Management Commentary

This past year has been extraordinary in many ways. Geopolitical uncertainty and challenging market conditions have caused both strong headwinds and new opportunities for our clients and Deloitte. This was the year when economic predictions were uncertain, new leaders took to the world stage, Europe’s competitiveness was challenged, and conflict dominated the headlines. All these factors led to distrust, a restrained risk appetite, and a slower pace of investment. 

Therefore, I am so proud that we managed to navigate the financial year 2024/25 and deliver a solid performance in the Danish firm. At the same time, we reorganised internally to better match the market and serve our clients. Change and unpredictability are never easy – particularly when they happen both internally and externally at the same time.  

In turbulent times, purpose and values are what we lean on. Culture becomes the binding force, and inclusive communities mean everything. A strong culture fosters a sense of belonging, drives engagement, and enhances performance. It shapes how we interact with each other, influences our behaviours, and ultimately determines our success.  

At Deloitte, we recognise that our culture needs to be fit for purpose, aligned with the times we live in, and able to bridge the generations of talent we work with. 

While our global purpose and values remain the same, we identified a need to refresh how we translate our values into daily behaviours in the Danish firm – behaviours that we can all aspire to, uphold to the best of our ability, and help each other be accountable for. These behaviours guide how we interact and engage with each other, show commitment and passion, and feel comfortable bringing our unified human selves to work every day. 

That is why, in May, we launched ‘Our Promise’ – consisting of four core promises that we give to each other. The behaviours described are not a consolidated checklist but an affirmation of our existing commitment to inclusive leadership and an invitation to become more courageous, caring, and curious for the benefit of our partnership and our people. Our Promise provides a common language for us to use as we reaffirm our organisational culture. 

Brand value is another factor that has become more important than ever. Clients rely on brands they can trust, with a proven track record, and talent increasingly looks for certainty and stability in their jobs. Established and evolving brands can offer that.

Deloitte is still recognised as the most valuable commercial services brand in the world and has retained the #1 position among clients, according to the latest Aalund brand survey. Deloitte leads in 11 out of 14 image dimensions and is widening the competitive gap. This is something I am super proud of. 

Our talent brand remains strong as well, albeit more challenged. We continue to lead in our industry but have dropped to #2 among audit students and #21 among tech students. We will work to improve our ranking among students in the coming year, as attracting top talent is absolutely key to our future success.   

For our talent, we continue our ambition to be a leading learning institution in Denmark. This year, we expanded our collaboration with universities across the country and launched a PhD programme. FY25 was also the first year of 360 Develop – our Centre for Lifelong Learning. This involved introducing a new concept for learning journeys, where our talent’s learning goals are regarded as just as important as commercial goals. As part of our leadership development, we strengthened our feedback culture and performance management. 

This year, we were selected to serve important clients – from auditing the Salling Group to digital transformation at Carlsberg, advising on the public tender offer for the Nykredit-Spar Nord acquisition, and being chosen by Andel to advise on their transformative sustainability investments. We helped a range of new, large, and mid-sized clients in Audit & Assurance, as well as new clients in financial services. Additionally, we delivered several digital transformation and large-scale sustainability projects to clients across various market segments.  

Nurturing and building relationships, strong industry knowledge, and matching the right capabilities with our clients’ needs are our recipe for success. Our business proves to be resilient as we respond well to market changes, and client feedback shows that we are agile, able to solve complex problems, and a trusted advisor.  

A good example of this is the EU’s recent Omnibus package, which has altered the requirements of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) by changing the reporting scope and timeline for many companies. Although core parts of the Omnibus package are still being negotiated in the EU, it has, for the moment, led to decreased demand for services within compliance and reporting. Yet many companies still want to help accelerate the green transition and are increasingly seeking expertise across a broader range of sustainability services. This has continued to open up new opportunities within strategic and governance advisory.  

We continue to invest in technology across all our business areas, and as a global firm, Deloitte is investing significantly in generative AI. Our GenAI strategy focuses on three main areas: helping our clients transform their businesses by adopting GenAI responsibly; bringing new services to market using GenAI; and reimagining and scaling service delivery by integrating new platforms and solutions for employees. 

Not surprisingly, several significant client project wins this year relate to digitalisation in both the public and private sectors. Internally, our people use Deloitte’s own virtual GenAI helper, which is used by thousands of Deloitte employees across Europe.  

Within Deloitte, this year we completed the restructuring of our business from five to four business units to reduce complexity and better serve clients across our global network. This reflects our continued commitment to integrating and reinforcing a strong global brand while serving clients where they are.   

We also continued the Nordic integration of our firms to stand stronger in a global context. We worked closely with our European colleagues and increasingly integrated top talent from our delivery centres in India into our Danish business. Speaking of international talent, I am so proud that we maintain diversity at our core and provide an international workplace with more than 59 nationalities working in the Danish firm alone.   

Challenging market conditions, as we have seen this year, have also led us to explore other ways of making our firm more efficient and easier to do business with. Apart from fostering a more cost-conscious culture to be fit for the future, we have completed significant upgrades to SAP, Salesforce, and SuccessFactors to ensure that our systems better support our ways of working. 

Part of Deloitte’s purpose is to make an impact on the society around us. This year, we continued to contribute to public debate through our Small Great Nation initiative, together with the think tank Kraka, co-developing data-driven reports on Denmark’s future. With a report on ‘slowbalisation’ timed to coincide with the U.S. election and presented at our flagship event, Reshape the Now, in November, we provided scenarios for tariffs and insights on how businesses can respond to megatrend movements.  

We also launched a report on 'Denmark in 2050', placing the spotlight on productivity, competitive strongholds for Denmark and Europe, as well as what the future talent pool will look like in a time when fertility rates continue to drop, AI is on the rise, and more foreign labour is needed to sustain our businesses and welfare model. Furthermore, we actively participated in discussions on these themes at the political festival, ‘Folkemødet’. 

Once again, we partnered with EQUALIS to develop the diversity barometer for Denmark, continuing to spotlight the gender challenge in Denmark and seek solutions together with other companies and organisations. Additionally, we maintained our partnership with GAME, focusing on tech strategy and mentoring for youth programmes. 

Last but not least, we are deeply engaged in developing our industry and building trust in companies through our collaboration with Danish industry organisations. 

Despite economic challenges, Deloitte Denmark reported 3% growth in revenue, achieving a topline of DKK 5,306 million. When taking divestments into account, our revenue grew by 4%. Three out of four business units have experienced increased levels of activity, and the revenue growth mostly relates to organic growth. We expect moderate growth to continue in the coming year as we focus on serving our clients with distinction, continuing to invest in innovation, and running a responsible business.  

As I look to the next financial year, we have already had a strong start, having been selected to serve our clients on large new engagements and demonstrating strong performance. I look forward to continuing our ambition to be #1 for clients, leading our industry in the market, and developing our services and business to help our clients be fit for the future.  

I also look forward to enabling inspiring and lifelong learning opportunities for all our talents, bringing Our Promise to life with them, and, last but not least, continuing to build strong relationships with clients, talents, and other stakeholders.