How does your competence center structure work? What are the goals and purposes of it?

Many thanks for this question - indeed an important one, as our competence centers (CCs) play a vital role within our company. We have both industrial (e.g. Automotive, Consumer Goods & Retail) and functional CCs (e.g. Restructuring, Operations). The basic idea of our CCs is to bundle our expertise to deliver better and more specific solutions for our clients (according to the respective industry and functional needs). I guess the natural follow-up question is this: What does this mean for me as a consultant at Roland Berger? As new joiner in the DACH region, you are assigned to a CC. This CC is your "home" regarding the majority of the projects you are getting assigned to and also easily allows you to build a network with your colleagues. However, and I think this is very important, our CC structure allows for flexibility, i.e. the possibility for cross-CC staffing (e.g. being staffed on an Automotive project despite being part of the Consumer Goods & Retail CC).