Relevance of Interim Management

A relatively new field, interim management is fast gaining relevance in today's dynamic business scenario. Interim managers are hands-on executives, managers, consultants and advisors with substantial experience and expertise to help organisations in times of need. The relevance of interim management can be further understood in the following points:

Wider area of expertise:

Interim managers span areas as diverse as recruitment, finance, technology and research. These managers can be employed for diverse functions too: organisational start-ups, turnarounds, restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, project management, joint ventures, crisis management, filling in temporary vacancies and training.

Agents of change:

Interim managers are often recruited to manage change. While the best companies usually have their own group of top quality executives to implement a programme of change, it is often seen important that the permanent management team be augmented with specialists with an unbiased point of view.

Cost-effective and smart solutions:

Interim management offers cost-effective solutions to organisations by substantially reducing start-up and ongoing costs for a project. Also the right staff are often lacking in organisation, a factor that again increases operational costs.

Interim managers assist by providing recruitment and training solutions in such a scenario. As interim managers are outsiders an organisation does not have to bother about overhead costs like company cars, golden handshakes , share schemes etc. with the manager.

Unbiased solutions:

The most important factor of interim managers is that they are basically outsiders with no biased viewpoints and no position in the hierarchy. These people are unaffected by the history and the future of the organisation and are thus more effective in giving a new point of view to the problem. Also these people are specialists in the field they are hired in.

Flexible Work Schedules:

Organisations also have the option of how they choose to work with interim managers. They can choose to recruit them for a certain period of time or they can choose to work with them as consultants. Most interim managers form their own consortia and agencies, making it easier for organisations to recruit them.