21.10.2013
On October 15, 2013, WirtschaftsWoche awarded the "Best of Consulting 2013" consulting prize. The weekly business magazine honors the best management consultancies once a year by measuring the quality of the consulting work it provides to its customers. Kerkhoff Consulting GmbH took first place in the "Supply Chain Management" category. Editor-in-chief Roland Tichy had already presented Kerkhoff Consulting with the award for best consulting in Germany for purchasing and supply chain in 2010 and 2011. This year, the Düsseldorf-based management consultancy was able to prevail against market competitors such as Ernst & Young J & M Management Consulting AG and MHP - A Porsche Services Company with a consulting project for Conditorei Coppenrath & Wiese GmbH & Co. KG based in Osnabrück, the leading manufacturer of frozen baked goods in Europe. Present that evening was the who's who of the consulting scene such as Ernst & Young, Deloitte, AT Kearney, PwC, KPMG, Porsche Consulting & Co.
Great award
Wirtschaftswoche editor-in-chief Roland Tichy and Frank Höselbarth, managing director of the brand consulting agency People Brand and co-developer of the BoC method, presented the "Best of Consulting" award to Gerd Kerkhoff, managing director, and Bardo Hassemer, principal at Kerkhoff Consulting and responsible for the Coppenrath & Wiese project, on October 15, 2013 at the Hyatt Hotel in Düsseldorf. This is another major award that Kerkhoff Consulting has received in just a few years. Kerkhoff: "With this, our customers confirm to the independent juries that evaluated us here: We live up to our claim as a quality leader. Kerkhoff's greatest potential is and remains our staff. It is thanks to the know-how and commitment of our employees that we are able to hold our own in the economy. So my big thank you to all employees for the great work they do. I have confidence in their strengths, because they mean we are well equipped for the future. We would also like to thank our customers for their trust."
Customer satisfaction is a key measurement criterion
Customer satisfaction was the main criterion used in the study. In a three-stage process, customers were surveyed, a project was analyzed in detail for its quality and a jury made its decisions. Kerkhoff Consulting had applied with its comprehensive consulting project to the Coppenrath & Wiese confectionery shop in Osnabrück. Both the management, the budget managers and the project managers gave the Kerkhoff consultants top marks and stated that they were "very satisfied" with the work carried out.
Wolfram Wacker, head of the Supply Chain Management department at Coppenrath & Wiese, which has a turnover of more than 370 million euros per year, sums it up: "We have implemented a continuous improvement process with which we are constantly developing our organization. Kerkhoff Consulting supported us with application-related approaches. Precise communication in understandable language was particularly important to us. In other words, everything that medium-sized companies expect from consultants and find far too rarely."
Quality leader in supply chain management
“The fact that we were able to prevail over our competitors shows me that customers perceive us as a reliable partner and quality leader,” says Kerkhoff.
Methodology of the study:
The study was carried out on behalf of WirtschaftsWoche. In the first part, a questionnaire was sent to 1,500 large companies in Germany. The managers surveyed were asked to assess the awareness and reputation of the 40 management consultancies with the strongest brands in this country. In the second part, which is also based on the questionnaire, the customers surveyed assessed how successfully the consultants were able to increase their company's operating results in one or more projects. In the third part of the competition, WirtschaftsWoche called on all consultancies in Germany that can demonstrate a significant track record to have a customer project evaluated by an academic advisory board and a jury. Projects can be submitted in the disciplines of competitive strategy, marketing and sales, supply chain management, IT management, restructuring, finance and risk management and human resources. Finally, a jury selects the winner.
back to other content:
