Around 8 full-time equivalents (financial year 2025).

Which sectors does WhyFive work for?

Retail & e-commerce, Food & beverage.

Who are the clients of WhyFive?

Among others Delhaize, Telenet, BASE, NMBS, ING, Brouwerij Haacht.

Review: WhyFive

Q: What is WhyFive specialised in?

Marketing strategy, Dashboards & reporting, Data science & analytics (incl. predictive modelling).

WhyFive is een strategiebureau uit Berchem, actief sinds 2007. Er werken ongeveer 8 mensen, uitgedrukt in voltijdse equivalenten. Het bureau is toegespitst op data & analytics en strategie. Sectoren waar het bureau vaak werkt: breed b2c/merken en fmcg. Uit de publiek bekende klantenlijst: Delhaize, Telenet, BASE en NMBS.

1

How this agency makes money

Revenue, margin and what an hour of work brings in. Everything on the earning side sits together here.

Revenue trendgross margin per financial year

20212022202320242025

Latest year: € 666.793 gross margin, growth +25,4% against a sector median of -14%.

At or above sector pace

MarginEBITDA / gross margin · value-added coverage

20212022202320242025

WhyFiveSector median

EBITDA margin 12,8%, sector median 36,9%. Value-added coverage 1,15 (median 1,53).

Below sector level

Revenue per headGross margin per FTE, against payroll cost

€ 83.349

Against a payroll cost of € 72.519 per FTE. The ratio between the two is the coverage rate above.

No data

Yield levelYield per hour worked, against payroll cost

€ 49

13.538 hours worked, 1.692 per FTE. Against that sits € 43 of payroll cost per hour worked, leaving € 6 for premises, equipment, depreciation and profit.

No data

No hourly rate follows from this. Gross margin is already net of services and sundry goods, which mixes rebilled production with the agency's own overhead, and the accounts do not say how many hours were billable. Deriving a rate from this systematically understates it.

2

Can the agency take a hit

Buffer, cash position and payment behaviour side by side, so you can see where they disagree.

Bufferequity in months of payroll

Buffer: 5,0 months (median 9,2 mo). Equity in the latest year: € 242.002.

Adequate buffer

Cash positionAvailable cash, and whether it covers short-term debt

Cash € 496.475. Liquidity ratio 1,55: current assets cover short-term debt in full. Solvency 17,8%.

Amply covered

Payment behaviourTowards suppliers and towards the NBB

Trade payables correspond to 406 days of supplier credit, sector median 102. The accounts were filed 176 days after closing; the legal deadline is seven months.

Pays slower than average

3

Signals and strengths

Events from the CBE and the Official Gazette over the past 24 months, plus positive markers derived from the figures.

Continuity

No serious signals

Signals in the last 24 months

No signals in the last 24 months.

What this agency does well

Gross margin grew 3 years in a row
Team grew (+9,6% FTE in the latest year)
No warning signals in the last 24 months
Margin per hour worked rose 3 years in a row
Healthy working capital (current ratio 1,55)
Comfortable cash position: 312 days of payroll
Invests in training (54 hours per FTE)

Each point is a fact from the filed annual accounts, measured against the same thresholds and sector medians as the signals above.

4

All the figures

Reference material, not a starting point. Expand it if you want to read the series yourself.

5 financial years, 2021 to 2025Result, staff and balance sheet

	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
Result
Gross margin	€ 368.325	€ 320.239-13,1%	€ 450.954+40,8%	€ 531.865+17,9%	€ 666.793+25,4%
EBITDA	€ 4.186	€ 7.065	€ 39	€ 36.280	€ 85.488
EBITDA margin	1,1%	2,2%	0%	6,8%	12,8%
Staff
FTE	6,2	6,1-1,6%	7,3+19,7%	7,30%	8,0+9,6%
Gross margin per FTE	€ 59.407	€ 52.498	€ 61.774	€ 72.858	€ 83.349
Payroll cost per FTE	€ 58.452	€ 51.201	€ 61.663	€ 67.783	€ 72.519
Balance sheet
Equity	€ 193.498	€ 189.049	€ 176.683	€ 192.838	€ 242.002
Cash	€ 173.695	€ 255.088	€ 174.902	€ 257.684	€ 496.475
Liquidity ratio	2,01	2,08	1,83	1,65	1,55

Payroll cost per FTE comes from the social report where available, otherwise from the Remuneration line. Both are gross costs including employer contributions.

What this factsheet does not know

How good the work is. Figures do not measure creativity, strategy or chemistry.
How the client portfolio is spread. Concentration is not in the accounts.
Freelancers and subcontractors are not in the FTE figures. An agency with 40 staff may in practice run with 70 people.
The figures cover financial year 2025, filed on 25/06/2026. At a fast-moving agency reality today may differ.

Based on publicly filed annual accounts (NBB) and official records (CBE, Belgian Official Gazette). An indication, not financial advice. Sector medians calculated on 2 Nov 2026. Sector medians based on financial year 2025: the last year for which nearly all accounts have been filed.

What the agency actually does 3 services

Strategy & Insights

Marketing strategy

Data, Measurement & Governance

Dashboards & reporting Data science & analytics (incl. predictive modelling)

Sector focus

Retail & e-commerceTelecomAutomotive & mobilityFinance & insuranceFood & beverage

Publicly known clients

DelhaizeTelenetBASENMBSINGBrouwerij Haacht

Based on IKAg research and public sources. Incomplete or outdated? Let us know.

1

People 7 people mapped

Strategy weighs heavily here: 2 of 7 are strategists. Within that core, Onderzoek and Marketingstrategie stand out. The titles skew top-heavy: lots of seniority, few juniors — you're mostly buying experience. A specialist, not a generalist: the expertise is narrow but deep.

AS

Ahmed Sulaye

Director MENA

BV

Bart Vandecruys

Managing Partner

TM

Tom Meere

Managing Partner

HG

Helena Gheeraert

Strategy Lead

JD

Jeroen Dedrijvere

Senior Researcher

RA

Raed al Omari

RO

Raed Omar

Based on public profiles. Something wrong? Let us know.

2

Seniors or juniors?

Payroll cost per FTE is the best public proxy for a team's experience level. Higher is not automatically better, but it says something about who sits at the table.

Payroll cost per FTE

€ 72.519

Team composition

8,0 FTE

49% women
51% men

Training per FTE

54,0 h

Many agencies fill this field in incompletely.

€ 72.519

All agencies (2025) € 62.294

Read with care. Directors and partners invoicing through a management company are not in the payroll cost. At small agencies this skews the picture downwards considerably.

3

Will your team stay?

Inflow and outflow from the social report. This series only counts people on the payroll: freelancers who invoice do not appear in it. A low figure therefore means two very different things, a stable permanent team or a small core with heavy outsourcing. A high figure usually points to short contracts. Compare only within the same type of agency.

Exits 2025

37,5%

Inflow 2025

37,5%

3,0 FTE in, 3,0 FTE out

Net team change

0,0 FTE

20212022202320242025

Source: annual accounts and social reports (NBB), collected by IKAg. Financial year 2025. Calculations by IKAg; an indication, not financial advice. Sector medians based on financial year 2025: the last year for which nearly all accounts have been filed.