One of the top concerns employees cited in 2010 was the impact of the rising cost of healthcare. NI leadership held multiple town-hall-style meetings where they openly communicated the company’s strategy to manage these expenses.
• Customers – This year, NI focused on gathering feedback from attendees at its annual user conference, NIWeek, by conducting two focus groups in addition to its annual NIWeek attendee survey. The goals of the focus groups were to better understand what a company needs to do, from the customer's perspective, to be considered easy to do business with and to gather feedback regarding expectations and perceptions of website support after purchasing products. Overall, NI customers expressed that they value timely and accurate information in all communication channels, from Web to sales, and they are extremely satisfied with how NI delivers in these areas.
• Suppliers – In 2010, NI sent citizenship surveys to suppliers and received results in Q3. Through this survey, NI learned that some of its smaller suppliers are concerned because they do not have the resources to devote to getting their sustainability programs off the ground. Thus, in 2011, the NI supply chain group will assist suppliers by sharing best practices gained from NI experience and the knowledge gained during supplier business reviews.
• Shareholders – This year NI investors main concerns were focused on the company’s strategic investments in R&D and the field sales force, market share gains, and uses of cash. In 2010, NI management addressed these concerns by participating in multiple events including eight investor conferences and four nondeal road shows. The company also hosted its shareholder meeting at its headquarters, quarterly earnings calls, and its annual analyst day as part of the NIWeek global user conference. In addition, NI paid cash dividends equaling $0.52 USD per share in 2010, which was $0.04 USD more per share over 2009.

Measuring NI Customer Satisfaction
In 2010, NI conducted multiple research projects to better understand overall customer satisfaction with the company, with certain product lines, and with its annual global user conference. This research included the following:

Survey Type	Purpose	Results
Two U.S. and one global customer satisfaction and loyalty survey	To monitor the level of satisfaction customers have with all aspects of interaction with the company, including the product information provided, sales representatives, the ordering process, product usage, and technical support, as well as the level of customer loyalty	NI customers indicated that they have a high level of satisfaction and loyalty for the company and its products. In 2010, NI made improvements to ni.com navigation and online educational resources based on customer feedback from this survey.
One survey conducted during NIWeek, the company's annual global user conference	To gauge attendee satisfaction with the event	NI continues to see that NIWeek attendees are attracted to the advanced technical content and networking opportunities.
Two focus groups held at NIWeek	To better understand what a company needs to do, from the customer’s perspective, to be considered easy to do business with and to gather feedback regarding expectations and perceptions of website support after purchasing products	NI customers value timely and accurate information in all communication channels, from Web to sales.