Interim specialists – providing help for businesses affected by the recession
February 26, 2009
The big ‘R’ word – you can hardly go half a day at the moment without hearing something related to the economic downturn, whether it’s interest rates cuts, mass redundancies or businesses going under. Thousands of companies in the UK, both small and large, are really starting to struggle in the face of economic uncertainty and loss of business; and in turn this is leading to an increase in the need for interim specialists to carry out short term ‘turnaround’ projects to provide help for businesses affected by the recession.
Interim specialists can provide the value needed at a variety of levels in the company; from boardroom to backroom. This is not to say that existing staff are not capable of managing the company as the country is going through a recession, but that there may be certain specialist skills and experience required that may not be abundant within the organisation. Another factor is that existing staff have all the issues that still occur each day to deal with – and an interim has the benefit of not being part of the workforce and therefore the day to day activities. They can therefore take a step back and really focus on what is needed without any preconceptions, or indeed without any emotional connection to the company – which may hinder the difficult decision making process companies often have to go through in a recession.
According to a recent article I read, interim managers are in high demand at the moment but are in short supply due to the abundance of companies using their services to help them deal with the recession. It seems that interims can pick and choose their assignments, and will almost certainly choose the ones that will have the biggest impact on their portfolio, as well as those in which they feel they can truly make an impact (and not be hindered by company politics or individual agendas). Many companies advertise for interim turnaround managers in the national or specific press, and there are also a lot of recruitment consultants that specialise in interims. Often a good way to source the perfect interim is through networking – many senior managers know specialists or their counterparts in other organisations, or have met the right kind of people at events or conferences.
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