A study commissioned by the Accenture consultancy together with Die Welt daily newspaper claims that major enterprises play a role in the Germany economy which is even more important than previously thought. At least this is the opinion of the consultancy experts. According to the study, the 500 biggest enterprises generate about 30 percent of the entire German turnover, although they recruit only 13 percent of all employees. As regards the field of research and development (R&D), the share of the 500 top major enterprises is 70 percent of the total sum spent by the Germany economy as a whole on R&D, whereas this percentage stands at 60 percent for investment in information technoloy.
That is why according to the opinion of Accenture´s managing director for Germany, Mr. Stephan Scholtissek, major enterprises are Germany´s economic backbone and not SMEs. As far as the creation of jobs is concerned, the major enterprises are also given a good mark by the study. According to the study, the leading 20 percent of German major enterprises are said to have increased the number of jobs in Germany in the period from 2000 to 2004 by 6.1 percent, although part of the increase was the result of takeovers.
MittelstandsBlog.de thinks: The interpretation of the study´s findings requires quite a sceptical approach since what the study does is, on the one hand, to compare a selection of top major enterprises with, on the other hand, small and medium-sized entities as a whole. A fair comparison should either compare all major enterprises with all SMEs or the top players with the top players. Another inconsistency of the study: The turnover of major enterprises is neither exclusively generated on the German market nor do all revenues or investments in R&D remain in Germany, which quite often is the case for SMEs. Therefore the figures provided by the study can hardly be compared with one another. In order to be even better prepared for this kind of discussion, please go to de.internet.com or Die Welt where further findings of the study are available. 