deen

Economic Sectors

Chemical Industry

The chemical industry is one of the most important and largest national industries in Germany. The sector ranks third behind the automotive industry and mechanical engineering and employed over 350,000 people in 2021. Germany is also a leading player internationally, occupying the fourth largest position worldwide in the industry behind China, the USA and Japan. In particular, the diversity of companies characterizes the German chemical industry - a wide range of players are represented, from small family-run businesses to large DAX-listed corporations - over 90% of which are small and medium-sized enterprises. The product range is extremely diverse, ranging from the mass production of certain raw materials and intermediates to the manufacture of highly specialized chemicals in small quantities.

Dis­tri­bu­tion and change in re­la­tive sha­res in Ger­man che­mi­cal pro­duc­tion

Com­pa­nies in the che­mi­cal in­dus­try ope­rate in a de­man­ding en­viron­ment, cha­rac­te­ri­zed by high glo­ba­liza­tion on both the purchasing and sa­les si­des and con­stantly in­cre­asing re­gu­latory re­qui­re­ments. They face con­side­ra­ble chal­len­ges that re­quire per­pe­tual ad­apta­tion to ever chan­ging con­di­ti­ons.

On the one hand, Ger­man che­mi­cal com­pa­nies are ex­po­sed to gro­wing com­pe­ti­tive pres­sure from in­ter­na­tio­nal com­pe­ti­tors, both in­ter­na­tio­nally and in their home mar­ket. On the other hand, like all mar­ket play­ers, they must con­stantly re­view and ad­apt their pro­ducts and ser­vices, as well as their pro­duc­tion pro­ces­ses and supply chains, in terms of sus­tai­na­bi­lity, ef­fi­ci­ency, re­lia­bi­lity and re­cy­cla­bi­lity. To main­tain their own mar­ket po­si­tion, stra­te­gies such as launching new and in­no­va­tive pro­ducts, in­cre­asing re­source ef­fi­ci­ency, cut­ting costs and ope­ning up new in­ter­na­tio­nal mar­kets are cru­cial. At the same time, a large num­ber of na­tio­nal and Eu­ro­pean le­gal re­gu­la­ti­ons must be ta­ken into ac­count, for ex­am­ple with re­gard to (pro­duct) ap­pro­vals, ta­xes, com­mer­cial per­mits and pu­blic sub­si­dies.

Ger­man che­mi­cal com­pa­nies must also not miss the boat on an in­ter­na­tio­nal le­vel and must con­ti­nue to de­ve­lop. Im­port­ant trends such as the di­gi­ta­liza­tion of supply chain plan­ning, sol­ving the de­pen­dence on fos­sil fu­els and the ge­ne­ral in­crease in en­ergy costs must be ta­ken into ac­count when de­ve­lo­ping a stra­tegy in or­der to re­main com­pe­ti­tive for the fu­ture.

Eb­ner Stolz has a highly qua­li­fied team of ex­perts who con­ti­nuously en­gage with and ad­vise com­pa­nies in the che­mi­cal in­dus­try. Our con­sul­tants spe­cia­lize in the areas of per­for­mance ma­nage­ment, fi­nan­cial ma­nage­ment, tax and le­gal ad­vice, and also have an in-depth un­der­stan­ding of the in­dus­try, the mar­ket and the pro­ducts.

Thanks to this broad ex­per­tise, we can of­fer you a com­pre­hen­sive con­sul­ting port­fo­lio for the che­mi­cal in­dus­try from a sin­gle source to help you suc­cess­fully mas­ter the chal­len­ges of the in­dus­try.