About 3 % of a company's turnover with 125 employees in the mechanical and plant engineering sector is tied up annually by the fulfilment of bureaucratic obligations. The figure is more than one per cent for a large company with a turnover of 239.5 million euros.
As an explanation for the different bureaucratic cost burdens, Dr Annette Icks and Michael Holz pointed to the fixed costs that must be distributed over smaller production quantities in smaller companies during their discussion with the Normenkontrollrat at the beginning of February. "A special policy focus should therefore be on reducing bureaucracy in SMEs. In general, however, indirect costs must also be considered much more strongly in legislation," the IfM project manager demanded. Although individual regulations do not formally affect smaller companies, many must provide extensive data for their major customers, for example, if they are suppliers.
