Beware of Wolves in Sheep's clothing

My views on which segments of the interim sector are doing well are well known. It is highly likely that if you have anything to do with change management, turnaround and business recovery you are probably gainfully employed at present. However the generalist stereotypical interim segments of Finance, HR and IT are suffering at present as a result of a hug influx of executives looking for work as a result of the recession. I feared this might happen at the beginning of the credit crunch and it would now appear that this is what is happening at present.

Career interim managers are being gazumped to roles because the ‘between-jobs’ executive will work more cheaply and will accept lower contractual terms. Whilst clearly I do not hold it against anyone trying to make ends meet it has led to a shift in the interim market with several senior HR interim managers on our books who have worked continuously for years now being out of work for between 3-6 months at a time.

In particular, HR and IT professionals are feeling the strain at present and whilst the public sector is inundated with professional interim managers (in local government and the NHS in particular) these sectors will undoubtedly see cuts in the future once the next election is out of the way and the government of the day is forced to tackle the growing public sector cost.

Career interim managers will always give better value for money than executives ‘resting’ or ‘between jobs’. I have listed a number of reasons below why potential clients should select career interim managers ahead of their permanent counterparts:-

1. Career interims are objective biased and not time biased, they will complete the task in hand more efficiently rather than spin it out to suit their personnel circumstances
2. Professional interim managers will not up and leave when they find a permanent role
3. Career interim managers work to a ‘code of practice’ and have professional indemnity insurance in place to provide ‘peace of mind’
4. Career interim managers are likely to be more rounded individuals able to offer advice and experience on topics unrelated to their assignment

I would strongly encourage potential clients to closely check the credentials of the ‘interims’ the might be engaging on assignment to ensure they are real deal.

UK Manufacturers use Interim Managers to Beat the Monkey

UK manufacturers are turning to interim management providers like Aster Interim to help them free up cash and improve liquidity during the current recession. Many manufacturing companies are reducing their headcount to cut costs, but a number of others are using interim managers to make their business processes 'leaner' and maximise margins on existing sales.

Global Market Pressure

The UK manufacturing sector has long been under pressure from global market forces and the recent figures published by the UK Government would seem to bear this out.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted by 1.9% in the first quarter of 2009. Output from the production industries fell by 5.3% compared with a fall of 4.5% in the previous quarter.

These statistics were driven by manufacturing output which fell by 5.5%, leading many manufacturing companies to ask their staff to accept shorter working hours, pay cuts and even redundancy. This is clear evidence that UK manufacturers are really suffering in one of the worst recessions, if not the worst on record.

Beating the Cash Monkey

Companies are currently looking for ways to beat the ‘cash monkey’. This is a metaphorical term for the lack of liquidity many companies are suffering from at present, as a result of reduced sales, bad debts, increasing inventories and rising costs.

All companies know that cash is king and the finances of the indigenous manufacturing sector cannot be helped at present with the further difficulty of getting loans and extensions to credit facilities. As a result, SMEs and multi-national OEMS alike need to find other ways to free up cash in their businesses to improve liquidity.

Using Interim Managers

There are two ways to make money from manufacturing: making more with the same resource or making the same with less resource.

Many companies have chosen exclusively the second option and cut their cloth accordingly by reducing their headcount, but a number of other manufacturing companies are choosing interim management providers to help them through the worst of the recession.

The need to increase efficiencies and reduce costs has led to a fillip for interim management providers like Aster Interim. In particular, those interim managers with experience in change management, business turnaround and using continuous improvement techniques such as lean and six sigma are finding their services very much in demand at present.

This recession has catapulted interim managers with these skills to the forefront of the recruitment sector. Companies are on a drive to make their business processes ‘leaner’ and maximise margins on existing sales. Every effort is being made to ensure any amount of inefficiency is identified and eliminated.

Lean Business Techniques

By working ‘smarter and not harder’ many organisations are hoping to last out the recession and come back leaner and fitter when the economic tide turns. Lean business techniques are being employed companywide from design through to distribution. Perhaps those organisations with the foresight to improve their business models now rather than doing more of the same will be the organisations able to steal the march on their competitors when the good times return. Interim management can be self-financing if the chosen manager succeeds in achieving the set objectives.

Interim Management Assignments

UK manufacturers are looking for interim managers who can complete assignments such as: factory re-layout to minimise waste, process mapping to reduce non valued added activities, leaning out supply chains to bring about improvements to lead-times and cash outlays and working to make more business processes more repeatable and capable.

Perhaps interim management maybe one solution to removing the cash monkey from the UK manufacturing sector.

Visit the Aster Interim website: www.aster-interim.co.uk

Contact Details

Paul Wilson
1 The Lane
Mursley
Milton Keynes
Buckinghamshire
United Kingdom
MK17 0RY

Tel: +44 (0)1296 720281

enquiries@aster-interim.co.uk

Is Lean a dichotomy?

When I mention the word ‘lean’ in a business context some people tell me it stands for making people redundant and making do with the absolute minimum amount of people. In reality this cannot be further from the truth.

Think about it, if the objective of lean is to remove the non-value added activities from a process enabling ‘value to flow’ so that the customer receives a better quality service or product, then this definition just doesn’t make sense. Anything that would jeopardise this objective being achieved is not in the customer’s best interests and therefore by definition cannot be as a result of a lean programme.

Instead Lean is a philosophy concerned with making processes more robust and predictable by removing ‘stuff’ that gets in the way like waiting time, bottlenecks and situations likely to induce quality issues. Lean is about making processes work better by involving the workforce and not just reducing the workforce. It is true that sometimes the process improvements thrown up efficiency gains following lean introduction can result in fewer people being required to carry out a particular activity but it is also true that it is sometimes necessary to introduce people into the process to make it work more smoothly.

Also lean organisations which understand the philosophy try to re-assign people from non-value-adding activities to value adding activities because they understand that human talent is the greatest asset a company can have. Each person is a ‘process expert’ in their own right and the knowledge they have is invaluable.

In summary, Lean is not a dichotomy, it is just sometimes badly implemented, mis-understood and used as part of a political agenda.