Our history

The story of CPC begins on a former farm in central Hesse. Three managers from one of the world’s largest management consultancies and a former airline captain set up their office here on the ground floor and founded “Connex Personnel Consulting GmbH” in 1993. Since the founders come from very different corners of Germany, they work and live together in the old half-timbered house during the week. They have a strong commonality: Based on their personal experiences, they have developed the aspiration to establish a consulting company that provides just as professional advice as the renowned consulting firms – but with a fresh approach that is atypical for the industry: the participation of all employees – and not just the partner – in the company, the obligation to support one’s own employees and contribute to their professional and personal development and the requirement for the lowest possible fluctuation. In addition, the four founders consciously want to break with the sometimes arrogant and self-aggrandizing demeanor that the industry is – not entirely wrongly – said to have. This claim is expressed in the claim that the four consultants take up and which to this day shapes CPC’s self-image and corporate culture: “Competent advice – without arrogance”

In the early years, small and medium-sized businesses were the company’s primary clientele.

During that time, CPC accumulated a wealth of change management and implementation expertise. The small-scale businesses, however, proved to be difficult clients. Consulting was sorely needed, but client funds were generally tight and each story took an old familiar turn: “The sooner the client’s reorganization project succeeded, the quicker we were out the door.” In the late 90s, this prompted CPC to focus more on larger companies to establish sustainable business relationships that extended beyond a single project.

The CPC has been growing by 15 to 20% every year since its inception. In the first three years, this means that one or two new colleagues will be hired. When selecting employees, the founders pay particular attention to ensuring that the “new ones” have their own car so that they can drive to customers scattered all over Germany. But as early as 1996, the number of incoming applications exploded – within three weeks the company received mail from 600 potential competitors. The applicants’ portfolios are piled up in laundry baskets in the hallways and in the offices. A sophisticated selection process is quickly developed and continues to be refined over the years. The goal: to find young talent who are talented and at the same time take action and get involved in projects without the usual consultant airs. In 1997 the company was converted into a stock corporation. This step puts the successful model of employee participation on a new basis. To this day, the company is firmly owned by active employees. Shares of departing employees will be bought back immediately and in full. In 1999 the CPC relocated its headquarters to Frankfurt am Main. At this point, the four-man consultancy has become a consultancy with 12 permanent employees, supported by many helping hands –assistants, interns and freelancers.

With the focus on large companies, the topic of “project management” (PM) was added at the end of the 1990s as a complementary focus to “change management”. Because more and larger projects are being carried out in large companies, but project management is very little developed in the corporations at this time, there is an opportunity to adapt PM to the specific customer needs in practice. CPC then quickly builds up additional know-how and offers a wide range of PM services. The PM methodology is proving to be a real growth engine because it also enables younger consultants to become productive very quickly and to provide customers with immediate added value.

Another new focus from the year 2000 is the topic of “reality training”.

Corporations face strategic changes, e.g. B. the implementation of new leadership guidelines or the implementation of a service excellence model are faced with the challenge of getting a large number of managers to rethink. Reality training courses for change management enable participants to experience “before and after action” under 1:1 real conditions. Through their own perception, coaching and feedback, participants put “old” ways of doing things to the test and develop the motivation to rethink and act differently. From 2000 to 2004, the virtual reality training companies “Dolphin Aircraft”, “Kronau Druckmaschinen AG”, “Banco Dos Povos” and “World Motors AG” were created. More companies will be added in the following years. The unusual learning effects of the format trigger real storms of enthusiasm among the participants. The training concept works so well that there are even some strange side effects that no one expected. The Banco Dos Povos recruiting pages receive numerous serious applications. In the Dolphin Aircraft online shop, you can buy merchandising items that are only available once. And unrest breaks out at an auto supplier trade fair in Detroit because World Motors AG is based on the 22nd floor of the trade fair building – a sports car manufacturer that none of the suppliers present knows – but that everyone would like to get to know. The term “reality training” suddenly takes on a different, quite literal meaning.

In the following years, the fruits of the company’s investment-oriented policy over many years became increasingly visible: In 2003, the CPC, together with T-Systems, received the continuing education award from the ZfU IBS, Center for Corporate Management AG, for the Dolphin development program. In 2007 CPC received the International German Training Prize for its reality training. At the same time, demand for PM services for large projects is exploding. More and more companies want to play it safe with their most important projects and hire CPC consultants for the central project tasks. At the end of 2007, CPC had more than 50 permanent consultants under contract.

An important milestone in the history of the CPC is the Service Academy from 2008 to 2010.

The aim of the program is to train all 2,500 top managers of a large telecommunications company in service skills and to raise lasting awareness of the topic. Around 80 reality trainings are carried out at three different locations at the same time. Up to 30 actors, coaches and helpers are involved in each training session. In 2008, CPC became a top employer for the first time in the “Top Employer Germany” analysis carried out by Handelsblatt/Jungekarriere in Germany and carried out by CRF. This underlines the satisfaction of employees with their company. In 2009, CPC received an even better rating and is one of the top 10 employers in Germany. We have been a Great Place to Work® since 2011.

So what is the preliminary conclusion after 25 years?

Although there is probably more diversity in our company than elsewhere. But what is the CPC’s recipe for success? An outsider might say that “the CPC has damn good people.” Customers always ask how we find these employees. Hardly anyone questions why people become so good. After all, you are not born a good advisor. Rather, there is an intensive training, coaching and role model process behind it. What customers then perceive as “good” is a combination of characteristics and values that represent CPC: commitment, entrepreneurship, team play and a positive view of people. The result is long-standing and excellent customer relationships.