Digitalisation Consulting for the DACH Mittelstand.

Digitisation is the narrow act of converting analogue information into digital form — scanning a paper invoice into a PDF. Digitalisation is broader: it restructures business processes around digital capability, changing how the work is done rather than only its format. Digital transformation is broader still — an organisation-wide change programme spanning strategy, operating model and culture, not just individual processes.

It depends on scope. A focused process-automation initiative can deliver results in three to six months. A full digital transformation — strategy, architecture, several process domains and adoption — typically runs eighteen months to three years in a Mittelstand company. We sequence the work so each stage produces a usable outcome rather than asking you to wait for one distant go-live.

There is no flat figure — cost scales with scope, the number of processes involved and the systems touched. A digital strategy engagement is a contained advisory cost; a multi-year transformation programme is a capital decision. We work on fixed-scope retainers in three-month commitments, so you see the cost of each stage before committing to the next, rather than signing an open-ended budget.

Almost always, yes. Digitalising a broken process simply makes the dysfunction faster and harder to unpick. We map and redesign the process first, then digitalise the version worth keeping. This sequence — process before technology — is the single biggest predictor of whether a digitalisation programme delivers the savings its business case promised. This sequence is one of the recurring findings in the Bitkom Digital Office Index: companies that redesign before digitalising achieve materially better outcomes than those that automate their existing process.

Alongside, not instead of. Your IT team knows your systems and constraints better than any outside firm; our role is independent governance, architecture and decision discipline. We bring the vendor-neutral view that groups like DSAG have championed for decades, and the pattern recognition from 1,200+ projects; your team brings institutional knowledge. We never resell software or take vendor commissions, so our advice stays pegged to your outcome.

AI has moved from pilot to production in many Mittelstand processes — document handling, forecasting, customer service and code-assisted development. We treat AI as a tool the business deploys against a real case, not a strategy in itself. The discipline is unchanged: define the process and the decision first, then ask where AI genuinely reduces cost or risk — and where it adds exposure. Recent Fraunhofer IAO research on Mittelstand AI adoption confirms the pattern — value follows the disciplined cases, not the experiments.

Yes, if your digitalisation touches automated decisions about people, safety or access — recruitment, credit or critical infrastructure. The EU AI Act phases in obligations through 2026, classifying systems by risk and attaching governance duties to higher-risk uses. Alongside NIS2 and GDPR modernisation, it means digitalisation planning in the DACH region now carries a compliance dimension that should be designed in, not retrofitted.