After a decline in 2020, the consulting market is regaining its old strength despite Covid-19
Top 20 German consultants grew by 16.6 percent in 2021, international consultancies by 13.1 percent
The consequences of the Ukraine war, supply chain bottlenecks and inflation hardly affect forecasts for 2022
After a decline in the Covid-19 year 2020, the consulting market is recovering. The 20 largest management consultancies headquartered in Germany achieved average sales growth of 16.6 percent in the 2021 financial year. In the 2020 financial year, total sales fell by an average of 6.8 percent - after more than ten years of growth in a row. The leading international consulting groups grew by an average of 13.1 percent in the 2021 financial year (previous year 2020: 1.6 percent). Current challenges such as the Ukraine war, rising energy and production costs and the associated inflation have hardly any impact on the sales forecasts of the leading management consultancies: The top 20 German companies are planning growth of 15.4 percent in the 2022 financial year, and the international consultants by 11.5 percent . These are the first results of the new Lünendonk study, which will be published in July. The current ranking of the 20 leading German and 17 international management consultancies can be found atwww.luenendonk.de ready for download.
Market volume increases to over 38 billion euros
"The above-average growth figures from 2021 must be viewed against the background of the significant drop in sales in 2020," says Lünendonk Managing Director Jörg Hossenfelder. "The consultants have now become just as used to the Covid-19 impact and to remote consulting as their clients, so that the past financial year was also characterized by catch-up effects."
According to the BDU, the German management consulting market reached a volume of EUR 38.1 billion in 2021 (+10.1%; 2020: EUR 34.6 billion; 2019: EUR 36.0 billion). Despite the current geopolitical and economic challenges, the market volume in Germany is expected to increase to EUR 42.1 billion (+10.5%) in the 2022 financial year.
Top 20 German consultancies
Due to the improved data situation, Lünendonk presents a top 20 list of the leading management consultancies with their headquarters and majority of the share capital in Germany. Top 10 and top 15 evaluations have been published in recent years. In 2021, the top 20 achieved sales of EUR 3.29 billion worldwide (previous year 2020: EUR 2.83 billion) with a total of 14,290 employees (previous year 2020: 13,134). Around 60 percent of the turnover came from the German market.
Roland Berger remains first, d-fine jumps to sixth
Also in 2021, Roland Berger is number one on the German Lünendonk list. Total sales increased by 26.3 percent to EUR 745.0 million. The number of employees (FTE) increased by 35 to 2,305. Simon-Kucher remains in second place with total sales of EUR 442.6 million (+22.4%). Q_Perior continues to be one of the top 3 German management consultancies with total sales of EUR 235.0 million (+4.4%). Fourth, fifth and sixth place goes to consultants, each with a total turnover of more than 200 million euros: Horváth (€216.0 million; +10.2%), Porsche Consulting (€212.0 million; +14.6% ) and d-fine (€201.3m; +18.4%).
The consulting company zeb, which specializes in banks and insurance companies, remains in seventh place with sales of EUR 190.9 million (+7.9%), Detecon slips to eighth place (EUR 186.5 million; -3.6%). KPS also has to accept a drop in sales of 5.0 percent and is in ninth place (€158.0 million). Goetzpartners closes the top 10 with 134.5 million euros (+7.4%). By far the largest growth was achieved by Berylls in 2021 with 162.8 percent (€41.0 million). The consulting firm has almost doubled the number of employees. Miebach (+35.7%), Ingenics (+29.9%), Cassini (+29.5%), Unity (+27.5%) and h&z (+26.2%) also grew at an above-average rate. Horn & Company closes the top 20 with 36.7 million euros (+14.7%).
International consulting groups are also growing strongly
International consultants dominate the German consulting market. The field is very heterogeneous: the market leaders are the international strategy consultancies McKinsey, BCG and Bain, followed by the advisory units of the large auditing firms Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers and the consulting unit of Accenture. In 2021, the 17 leading international providers on the Lünendonk list generated an estimated turnover of 136.4 billion euros worldwide. Of this, 10.5 billion euros are attributable to Germany (2020: 8.2 billion euros; +28%).
Fluctuation and salaries are increasing
"Management consultancies are much more concerned with increasing fluctuation and higher salaries," says Jörg Hossenfelder. In 2021, the fluctuation rate rose by 2.6 points to an average of 13.3 percent across all participants. This is the highest value within the Lünendonk studies since this item was first surveyed in 2014. In order to attract and retain employees, more than a third of consulting companies want salaries to average between 3.0 and 4.5 percent lift.
Background to the Lünendonk List
The Lünendonk lists of the leading management consultancies show the total turnover of the international and German consulting providers. A ranking based solely on consulting sales in Germany cannot be shown in a meaningful and sufficiently detailed manner for the international provider category. For this reason, only companies that have their foundation history and capital majority in Germany are considered in the classic Lünendonk ranking of management consultancies in Germany. They are listed in the order of their total sales.
The multinational management consulting groups that have their headquarters or their capital majority abroad are - insofar as they have achieved significant sales (more than € 50 million) with management consulting services in the German market in 2021 - in a separate overview "Leading international management consulting companies in Germany". listed with their relevant worldwide consulting turnover and employee numbers. These are both the large strategy consultancies and full service providers as well as specialized consulting companies from the HR sector. The sales of the Big Four companies from the auditing industry are exclusively advisory sales for the services shown.
Sourced from Luenendonk