Sustainable growth isn’t only a goal we pursue for our clients, but also the guiding principle for our own corporate strategy. How do we want to achieve this kind of internal growth? And how does that affect our idea of what it means to be a consultant at our company?
Since its founding in 1985, Simon-Kucher has seen incredible growth. Today, we have more than 1,700 employees in 42 offices around the world. But our growth isn’t just reflected in numbers. What started as a pricing consultancy has since become a pricing, sales, and marketing consultancy for an ever-increasing number of markets. Adding to this, our digital full-service offering means that we have many years of growth ahead of us.
We know that growth happens most successfully when we work together as a team, not only with each other, but also hand in hand with our clients – pursuing our common objectives together. Our customers know best when it comes to what their company needs, as well as they’re own strengths and challenges.
Our consultants – on the other hand – act as industry specialists with many years of experience in the appropriate methods for successfully implementing new ideas. The prerequisite? Clients must be willing to give up the status quo – only then can change happen and sustainable growth be achieved.
The main challenge? To maintain our unique corporate culture and expertise while expanding and delivering more value for our clients.
Simon-Kucher corporate culture: It’s all about the people
Most companies’ mission statements are filled with buzzwords. How are we different? We try to make those words come to life through real actions. As a growth consultancy, we focus on top-line topics. We combine 35 years of pricing expertise with scientifically founded methods and innovative digital approaches to deliver successful projects to our clients. At the core of all this is our employees’ know-how. Our leadership believes that our people at Simon-Kucher set us apart from other consultancies.
As a result, we have a unique way of designing our consultant’s roles and in how we define career opportunities. Since our employees are the key to our success, we believe that Simon-Kucher has to act as a boosting platform. Here, everyone gets offered the chance to develop personally and professionally, as well as to improve their individual capabilities towards their personal goals.
Consultant job description reflects corporate values
How are we supporting Simon-Kucher management consultants in achieving their targets? On the one hand, we make sure that our daily work is defined by a spirit of collegiality, meritocracy, knowledge transfer, and sharing of responsibilities. On the other hand, our offer consists of a variety of job benefits and programs to help our associates reach their full potential. For instance, with a comprehensive program of continuous education, tailor-made training courses, and regular constructive 360-degree evaluation and feedback discussions.
However, not only do we see it as our job to improve our consultants’ professional performance, we are also convinced that taking a broader view and understanding one another are essential for our success. Therefore, we offer a global office/job rotation program, where we encourage our employees to spend a couple of months abroad. This allows them to get to know colleagues and the (office) culture in other locations.
We also don’t forget to take into account the private backgrounds of our colleagues. Our teams are diverse, from different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. And we want everyone to be the best version of themselves they can be. Regardless of whether someone is balancing family and work, is caring for relatives, or is facing other private circumstances that makes everyday life difficult, we make sure that this can be reconciled with their daily consulting job. As such, we have developed a number of programs and support systems to enable this.
Creating and shaping team culture as one great challenge
Why are job benefits like job rotations and attractive career opportunities a necessity for Simon-Kucher? The consulting market is very disruptive at the moment, as The industry is still affected by the COVID-19 crisis.
At the same time, trends that have been going on for some time – such as digitization and sustainability – have been accelerated. These are topics that no company can avoid anymore. There are also other impacts: higher inflation, supply shortages, and acute labor shortages. Even though some of this might look scarythese may seem daunting, the initiated changes also offer opportunities.
Of course, like all other companies, we are affected by these changes. During the last two years, our offices were empty as employees worked remotely from home. Now, people are slowly coming back to the workplace. And we look forward to having employees back in the office again, as some activities require us to collaborate in person. But overall, we will see a mix of home office, office, and on-site work with our clients. This hybrid working model is nothing groundbreakingly new, but its introduction was certainly accelerated by the recent crisis.
Our goals of increased globalization and digitalization go hand in hand with our hybrid model. Every year, we’re opening new offices around the world. Embracing digitalization – such as software solutions and products – enables us to grow beyond the traditional consulting business. With the help of our two new digital offerings, Simon-Kucher Elevate and Simon-Kucher Engine, we can also grow qualitatively by increasing value creation.