Explosive growth sees Q_Perior break through 1,000 employees barrier

German consulting firm Q_Perior has booked explosive growth in 2017 as it ramped up its revenues by 35%. Organic growth across its footprint of 11 offices in 8 countries, as well as the acquisition of P5group, are the key drivers of this success, taking the firm through barrier of 1,000 employees for first time in its seven year history.

Founded in 2011, Q_Perior is a consulting firm headquartered in Bavaria’s largest city of Munich. Since its launch, the firm has expanded into 11 locations, with other offices in Switzerland, Austria, the UK and USA, Canada and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Q_Perior also boasts a headcount of more than 1,000 consultants, and recorded an excellent year in 2017, with turnover of €177 million. This led to the group booking strong growth of 35% over the past 12 months – building on a similarly impressive 2016, in which 26% growth saw revenues of the firm hit €131 million.

Thanks to its continuing momentum, Q_Perior is now the sixth largest German-origin management consultancy, following Roland Berger and Simon-Kucher & Partners, who hold the top two spots. Two years ago, before its latest growth-spurt, Q_Perior was ranked 8th in the German sector, according to a list released by German analyst firm Lünendonk.

As with most of the largest players in the consulting industry, Q_Perior also used targeted acquisitions to drive its growth last year. The purchase of P5group saw the merged firms significantly bolster their outfit within the German speaking market. According to a statement from Q_Perior at the time, there was virtually no overlap between the two companies’ existing client bases, meaning that while the two entities also perceived a key cultural fit, they were both able to expand their business via the deal between the management and IT consulting platforms.

Klaus Leitner, CFO of Q_Perior, said that alongside organic growth from Q_Perior’s industry practices, this was a recipe for accelerated growth. He remarked , “With the P5group deal, we were able to expand our consulting portfolio in the banking environment. We also achieved growth from existing and new customer business in the insurance, Travel, Transport and Logistics, energy and automotive sectors.”

Now, as the firm looks to the future, and bids to maintain its meteoric growth, digitalisation remains a key driver from a functional perspective – something which is also likely to be boosted by the purchase of P5group. With new, digitally savvy competitors pressuring long-term market incumbents via their innovative new business practices, there is mounting pressure on companies to digitalise. In addition to the required technical and procedural support, offering a valued IT consulting service is becoming ever-more important to firms looking to book major growth.

Karsten Höppner, CEO of Q_Perior, commented that the firm has always supported customers at the interface of business and IT, but that this role is even more important in the coming months, due to this trend. He added, “These innovations and technologies are also important drivers for us as a consulting company, which significantly change the way we work and our consulting services. Agility, strong partnerships and streamlined, scalable and digitalized processes are becoming increasingly important.”

The emphasis on digital already seems to be paying off for the firm. Among projects completed by Q_Perior in 2017, cases included the company combining artificial intelligence with chatbot technology for an insurance company, implementing a robo advisor at a major Swiss bank, and supporting a major railway company in significantly improving the management of train doors using IoT technology.

Milestone: beyond 1,000 consultants

Thanks to this growth, Q_Perior has had to recruit new talent to its team to meet booming demand, recently breaking the 1,000 consultant mark. For 2018, the firm intends to keep this expansion up, with the planned hiring of more than 150 new employees this year. The recruitment process concentrates on consultants specialising in new or future-oriented subjects, helping entrench digitalisation within Q_Perior’s culture.

However, the firm is keen not to overlook the talent that it already employs. As a result, dozens of consultants have also been rewarded with promotion, due to the belief shared by Karsten Höppner and the firm’s executives that its success is down to the employees they already have, and their deeply rooted corporate culture.

One example of this came with the elevation of Astrid Blechschmidt, who had been with the company since 2015, to the rank of Partner. Prior to her role at Q_Perior, she had worked as a graduate Business Manager with the CEO of T-Systems DMS in Switzerland. Upon joining Q_Perior, Blechschmidt had successfully worked to expand the firm’s new business sector Tourism, Transport and Logistics – both with regard to topics and staff. This saw her being rewarded alongside the hiring of new Partners Roland Roudny, working to bundle the SAP competencies at Q_Perior, and Bernhard Braunmüller, who returned to the firm having left in 2012, taking up the role of Head of Sales.

Meanwhile, Q_Perior has once more been counted among the 100 best employers in Germany. The consultancy received the prestigious “Great Place to Work” award for the sixth time at an awards ceremony in Berlin earlier in the year. The firm managed to win plaudits after it was judged favourably in four aspects of an anonymous employee questionnaire. These were “Training and development”, “Recognition of working performance”, “Credibility” and “Team spirit”, while 95% of staff surveyed at Q_Perior confirmed that they worked in a friendly environment.

Commenting on the accolade, Karsten Höppner said, “We’re delighted to have reached a very respectable 11th place and would like to thank our employees for this distinction, which acts as both a recognition and an incentive.”