Germany’s companies of the future

Germany needs innovative companies to remain leader in times of economic and technological change. In an ongoing process, DDW Research determines which these currently approximately 3,000 future-oriented companies are. Here are insights and analyses.

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The results are based on a compilation of 50 trend industries and market fields of the future, which is continuously updated with scientific support. This list of trend industries is compared with the database „The Most Important German Companies“ by means of multi-layered data analyses. Among other things, the business activities of the companies, their industry affiliation, the general importance based on the DDW scoring index as well as company key figures such as growth rates are included. The result is the 3,000 companies with the highest score.

With the latest version in July 2023, 132 companies have been added to the list (examples below). The reason for the changes are the developments in the corporate landscape itself, as well as the current changes in the underlying weighting of the trend and growth fields (details here in the logbook).

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The 3,000 German companies in industries of the future

Company sizes

Forward-looking or resilient business models have more than just something to do with sheer size. The 3,000 companies can be found across all company and sales sizes:

• up to 20 million euros in sales: 789 companies (26%)
• between 21 and 50 million euros in sales: 478 companies (16%)
• between 50 and 100 million euros in sales: 477 companies (16%)
• between 100 and 250 million euros turnover: 452 companies (15%)
• between 251 and 999 euros turnover: 517 companies (17%)
• billionaires in turnover: 287 companies (10%)

This is how the distribution looks in terms of employee size:

• up to 20 employees: 76 companies (3%)
• between 21 and 50 employees: 264 companies (9%)
• between 51 and 100 employees: 549 companies (18%)
• between 101 and 250 employees: 613 companies (20%)
• between 251 and 999 employees: 688 companies (23%)
• from 1,000 employees: 810 companies (27%)

New admission: Sto SE & Co. KGaA
Trend field energy efficiency
Sto SE & Co. KGaA is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of products and systems for building coatings. The company is a leader in the field of external wall insulation systems, which are becoming increasingly important in the context of energy-efficient building and renovation. The global market leader from Stühlingen in Baden-Württemberg employs more than 5,700 people worldwide and generates sales of around 1.8 billion euros. (Image: Company)

Ownership structure

• One third of the 3,000 companies are foreign-owned. These are mainly characterized by companies from the IT technology / computer / software sector.
• 29 percent of the 3,000 companies are independent family businesses.
• 33 percent are subsidiaries.
• 7.6 percent are investor-owned.

Age of the companies

The challenge, but also the opportunity, of developing innovative business models in trend fields affects companies of all ages. On average, the 3,000 companies on the growth list are 61 years old, with 30 percent being 30 years old or younger. 2.8 percent are ten years old or younger.

New inclusion: vitronet Holding
Trend fields „High-speed IT infrastructure“, „Decentralized energy supply“ and „Infrastructure“.
Vitronet is a leading service provider for fiber optic and energy infrastructure in Germany. The company is not only active in the central power supply infrastructures of the future, but above all in FTTH and broadband network expansion in Germany. Every year, the company implements more than 10,000 km of fiber optic routes with over 2,700 employees (Image: Company).

Leadership

• 10.6 percent of the 3,000 companies are headed by women. This is a slightly higher proportion than for the total of the most important German companies (9.3%).
• The average age of managing directors / CEO is 57.

Industries and segments

48 percent of the 3,000 companies operate in the industrial segment, 46 percent in the services segment and 6 percent in the retail segment.

15.1 percent of them are global market leaders.

The most common industries are:

1. IT technology / computers / software (312 companies)
2. IT services (260)
3. Transport, logistics and forwarding (239)
4. Pharmaceuticals, drugs and biotech (217)
5. Medicine (202)
6. Electrical engineering (135)
7. Plant engineering (96)
8. Mechanical engineering (91)
9. Automotive supplier (86)
10. Packaging industry (80)

Example H. Anger’s Sons
Trend sectors „Water, -Data and -Technology“, „Decentralized energy supply“ and „Raw materials“.
With the experience of 160 years, but the technologies of today, H. Anger’s Söhne from Hessisch Lichtenau is one of the leading medium-sized companies in the German drilling industry. Starting from its historical roots, the company’s fields of activity have expanded considerably in the process: from water extraction to geothermal energy to reservoir exploration for raw materials or the identification of potential storage locations for natural gas, CO2 or even radioactive residues, the company is a specialist for well systems as well as shallow and deep drilling. (Image: Company)

Geographical distribution

Most of the 3,000 companies come from Bavaria (615 companies), followed by North Rhine-Westphalia with 585 and Baden-Württemberg with 539 companies.

By city, these locations have the most growth companies:

1. Hamburg (166 companies)
2. Munich (162)
3. Berlin (158)
4. Frankfurt am Main (73)
5. Dusseldorf (65)
6. Cologne (52)
7. Stuttgart (45)
8. Bremen (32)
9. Nuremberg (32)
10. Hanover (24)

The complete ranking is available in the DDW Reader Service as a list in Excel format. The DDW-databases are considered the gold standard and are used by leading B2B players, universities and institutions.
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More on the topic:

• The 50 trend and growth areas (german)
• Information on the scoring process for companies (german)
• Background information on the scoring process at DDW (german)