forsa

What forsa does

forsa Gesellschaft für Sozialforschung und statistische Analysen mbH is a Berlin-headquartered, independent market, opinion, and social research institute founded in 1984 by Prof. Manfred Güllner. The firm operates a multi-method research platform combining CATI (computer-assisted telephone interviewing), CAPI (face-to-face), and CAWI (online) capabilities, anchored by two proprietary instruments: forsa.omninet, an offline-recruited online panel of 10,000 representatively selected German households that enables population-representative online surveys with visual stimulus presentation, and forsa.Omnitel, a daily telephone omnibus of 1,000 German-speaking respondents aged 14+ with 24-hour result delivery. Fieldwork is conducted from in-house telephone studios in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, and Dortmund with 300+ interviewer workstations, supported by an on-call interviewer workforce for face-to-face surveys.

The business model is project-based professional services: clients commission tailored empirical studies on a per-project basis, with pricing dependent on methodology, sample size, and complexity (no public pricing). Customer segments span four primary groups — private-sector corporates (consumer goods, retail, automotive, energy, financial services, media), government and public institutions (federal ministries, municipalities, public broadcasters), media organizations (political polling and election forecasting for RTL, ZDF, ProSiebenSat.1, Bertelsmann, Axel Springer, and others including international outlets such as BBC and CNN), and academic/scientific collaborators. The company employs approximately 80 staff, roughly half of whom are academic project managers (sociologists, psychologists, economists, statisticians), and operates a wholly-owned subsidiary, forsa marplan Markt- und Mediaforschungsgesellschaft mbH (Frankfurt am Main), which handles all private-sector market and media research following the 2011 integration of the historic Marplan-Institut. The firm reports no external funding, no app or API surface, GDPR-compliant data handling on German servers, and ISO 27001 certification held by its data-processor Kernwert GmbH.

Name

forsa

Legal name

Gesellschaft für Sozialforschung und statistische Analysen mbH

Website

https://forsa.de

Company type

Private

Founded year

1984

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

forsa is an independent, Berlin-based German market and opinion research institute founded in 1984, serving corporates, government ministries, broadcasters, and academia with proprietary CATI, CAPI, and CAWI methods including the forsa.omninet panel and forsa.Omnitel daily omnibus.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Market Research Services

NAICS

Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling (54191)

SIC

Services-Management Consulting Services (8742)

akta.pro primary industry

Survey, Panel & Fieldwork Services (BPAHALAJ)

Keywords

• Market research
• Opinion polling
• Social research
• Election research
• Data collection

Headquarters

HQ city

Berlin

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices5 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Market Research Services: forsa conducts commissioned market, opinion, and social research for corporate clients, government institutions, media organizations, and academic researchers. Revenue is generated through project-based fees for customized research studies including representative polls, omnibus surveys, target group surveys, customer satisfaction surveys, election research, media research, and advertising pre-tests.
2. Omnibus Survey Services: forsa.Omnitel offers daily multi-topic telephone omnibus surveys where multiple clients can schedule questions in a shared sample of 1,000 respondents. This creates a cost-effective per-question pricing model for clients requiring rapid, representative data collection.
3. Specialized Research Studies: forsa offers specialized services including consumer attitude studies, brand management, campaign and communication testing, product research, shopping behavior studies, customer satisfaction studies, employee satisfaction studies, and citizen satisfaction studies for government bodies.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels1 record

Core offering

forsa is a full-service market, opinion, and social research institute founded in 1984 and headquartered in Berlin, Germany. The company conducts commissioned quantitative and qualitative research studies—including election polling, political barometer surveys, market research, and custom social research—for government bodies, media organizations, corporations, and academic clients. It operates proprietary daily telephone (forsa.omnitel) and online (forsa.omninet) panel infrastructures to deliver recurring omnibus and bespoke research projects.

Product overview

forsa is a full-service market and opinion research institute offering a portfolio of integrated research products and services. The core offerings include forsa.omnitel (daily telephone omnibus survey with 1,000 respondents) and forsa.omninet (offline-recruited online panel with 10,000 households), supported by multiple data collection methodologies: CATI (computer-assisted telephone interviewing), CAPI (computer-assisted personal interviewing), and CAWI (internet-based surveys). The institute provides qualitative research services (focus groups, depth interviews, projective techniques) and specialized research offerings including brand management studies, campaign testing, product research, customer/employee/citizen satisfaction studies, and election research. In 2011, forsa integrated the Marplan-Institut (founded 1959) for face-to-face survey capabilities, now operating under forsa marplan Markt- und Mediaforschungsgesellschaft mbH in Frankfurt.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• forsa.omnitel Daily telephone omnibus survey service run on forsa's proprietary CATI infrastructure, providing clients with shared-cost, recurring multi-topic survey data on the German population. Used by media, corporations, and institutions needing frequent polling and consumer opinion snapshots.
• forsa.omninet Proprietary online access panel and CAWI (Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing) infrastructure used to field bespoke quantitative and qualitative online research projects for clients across sectors.
• Election and Political Polling Recurring and pre-election polling on voting intentions, party popularity, and political attitudes for German media outlets and public-sector clients, leveraging forsa's CATI panel and political-analyst expertise.
• Custom Market and Social Research Bespoke commissioned research engagements covering market, consumer, social, and policy studies, combining quantitative fieldwork (CATI, CAPI, CAWI) with qualitative methods and academic analysis for corporate, public-sector, and institutional clients.
• Qualitative Research In-house qualitative research services, including focus groups, in-depth interviews, and expert interviews, designed and moderated by forsa's team of academic researchers for clients seeking interpretive insights alongside quantitative data.

Quantifiable outcome

• Daily survey of 1,000 representatively selected individuals, with results available within 24 hours of commissioning
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers46 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

Feature4 records

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• YouGov: Digital-first opinion-polling and market-research firm with a large online panel and daily political polling in Germany (YouGov Germany). Competes with forsa.Omnitel on speed and media attention, and with forsa.omninet on panel-based brand/advertising research — but with online-only scale and lower-cost methodology.
• Infratest dimap: Berlin-based political and social research institute; long-time ARD election-forecasting partner (the slot for which forsa also competes). Competes head-to-head with forsa on political polling, public-broadcast research, and government social research commissions. Direct operational overlap on methodology (CATI, mixed-mode) and clients (federal ministries, broadcasters).
• Bilendi: European panel and fieldwork provider headquartered in Paris with strong German operations; offers online panel access, CATI/CAPI fieldwork, and data processing comparable to forsa's portfolio. Competes for the same panel/sample-provider RFPs and serves similar B2B research-buyers across media, CPG, and public-sector work.
• Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach: Germany's other famous independent opinion-research institute, founded in 1947. Closest direct peer to forsa: independent status, household-name political polling (Sonntagsfrage for Bild), CATI infrastructure, and corporate/public research. Both compete for the same German media election-forecasting slot and corporate social-research mandates.

Broad incumbents

• Kantar: World's largest market-research conglomerate; Kantar Public and Kantar Millward Brown cover political polling and brand/advertising research respectively. Headquartered in London with major German operations; competes for the same corporate brand-tracking, advertising pre-testing, and media-research budgets that forsa marplan addresses.
• Ipsos: Global #3 research conglomerate with political polling (Ipsos Mori), brand and consumer research, and a strong German footprint (Ipsos operations in Hamburg, Mölln). Directly comparable on survey methodology, election research, and B2B/B2C market research services that compete with forsa on the same German client RFPs, but at materially larger scale and global reach.
• Dynata: World's largest first-party data and online-panel provider (formed from Research Now and SSI). Direct competitor to forsa.omninet on access-panel supply, and competes on CATI/CAWI fieldwork services. Material scale advantages in panel size; comparable in methodology scope and B2B research-buyer focus.
• GfK (now NIQ / NielsenIQ): Originally Germany's flagship research institute (Nuremberg-founded), consumer panel and retail-measurement leader now consolidated into NielsenIQ. Historically comparable in offering (consumer panels, brand tracking, media research); remains a competitor for the same CPG, retail, and automotive clients that forsa marplan serves.

Regional players

• Norstat: Nordic-origin European panel and fieldwork provider with German operations; offers online panel access and CATI data collection comparable to forsa.omninet/CATI studio. Comparable in mid-sized independent profile; competes with forsa in cross-Nordic-German and European multi-country project bids but does not directly contest the German election-forecasting business.

Emerging players

• Civey: Berlin-based digital-first opinion-research firm with a proprietary online panel and rapid political/social polling for media and government. Competes directly with forsa on media polling visibility and citizen-satisfaction studies using a mobile/online methodology that challenges forsa's CATI-centric approach on cost and turnaround.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/forsa-institute

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about forsa