TAILORED EXPERTISE FOR YOUR CHALLENGE – QUICK, FLEXIBLE AND RELIABLE

Fast-changing customer needs and increasing technological possibilities make high demands of companies’ ability to change. Tasks also have to be redefined and working methods and cooperation models changed.

Accompanying these changes requires great methodical expertise and an independent view of the situation. This expertise is often not sufficiently present internally.

Our agile experts can act as catalyzers here.

Data is used in every digital business model. The ability to collect data, structure it and connect it intelligently is the basic pre-condition for efficiency and an ability to change.

In order to be able to find the right focus on this issue, dedicated resources must be provided with expert know-how for the task. When double-hatting with operational tasks, employees quickly reach their limits. Our data experts will provide needs-based support when developing and implementing data-based concepts and strategies.

Customer decisions on B2B products requiring explanations are also increasingly being digitally influenced. The digital lead route is becoming more complex and the importance of addressing customers individually and in a customized form is increasing accordingly. New formats, channels and technologies require expertise that is not yet directly available internally.

Our digital marketing experts will address customers with a wide reach and target-group specifically and provide lead development while empowering the internal team.

A well-developed broadband network is the pre-condition for consistent digitalization.

Several action areas have to be dealt with and coordinated to ensure broadband rollouts are successful. This requires highly varied expert knowledge and the right resources at the right time.

Our broadband experts will support you to develop and build up marketing strategies and with implementation.

Our multi-level getting-to-know-you process enables precise project placement and takes your individual preferences into account.

Thanks to comprehensive onboarding and continuous accompaniment of the assignment, we will enable you to start your project smoothly and to work on it efficiently.

We ensure there are lean contract and billing processes. Precise settlement and punctual payment are a matter of course for us.

For us, sustainable cooperation means transparent and open communication during the project initiation and implementation phases, and we will look for follow-on assignments in good time.

Communication

We communicate on an equal basis in specialist and personal terms and align our timing and channels on you. We live transparent and open communication during the getting-to-know-you process and project initiation (contents, daily rate, project conditions) and will give you constructive feedback. With us the cooperation does not “end” on placing the assignment. We will be at your side during the entire project.

Commitment

In a client interview we will subject a joint and binding offer and will remain committed to this for a certain period of time. If you find other options during this time, we would ask you to coordinate these with us. We will provide you with specialist and personal support, even in difficult assignment situations. Once the assignment ends, we will actively look for new options that fit your individual expertise profile.

If you receive exciting enquiries from clients but can’t or don’t want to accept them right now, pass them to us. You will get a share of the margin if we are not already active with this client / in this client sector ourselves.

It’s really easy:

• You pass the enquiry to us, by email, for example.
• We will actively confirm receipt of your recommendation and ask you for any background information we might need.
• We’ll keep you informed about the progress of the staffing and, if an assignment is agreed, will send you a commission agreement.
• You’ll receive the commission automatically via the credit procedure.

During the course of employment as a self-employed consultant, the risk of bogus self-employment always has to be re-assessed. In the following information we have put together relevant assessment criteria for positioning as a self-employed consultant on the market and for the contents and contractual arrangement in a concrete project situation. According to a common understanding, someone is self-employed if they are not subject to any right to issue instructions, they are not integrated in an external organization and can freely set their working time.

This guideline is based on our specialist knowledge and experience as interim providers. We have gone into the legal requirements on this issue in great depth. However, we cannot give any binding legal information because we are neither lawyer nor tax advisors.

1. Positioning as a self-employed consultant on the market

Regardless of the concrete arrangement of the relevant project, the recognized status features of a self-employed person should largely be met:

Own business
A self-employed person has their own permanently established business. It is advantageous to maintain your own, regularly updated website, to found your own company (for example, in the form of a GmbH or UG), employ at least one person subject to mandatory social security deductions, have your own offices, a company car, as well as your own business and work equipment (hardware and / or software etc.). The consultant has a VAT number, a commercial registration or freelancer recognition from the tax office, the business is insured by a business liability insurance policy.

Acquiring other clients
A self-employed person is generally characterized by financial independence from one concrete client or project. Within a reporting period of up to 24 months, a consultant should, for example, have one further client in addition to GP+S Consulting. Ideally, the consultant’s expertise should complement the expertise of GP+S Consulting. If there is no additional client, appropriate attempts must be made to acquire such a client and – if necessary, these efforts must be proven.

Safeguarding your market opportunities
Self-employed people accept financial risks in order to be able to use opportunities that present themselves on the market. This includes costing marketable tenders, negotiating daily rates and the entrepreneurial decision whether to accept or refuse projects. The documentation of this business activity reflects financial independence as a self-employed person.

Hedging risks
A self-employed person who is not covered by the statutory schemes makes independent provision against the risks of illness, any incapacity caused, for example, because of an accident at work, and for any need for care. In this connection, we must point out in particular that there are possibilities to insure against the risk of an accident at work or an occupational illness as a self-employed person voluntarily through various employers’ liability insurance associations. The same applies to pension provision, which, if possible, should be at the level of provision of the statutory pension system at least.

Supplementary note: A self-employed contractor is largely not subject to statutory social security obligations. Accordingly, it is possible to insure yourself independently against the risks of illness, incapacity and a need for care. However, an exemption from the statutory systems only applies as long as the consultant is assessed to be self-employed in accordance with social security law.

2. Test criteria for freelance project work

Self-employed status is tied to several criteria. The consultant works free of any right of instruction based on a delineated, independent service specification, and is not integrated in the client’s work organization. Whether the relevant activity meets these conditions cannot be determined simplistically but based on an overall view of the following criteria, each of which must be predominantly met related to the current project activity.

Binding service agreement
The service you will provide as defined in the project agreement or when it is concluded, is binding for all parties, in particular also for our clients. A more detailed specification of the service you will provide that is set by the client is very much permissible, if the relevant service contents have already been specified in an abstract form in your project agreement or the written service specification. It is also permissible to exchange or supplement the services you will provide. However, the latter requires an appropriate amendment or supplement of the agreement between GP+S Consulting and the client on the one hand, as well as your project agreement on the other.

Service provision free of instructions

a. Manner of service provision
Neither the client nor GP+S Consulting may issue instructions with regard to the form of contractual fulfilment, the selection of any working methods or the manner of service provision (if this does not involve a certified testing procedure, certain DIN standards or other generally recognized technical rules that form a measurable quality standard for the service provision). In contrast, the client may define the targets of the service provision, including in the form of interim targets.

b. Organizing working time
An essential feature of self-employment is the right to organize working time flexibly, which applies to the duration, beginning and end of the working day. It is not necessary that working time is actually regularly changed. What is important instead is that employees of the client company cannot, for example, oblige the consultant to record their working times or demand sickness is reported. Any handover, coordination or meeting appointments remain unaffected by this, of course. Any limitations of working time or recording obligations for occupational safety or infrastructure reasons are also binding.

c. Selecting the work location
Any tie to a fixed workplace should be avoided if a certain workplace is not set as mandatory due to the nature of the activity. The workplace will be set flexibly, according to the task in consultation with the relevant client. A certain proportion of remote working is recommended.

Exclusion of collaboration with third parties
A freelancer is employed to carry out a distinct order. Activities building on each other, taking place after each other in time, on the same item, together with other freelance consultants, other third parties or employees of the relevant client, are possible. However, the relevant service provision must be independently identifiable and possible to differentiate from third-party services. Collaborative cooperation with third parties endangers not only self-employed status, but it can also lead to the consultant being held liable for any errors.

Use of their own work equipment
A further indication of self-employment is the type of business organization. If a consultant uses their own hardware during an assignment and uses their own email address or other work equipment, this documents their independence in relationship to the client or GP+S Consulting. The use of hardware and software provided by the client will only not endanger self-employed status if this is essential for technical, data protection or copyright (licenses etc.) reasons.

External appearance in the project
The consultant recognizably appears to third parties (client suppliers, the client works council etc.) as an external, self-employed service provider. It is essential to avoid any inclusion in internal telephone directories, organization charts or other employee overviews of the client, if it is not made clear in these that the consultant is an external service provider. Any email signature or similar used within the client company must make external status clearly recognizable. The same applies to door signs, business cards or other handouts given to third parties.

No equal status with employees of the client
Self-employed status prohibits any inclusion in client social benefits, e. g. subsidized meals in staff restaurants, attendance of Christmas parties etc. It is not permissible to deputize for client employees during leave or illness. The self-employed person freely chooses their leave. Here, it does not matter if the self-employed person takes project requirements into account and also informs the client contact in good time about their leave.