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From Studies to Entrepreneurship: Which Academic Profiles Are Suitable for Business Succession

Engineer, IT graduate, business economist, or humanities scholar – which industries and types of companies match which academic backgrounds? A concrete overview for academics considering a business takeover.

10 min reading time

One of the most common questions potential business buyers ask is: “Do I have to come from the industry in which the company operates?” The short answer: No, not necessarily. The honest answer: It helps significantly—but not always in the way you might initially assume.

What matters less is whether someone has ten years of experience in that exact industry. More important is whether a seller trusts the potential successor to lead the company, develop it further, and bring the employees along. Trust arises from transparency: Why does this person want our company? What do they bring that we need?

Academic backgrounds provide points of connection—if used correctly. This article shows which profiles fit which types of companies, where the strengths lie, and where one should realistically assess what is missing.

What Sellers Really Look For

Before diving into individual profiles, it’s worth looking at the seller’s perspective. According to the DIHK Report 2025, nearly 10,000 companies willing to transfer ownership contacted the Chambers of Industry and Commerce (IHKs)—but only about 4,000 interested parties were found on the other side. The market structurally favors buyers. Yet, transfers still fail.

Why? Often not because of the purchase price, but due to a lack of trust. Owners are not selling a financial product—they are selling their life’s work. They want to be sure the successor understands the employees, retains the customers, and does not dismantle the company in the short term.

Three things matter most:

Professional credibility – can the buyer convincingly demonstrate that they understand the core business, even if they haven’t performed it themselves?

Leadership experience – has he or she already led teams, taken responsibility, made decisions under uncertainty?

Basic commercial understanding – does the person understand financial statements, liquidity planning, contribution margins? This does not require a business degree but does require a willingness to engage with these topics.

No academic profile inherently brings all three points. But each brings at least one—and that is the starting point.

Engineers and Technical Academics

Strengths in the Acquisition Context

Engineers are one of the most interesting target groups for business acquisitions in the Mittelstand—and at the same time, one that often underestimates itself. The unemployment rate in technical professions has risen significantly since 2022; the automotive industry and its suppliers are structurally cutting jobs. Many experienced engineers are currently in a forced phase of reorientation.

What they bring: technical understanding of products and processes, experience with complex projects, often knowledge in quality assurance, procurement, product development, or production. In manufacturing companies, this is exactly the skill set an owner expects from a successor.

The match is particularly strong in:

Mechanical engineering and manufacturing companies – here, technical judgment about products and processes counts. An engineer who understands manufacturing can immediately engage employees and customers on equal footing.

Suppliers for automotive or industrial sectors – many of these companies are profitable but strongly owner-managed. A technically competent successor who can also open new sales channels is especially valuable here.

Technical service companies – testing service providers, measurement technology firms, engineering offices. These companies often have a stable customer base and good margins but rarely find buyers because the market hardly knows them.

Energy and environmental technology – a growing segment where many owner-managed companies benefit from the energy transition but have not organized family succession.

What Needs to Be Developed

The commercial toolkit—reading profit and loss statements, understanding liquidity planning, assessing company valuations—is new to many engineers. This is not a disqualification but a learning task. Tax advisors, M&A consultants, and KfW start-up advisory services can provide support here. Those who have worked in larger corporations often bring more commercial understanding than assumed—because they learned it there, even if not explicitly named.

IT Academics and Computer Scientists

A Particularly Urgent Match

The IT sector faces a specific succession problem: According to the DIHK Report 2025, for every interested successor in the IT segment, there are almost two companies awaiting takeover. At the same time, in November 2025, around 9,600 software developers were unemployed—a rise of over 30 percent within one year.

Here, two bottlenecks collide: too many IT companies without successors, too many IT professionals without jobs. The reason both sides have not yet systematically come together is mainly that business acquisitions are not an obvious thought for IT professionals—and the platforms where IT companies are listed are often not the ones where IT professionals look for career opportunities.

Suitable company types:

IT service providers and managed service providers – companies that supply corporate clients with IT infrastructure, networks, or cloud services. Often solid margins through recurring maintenance contracts, manageable employee numbers, strong customer loyalty.

Software houses with niche products – industry software for trades, logistics, healthcare, or administration. These companies often have a well-established product but few resources for growth. A technically savvy successor can drive modernization here.

IT consulting firms – especially if the owner has built the company as a one-person show and customers explicitly expect a contact person on equal footing.

A detailed overview of opportunities and specifics when buying IT companies is available in our separate guide: Buying IT Companies.

What Needs to Be Developed

IT professionals tend to prioritize technical excellence over commercial management. However, as an owner of an IT service company, it also counts: Can employees be led? Can customer conversations be conducted at the decision-maker level—with CFOs or CEOs who have little technical understanding? These soft skills are learnable but require conscious attention.

Business and Economics Graduates

The Most Versatile Background

Business administration graduates are, in a way, the all-rounders among successor candidates—which has both advantages and disadvantages. Advantage: basic commercial understanding is present, financing discussions take place on familiar ground, and industry independence is real. Disadvantage: without recognizable professional depth, it can be harder to gain the trust of an owner from a specialized industry.

The decisive differentiator for business graduates is therefore previous professional experience. Someone who has worked ten years in the logistics sector can credibly take over a logistics company. Someone from controlling in an industrial company can assess a manufacturing Mittelstand company well.

Suitable company types:

Cross-industry service companies – tax consulting firms, personnel service providers, marketing agencies, management consultancies. Here, the ability to lead people and maintain customer relationships is crucial.

Trading companies – B2B dealers, wholesalers, specialist retailers. These businesses are often underestimated: stable cash flows, established supplier relationships, manageable complexity. According to the DIHK Report 2025, the successor gap in trade is particularly pronounced, with a ratio of over 3:1.

Companies in the health and social sector – nursing services, physiotherapy practices, medical care centers. These companies are generally recession-proof but often poorly positioned in business management topics. Here, business expertise can create immediate added value.

What Needs to Be Developed

Without professional specialization, pure business competence can seem generic. Preparation for a specific acquisition target should therefore always include intensive engagement with the respective industry: understanding market structure, getting to know key customers, assessing supplier relationships.

Humanities and Social Sciences Graduates

The Underrated Profile

Humanities and social sciences graduates have one of the highest unemployment rates among academics at 6.5 percent—and at the same time, a profile that is often strongly underestimated in owner-managed SMEs.

What this group typically brings: pronounced communication skills, experience in complex conversational situations, conceptual thinking, often multilingualism, and a good sense of social dynamics in groups. In companies with 10 to 30 employees, where the owner’s personality shapes the corporate culture, these competencies are critical for successful succession.

Realistically suitable company types:

Communication and marketing agencies – here, professional credibility through academic background is easy to establish. At the same time, these companies often lack business structure.

Education and training companies – language schools, vocational training providers, training companies. The market is growing, and many of these businesses are run by first-generation founders who have no family succession.

Social service providers and NGO-related companies – counseling centers, integration companies, outpatient services. Professional understanding of the clientele is crucial here—and social scientists bring this directly.

Translation and interpreting offices – a natural option especially for multilinguals, often with a stable B2B customer base in law, medicine, or technology.

What Needs to Be Developed

Basic commercial understanding—reading financial statements, structuring financing, preparing profitability calculations—is the biggest blind spot for many humanities graduates. This gap can be closed, but it requires willingness to engage systematically. Continuing education offerings from IHKs and adult education centers, as well as advice from tax consultants, are the most pragmatic entry points.

Natural Scientists

High Potential in Niche Markets

With an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent in 2025, natural scientists are the most affected academic group. At the same time, there is an area that directly benefits from this qualification: specialized technical companies in niche markets that receive little public attention.

Suitable company types:

Laboratory service providers and analysis companies – companies that provide analytical services for industry, food economy, or pharmaceuticals. Stable B2B customer base, high repurchase rates, clear quality standards.

Chemical specialty products and formulations – small manufacturers of specialty chemicals, cleaning agents, or auxiliaries for industry. Often family-run, hardly known internationally, but profitable.

Medical technology and diagnostics – especially service companies that maintain, calibrate, or distribute medical devices. Medicine and pharmacy have one of the lowest unemployment rates and simultaneously high demand for natural science expertise.

Environmental and measurement technology firms – companies that conduct emission measurements, soil analyses, or water testing. A growing market due to regulatory pressure, with many owner-managed companies undergoing transformation.

What Needs to Be Developed

Similar to engineers, the gap lies mainly in the commercial area. Additionally, natural science education often emphasizes precision and compliance—entrepreneurial thinking under uncertainty, i.e., making decisions without complete data, is a different discipline that must be actively practiced.

Cross-Industry Success Factors

Regardless of academic background, there are commonalities that distinguish successful acquisitions from failed ones:

Early engagement with financing. Anyone planning an acquisition should talk to their house bank and a tax advisor before finding a specific company. According to KfW succession monitoring, the median targeted sale price for Mittelstand companies in 2025 is around €375,000—a purchase price for which 20 to 30 percent equity is usually sufficient.

Clear search profile. Platforms like Viaductus aggregate offers from over 70 sources. Those who have formulated a concrete profile—industry, size, region—find suitable targets much faster than someone who is “somehow looking for a company.” Post a purchase request on Viaductus.

Understand succession as a process. A business acquisition rarely takes less than six months from first contact to closing. The best acquisitions are those where buyer and seller had enough time to build trust—often with a supported onboarding phase of three to twelve months.

Conclusion: Profile Is a Starting Point, Not Fate

Every academic profile brings strengths that are in demand in different types of companies. The decisive step is not self-limitation to “my industry,” but honest assessment of where one’s profile is most convincing—and where gaps can be deliberately closed.

The Mittelstand does not have a quality problem with academic candidates. It has a visibility problem: too many suitable people do not know that this option is open to them.

Further Articles on Viaductus

Sources

About the author

Christopher Heckel profile picture

Christopher Heckel

Co-Founder & CTO

Christopher has led the digital transformation of financial solutions for SMEs as CTO of SME financier Creditshelf. viaductus was founded with the goal of helping people achieve their financial goals with technology for corporate acquisitions and sales.

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