With 3 international companies becoming market leader in the B to B business, as a top executive managing director
Major achievement: Cost cutting and bringing products to the market. Result: highly efficiant companies with good profits and growth.
Interim management, and international consulting professional.
written by Colin Thompson
What’s going on in the world and how does this influence our business and life? Colin Thompson gives you hard facts about inflation, interest rates, consumer prices, etc. that influence the economic climate of each region and invites you to discuss future plans and your views via CEO Worldwide’s LinkedIn Group “International Management”.
Some facts about the global economic climate
Not a reference to the England cricket team’s difficulties on the subcontinent but a term economists use when inflation is resistant to change. Should we then be overly alarmed to see inflation stuck at 2.7% for three months straight in the UK? Perhaps not, but against this backdrop it is little surprise that retail sales were weak over Christmas and the high street is struggling.
Last month, I was asking if interim management has surpassed the crisis, since many articles in the German press were suggesting this development. Moreover, some stipulated that the crisis was even pushing interim management to new heights, as an unrivalled number of companies was fighting the crisis and needed a strong turnaround/ interim professional to survive or at least master the difficult situation.
The reactions I got were very wide spread – from “yes, the crisis is helping interim management to grow” to “no, the opposite is the case, companies show interest but don’t sign the final contract because of the associated cost.”
Listening to other managers, I still get the impression that times are tough, in particular with regards to securing ongoing interim management assignments. Nevertheless, looking to the press, the crisis in the interim management sectors seems to fade out with turnover figures and assignment requests slowly but steadily climbing up the ladder again. Working for CEO Worldwide and thus offering interim management, I decided to look a little closer at the situation and picked one of the 169 countries we cover worldwide: Germany.
Just a few general figures ahead: Today approximately 5000 interim managers are registered in Germany, with a turnover of 750-800 Million. In terms of development, this means turnover got tenfold within 8 years (80 Million in 2003). Experts believe that the number of interim managers will double within the next 5 years to 10.000. But, compared to other markets this is still rather small. For example Netherlands has only a fifth of the German population and counts 20.000 interim manager already today.
During an interview, the CEO of the German Interim Management Association (DDIM), Jens Christophers, claimed that in the first two months of this year many interim manager received over 50% of the assignment request they had in the entire last year, but, he adds, it is still very hard to get the final contracts signed…
What I found even more interesting is the shift of the assignment types that has been brought by the crisis. In 2008, the most important fields of Interim Management were restructuring/change management and process optimization. According to Mr. Christophers, today, the focus is growth. Another assignment type that is very much in demand, in particular with SMEs, is financial controlling and reporting. This is due to the restrictive behavior of the banks since the crisis – not only they are reluctant to give an urgently needed credit to many SMEs, but they also request extensive reporting and detailed information, often of the sort that a typical German SME will not be able to handle with its existing staff. Historically, many SMEs in Germany employ Finance Directors that have “grown with the company”, starting as accountant some 20 years ago. This makes them ideally suited for the everyday demands of the business they work in, but at the same time they don’t have the necessary skills and knowledge to cope with the new demands of the bankers. Thus it is not surprising, that some interim management providers in Germany claim that the demand for interim CFOs doubled or even tripled since the beginning of the year. The irony of this is that many of these ailing companies only got into a difficult situation because of the worldwide financial crisis, which was caused by the financial institutions in the first place …
| N° offre | Position | Country | Sector | Duration |
| 1322 | Finance Director, Manufacturing Operations, Dresden | Germany, Dresden | IT/ Computer Hardware | Permanent position |
| Assignment | As the FD you will control, plan and monitor the use of financial and physical resources, providing an advisory, secretarial, planning and reporting service to the whole Manufacturing Operation activity. Current or recent experience of a manufacturing environment is a must. |
