Schwetz Consulting — Independent ERP and CRM selection advisor
Schwetz Consulting GmbH is one of the longest-established vendor-neutral ERP and CRM selection advisors in the German-speaking market. Founded by Wolfgang Schwetz in 1985 in Karlsruhe, the firm has accompanied several hundred Mid-Market ERP and CRM selection processes over its history and publishes the annual CRM market overview that has become a reference work for the German CRM market. For ERP buyers Schwetz Consulting is most relevant when the customer wants a structured, vendor-neutral selection process led by an experienced advisor with no commercial alignment to any single ERP or CRM product. The firm does not implement software, does not resell licences and does not take referral commissions from vendors. Its commercial model is anchored in advisory fees paid by the customer, which preserves independence on the buyer side and creates a structurally different incentive from implementation partners that double as selection advisors.
About
Schwetz Consulting GmbH is headquartered in Karlsruhe and was founded in 1985 by Wolfgang Schwetz as one of the first specialised ERP and CRM selection advisories in Germany. The firm has remained owner-managed and operates with a small core team of senior consultants supplemented by associated specialists for specific industry or technology topics. Customer engagements are typically led by named consultants who stay with the project from kick-off through contract signature. The firm publishes the annual CRM Marktspiegel, a market overview that has been continuously updated for more than three decades and is referenced by Mid-Market CRM buyers, vendors and analysts. Adjacent publications and trade-press articles by Wolfgang Schwetz and his team are widely cited in the German enterprise-software community. The firm operates in German throughout, with selected English-language capability for international customer touchpoints. Customers are typically Mid-Market businesses in manufacturing, trade, financial services and selected service segments.
Service offering
The Schwetz Consulting offering is structured around vendor-neutral selection projects covering four phases. First, requirements analysis: workshops with the customer's functional and IT teams to capture business processes, pain points and target-state requirements in a structured catalogue. Second, market screening and longlisting: matching the requirements against the firm's current vendor knowledge to produce a longlist of typically 8 to 15 candidates, narrowed to a shortlist of 3 to 5 through structured screening. Third, RFP execution: drafting the RFP document, orchestrating vendor demonstrations against a scripted demo storyline, scoring vendor responses against weighted criteria, and producing a structured evaluation matrix. Fourth, contract negotiation: supporting the customer through commercial negotiation, total-cost modelling and risk allocation in the implementation contract. The firm does not implement software and does not provide ongoing post-go-live services beyond optional advisory support during early implementation phases.
DACH positioning
In the DACH ERP and CRM selection-advisory market Schwetz Consulting occupies a recognised position alongside Trovarit (Aachen), BARC (Würzburg) and several smaller specialist firms. The differentiators are the firm's longevity (one of the oldest specialist advisories in the market, founded 1985), the published CRM Marktspiegel that demonstrates depth of market knowledge, and the owner-managed structure that supports stable senior staffing on projects. The firm contracts under German law, operates inside the EU data-protection framework (GDPR), and is structurally suited to Mid-Market budgets — project fees are typically in the high five-figure to mid six-figure euro range depending on scope, materially below what global advisory firms charge for comparable selection projects. For Mid-Market customers selecting ERP or CRM, Schwetz Consulting is one of the natural advisory options to evaluate alongside Trovarit and BARC.
Strengths and selection considerations
Strengths to consider: genuine independence from vendor sales channels, deep market knowledge accumulated over more than three decades, owner-managed continuity with stable senior staffing, transparent fee structure and Mid-Market-appropriate pricing. The published CRM Marktspiegel is evidence of structured ongoing market tracking that supports the advisory work. For Mid-Market customers running structured selection processes the firm is a credible counterparty. Limitations to consider: the firm is small relative to larger advisories such as BARC or Trovarit, so the bench depth available for parallel engagements is more limited; in highly specialised industry niches (for example deep automotive Tier-1 supply scenarios or specialised process-industry verticals) industry-specialist firms or product-specialist advisors may complement Schwetz Consulting's broader expertise. For pure-IT-technical evaluations such as platform architecture or cloud-migration topics the firm is less relevant than dedicated technology consultancies.
Related Topics
Vendor homepage of Schwetz Consulting
Current view of the website https://www.schwetz.de/
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is Schwetz Consulting genuinely independent of vendors?
Yes. The firm does not implement software, does not resell licences, does not take referral commissions and is not aligned with any specific ERP or CRM product. Revenue is generated exclusively through advisory fees paid by the customer for selection projects, related advisory work and publications. This commercial structure is materially different from implementation partners that double as selection advisors, where structural conflicts of interest exist.
Does Schwetz Consulting cover ERP, CRM or both?
Both, with historical depth in CRM through the long-running CRM Marktspiegel publication. ERP selection projects are a substantial part of the current engagement portfolio. For customers combining ERP and CRM selection in a single programme the firm can run an integrated process; for ERP-only or CRM-only scenarios the firm is equally relevant.
What is the typical fee for a Schwetz Consulting selection project?
Project fees vary with scope, customer size and the number of evaluated candidates. A typical Mittelstand ERP or CRM selection project sits in the high five-figure to mid six-figure euro range, materially below global advisory firms' fees for comparable scope. The firm provides fixed-price quotes once the scope is defined in a structured kick-off workshop.