List of the 100 largest top-management consultants Germany [2023]

List of 3 large top-management consultancies in Germany

Strategy consultancies offer consulting for the fundamental and long-term orientation of companies – in the business model, in the development of new markets or in the optimization of cost structures. The companies we have written news about are part of our list of the largest strategy consultancies in Germany.

1. McKinsey & Company

James Oscar McKinsey founded the eponymous management consultancy in Chicago in 1926. Today – almost 100 years later – McKinsey & Company is one of the largest and best-known consulting firms in the world. The firm is represented in 65 countries around the globe – in Germany since 1964 – and employs around 38,000 people. Consulting revenue in 2021 was more than $15 billion. German McKinsey offices can be found in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Münster and Stuttgart. The headquarters are in Düsseldorf. McKinsey clients include many well-known German companies, including most DAX companies. McKinsey Germany has about 3,200 employees, including about 2,000 consultants.

2. Roland Berger

Roland Berger is the only original German management consultancy that is also an international heavyweight. The company was founded in 1967 by Roland Berger. Today, it has more than 50 offices and over 2,400 employees in 35 countries. These include almost all developed industrial countries and important emerging markets. Annual sales were most recently around EUR 600 million. From 1987 to 1998, Deutsche Bank was Roland Berger’s majority owner. The company then became independent as part of an MBO and is now an independent partnership. Founder Roland Berger withdrew from the Supervisory Board in 2010, but remains associated with the consultancy.

Update 2023: At the beginning of 2023, Roland Berger acquired Candidus, a Munich-based consultancy specializing in restructuring and transformation situations. This move strengthens Germany’s largest management consultancy’s expertise in restructuring and provides it with valuable additional manpower.

3. Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

Boston Consulting Group was founded in 1963 by management consultant Bruce Henderson and today, together with McKinsey and Bain, is one of the “Big Three” in the global consulting business. BCG employs around 22,000 people and has 90 offices in 50 countries. The annual turnover is about 11 billion US dollars. BCG has been present in Germany since 1975, with the first German office in Munich and further offices in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt/Main, Hamburg, Cologne and Stuttgart. The BCG matrix has become a consulting standard – not only at Boston Consulting: a portfolio representation with the strategic positioning of the individual business areas of companies.

Strategy, growth, innovation management, restructuring and more

The most important strategy consultancies in Germany cover a whole range of services (see below). All firms have one thing in common: they are involved in groundbreaking decisions and work with the top management of important companies and corporate groups. Since the implications of the recommendations can be extremely large, the consultants are expected to have absolute expert knowledge and experience. For this reason, German strategy consultants are among the absolute best experts in the German economy. Many partners and senior consultants have many years of relevant professional experience and most of the top consultants have considerable education. It is fitting that many board members and managing directors of large companies started their careers at McKinsey, BCG, Bain and Co.

Included information in the list

• Contact information (name, address, email address, telephone etc.)
• Focus and range of services (strategy, digital transformation, restructuring, etc.)
• Ranking by size, relevance and experience (from A to E)

Overview of services and performance of top consulting firms

The list of the largest strategy consultancies in Germany includes a column with the focus or range of services. The information in this category makes it easy to find out the differences between the consulting firms and to categorise them according to specialisation. The services include purely strategic tasks such as corporate development, business development and top-line transformation. But more specific topics such as marketing and sales strategy, organisational development or process optimisation are also part of the range of services. In addition, more and more top management consultancies provide support in the area of mergers & acquisitions (M&A) and post-merger integration (PMI). The full range of services offered and focus areas can be found in our database.

Strategy consultancies: Expertise in digitization and digital transformation

Hardly any development has shaped the economy in recent years as much as digitalisation. Topics such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud, big data, e-commerce and the like not only occupy start-ups and small businesses, but also pose new challenges for corporations and medium-sized companies. For this reason, almost all of the most important strategy consultancies in Germany are also active in the area of digital transformation. The competences of the consulting firms differ greatly and clients should keep a close eye on the skills of the consultants. Because digital transformation is often more than “just” a strategy paper.

Picture Source: Samson (@samsonyyc), Scott Graham (@homajob) (30.05.2022)