Management consulting · Cost & organisation · Germany
Take cost out, and make it stay out
Business consulting in Germany, for companies that need the saving to hold once the assignment has ended.
About me
My name is Sascha Oliver Krahl. I advise companies in Germany. I take cost out of what the company already spends, and I set the organisation up so that it carries the saving afterwards. I provide my services through Krahl & Partner Consulting SL. You can reach me at skrahl@krahlconsulting.com.
What I work on
Cost
It starts with the money already going out of the door: where it goes, what for, and what contract sits behind it. That becomes a list of possible savings, ordered by what each one costs to get. Then they are done one at a time, in an order agreed beforehand. A saving that breaks a delivery is not a saving.
More on this area – CostThe organisation that has to hold it
The other half of the work is that the organisation carries the decision on after the assignment ends. Whoever has to make the change work on the shop floor is the person who has to carry it: the line managers. So the work happens with them, on their own live cases, not on a concept.
More on this area – The organisation that has to hold itWhat the numbers say about your market
What German suppliers are facing is not a bad quarter. Oliver Wyman1 sums up the finding of its March 2026 study “Automobilzulieferer zwischen Schock und Gestaltungsspielraum” like this: the challenges are no longer cyclical, they are structural. EBIT margins at German suppliers were widely below 5 % in 2025 — too little to fund their own transformation out of trading profit. Between 2020 and 2025 the study counts 257 insolvencies among suppliers with turnover above ten million euro, 59 of them in 2025 alone, after 56 the year before.
Employment tells the same story. EY2 puts employment in the German automotive industry in 2025 at around 725,000 — the lowest level in fourteen years; among suppliers, headcount has shrunk by 23 percent since 2019. Under current regulatory conditions the VDA3 expects around 225,000 fewer jobs by 2035 than in 2019, and assumes that roughly 100,000 of those have already gone.
A cost programme changes none of these numbers. What it decides is the cost base you go into those years with.
| Source | Publication | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Oliver Wyman | Automobilzulieferer zwischen Schock und Gestaltungsspielraum | |
| EY | Automobilstandort Deutschland | |
| VDA | Beschäftigungsentwicklung 2035 |
Sources last checked on
Common questions
When does it make sense to bring in an outside consultant?
Usually when the number is known and the change is not happening. The savings target exists, the analysis has been done once or twice, and the organisation cannot get past its own habits or its own internal calendar. An outsider has no history inside the building and no career riding on the outcome.
Which market do you work in?
Germany. If your company manufactures or buys there, that is the situation worth talking about.
How do we start?
With a message by email. In the first conversation we work out what this is about and how an assignment would be shaped.
Let's talk about your situation
Two sentences about where things stand are enough to begin with.