The traditional fields of application for interim managers* are bridging vacancies as well as crisis management and restructuring. In recent years, however, some new fields of activity for interim managers have been added. As a reliable interim management provider, Dr. Maier + Partner Interim Management GmbH covers all these areas of activity and finds the perfect interim manager for its clients.
The traditional areas of activity of an interim manager
In the classic case, a manager leaves the company at short notice and until a long-term solution is found, someone has to continue the day-to-day business. The interim manager therefore temporarily takes over the tasks of the permanent predecessor.
The interim manager as crisis manager is another classic situation. Especially in finance functions, interim managers are used here, usually operating somewhere between rescue and insolvency. In this traditional case, an interim mandate is given in a crisis situation of the client. They often operate in the finance sector to save companies from imminent insolvency.
In both cases mentioned above, interim managers take on important positions in companies that have to deal with difficult, sometimes chaotic, circumstances. Managers and employees find themselves in exceptional situations. Often a lot has to be changed quickly. Old, proven processes have to be replaced, structures have to be changed. Even a change in corporate culture is often necessary. In this situation, the interim manager will prepare the ground for the future, which his successor in a permanent position can develop further.
Tasks of the interim manager: restructuring and growth instead of crisis management
In recent years, other fields of activity have emerged for interim managers in addition to these two classic areas. Many of these mandates are aimed at avoiding the critical situations for companies described above. In the following we take up two examples that describe these comparatively new demands on interim managers in more detail.
Since our first example is an ongoing mandate of Dr. Maier + Partner Interim Management GmbH, we will not give a detailed description of the client. Our client is a company which, as part of its growth strategy, wants to set up internationally together with a private equity company. In order to cope with this growth step, the structures in finance in particular need to be professionalised considerably. The goal is to manage accounting and controlling with a maximum of two employees. On the one hand, a lot of experience is necessary to set up a professional finance department, but on the other hand, working in a finance department with two employees is probably not really interesting for an experienced and internationally successful CFO. For this reason, our client commissioned Dr. Maier + Partner Interim Management GmbH to temporarily fill the position with an experienced interim manager. During his employment of about four months, a detailed reporting is to be carried out and all necessary structures for the subsequent filling of the position by a junior finance manager who can organise the finance department together with an accountant are to be created.
The biggest advantage for our client is the time factor. Valuable expertise could be bought in the short term and for a specific period of time. However, the structures gained benefit the company in a very long-term and sustainable way.
New requirements for interim managers and interim providers
The second example covers the entire complex of digitalisation. Digitisation cannot be viewed in isolation by individual areas or departments, but encompasses all parts of the company. It requires an experienced central office. In the implementation of the digitalisation measures, it requires a conversion of all processes in production and organisation. It needs a fundamental cultural change. Interim Chief Digitalisation Officers (CDO) are often used to coordinate these processes. Interim CDOs have a broad range of experience and can quickly familiarise themselves with digitisation processes. An interim manager also makes sense in this case because although he comes into the organisation from the outside, he can still change it holistically from the inside. In this way, entrenched structures and processes can be broken up. In this way, an interim manager can involve cross-departmental teams in the work and better coordinate their activities. In the application area of digitalisation, responsibility can also be handed back to the individual departments after structuring essential processes.
Stability and continuity in a dynamic environment
The special feature of these two areas of application is that there have been no comparable positions with the clients up to now. However, the technical expertise in these areas is essential for the success of the company. For both project situations, Dr. Maier + Partner Interim Management has certified interim managers in its portfolio who can provide the necessary expertise for the demanding application areas at short notice.
Let's talk about how we can help your company with interim managers in the different applications.
*In this text, only the masculine form is used for better readability. The chosen masculine formulations also apply without restriction to all genders.
