The Importance of Executive Interim Management

Executive Interim Management involves hiring the use of external professionals to manage transition, crises or change in an organisation. Like consultants they are contracted by their clients often for key change projects.

The concept of executive interim management has gained a great deal of popularity in European countries like Holland and the UK. Here we outline some of the advantages of using executive interim management and consultancy solutions.

Speed

Interim executives can be an excellent solution where time is a key constraint for the business. Usually they can join an organisation within days as opposed to weeks.

Expertise

Often having worked for the "Big Four" consultancy firms our supply chain consultants and interim executives have in-depth experience of applying supply chain improvement methodologies, tools and techniques within blue chip business environments. Furthermore Executive Interims - Supply Chain Practice's specialisation in the disciplines of purchasing, logistics and operations enables us to more exactly match the specialist expertise of our consultants and interim executives to the particular requirements of our clients; whereas because most interim management service providers offer interim executives across a wider range of disciplines (e.g. General Management, Sales, Finance, IT, HR, etc) they tend to have fewer people specialising in supply chain disciplines.

Objectivity of Executive Interim Management

The fact that interim executives are not permanent employees of the client's business enables executive interim managers to objectively identify and deliver the most appropriate supply chain solutions for the needs of organisation whilst remaining neatly outside the influence of longer-term company politics.

Accountability

It's still often the case within the "Big Four" consultancies that policies exist which restrict their consultants from taking complete responsibility and ownership for the execution of client projects. Our supply chain consultants and interim executives (often having formerly worked for the "Big Four") are usually delighted to take complete responsibility and ownership for projects and the delivery of results, because their project successes enhance their reputations further.

Effectiveness

It's not just about knowing what needs to be done. Delivering successful supply chain improvement programmes is also about making it happen and making the change stick. This demands the ability to build good quality business relationships with key stakeholders in the project quickly. This ability, to work in a completely new organisational environment amongst an entirely new set of colleagues and influence them make changes happen is a crucial skill that successful supply chain consultants and interim executives must have.

The Cost-Effectiveness of Executive Interim Management

There's a natural tendency for clients to try to compare the daily rate of a consultant or interim executive with the gross salary of a permanent employee, but as tempting as this is, it can be very misleading. Consultants and interim executives typically budget for utilisation levels of 67% and therefore to maintain their standard of living, have to factor up their charge out rates by 50% for this purpose alone; added to which they pay for their own PAYE, NI, pensions, IT, professional indemnity insurance, office consumables, telephone bills and motoring expenses etc. Nevertheless, although there's a premium to pay, the scale of the benefits associated with using a specialist AND the fact that when the project is over there is no more to pay for example in termination costs, often makes a great deal of sense when compared to ongoing cost of paying an individual on a permanent contract if their contribution isn't required on an ongoing basis.

To sum up our executive interim management and consultancy services bring firms closer to their business goals by providing hands on professional support and expertise to make an enormous impact on value creation.

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Resources

• Article: Interim Executive: Temporary Executive

This article discusses the use of interim executives in present scenario.

• Article: Interim Management and Leadership.

This article provides insightful information on interim management.