Are you ever in a position where you need to plug an important leadership gap very quickly — maybe even next week? Are you covering multiple leadership positions due to sudden departures of key personnel, with resulting slowed progress or negative impact on the business? Do you need help to fill voids with interim leadership that can be created by any of the following scenarios:
- Sudden departure of a key leader.
- Necessary augmentation of talent during rapid growth or intensive transition period.
- Augmentation of staffing during integrations or facility moves.
- Transformational leadership is required.
Dramatic and fast-paced improvements require experienced leaders adept at driving improvements and the change-management aspects of an urgent business turnaround.
The following are examples of sudden departures in stressful times when a sudden departure or quick turnaround are required:
COO – Chief Operating Officer
- Large integration of multiple facilities required, and replaced COO was only capable of handling one single facility — Fresh Food Industry.
- Multiple site manufacturer was experiencing annual costs increases and customers were demanding price reductions, so COO replaced — Automotive OEM Supplier, Carpets.
- Inability to meet customer commitments, shrinking margins due to chaotic manufacturing, so COO replaced — Emergency Vehicle Manufacturer.
- Chaotic processes, late new product deliveries, missed customer deadlines, increasing quality issues and increasing costs led to replacement of COO — Mobile Medical Equipment Devices.
- High-end, Multi-plant, specialty parts manufacturer needed to reverse steep decline in profitability and negative cash velocity, leading to replacement of COO — International Automotive Components Manufacturer.
- Leading multi-plant provider to the construction industry in America and Canada was experiencing significant labor inefficiencies, integration, cycle time and inventory control issues resulting in missed customer delivery promises and a replacement of the COO — Fireplace and Woodstove Manufacturer.
- Manufacturer had an abrupt departure of their COO during a critical phase of a new product launch. Raw materials needed sourcing and plants were not prepared. Interim COO was immediately installed and product was launched successfully — Chemical Manufacturer.
- PE firm purchased a well-established company and existing owner did not want to remain on a daily basis, interim COO/CEO was inserted, unprofitable product line was out-sourced at a profit and capacity was increased by 25% — Cutting-tool Manufacturer.
Purchasing and Supply Chain Management
- Large acquisition uncovered the fact that NO processes or organization existed to support aftermarket product support; an interim leadership manager stepped in and built a new organization and stabilized processes — Oil Field Products.
- Very limited processes with no commonality across multiple sites, led to formation of new interim acting supply chain manager to put processes in place — Mobile Medical Equipment Devices.
- Growing distributor had no processes in place to limit inventory growth and old inventory and warehouse costs were dragging down company performance, so position added to put in processes and guidelines — Beer and Wine Bottle Distributor.
- Late deliveries, sporadic processes, poor cross-functional integration led to placement of an interim leadership Business Process Owner to drive process improvement within Supply Chain and across the business — Chemical Industry.
Plant Manager
- Continual missed contractual obligations resulting in extremely high penalties caused plant manager to be dismissed, with Flow stepping in to run the facility — Oil Field Products.
- Continued costs increases with very little ability to meet customer commitments caused Flow plant manager to replace existing plant manager — Utility Products Supplier.
- New facility coming on line without successfully finding plant manager, so Flow interim plant manager spooled the facility from inception to full capacity — Fresh Food Industry.
Information Technology
- Rapidly growing customer experiencing multiple years of plus 5x growth needed interim IT leader to develop long term IT strategy and find the right candidate to permanently lead the growth anticipated to be over 50x in 5 years — High-end Consumer Product.
- Growing company providing services to the utility industry needed an interim CIO to develop an effective IT strategy and hire the appropriate leader for long term growth — Energy Efficiency (“EE”) Program Management Company.
- Growing consulting firm needed to bring in an interim CIO to develop an IT 5-year strategic plan and assisting in placing the appropriate future CIO — Consulting Services Within the Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industries.
Engineering
- Continued missed new product deliveries, cost overruns and significant quality issues led to replacement of the Director of Engineering. Interim Director of Engineering placed by Flow Consulting — Mobile Medical Equipment Devices.
- Significant production process and quality issues led to placement of a Senior Manufacturing Engineer by Flow — Mobile Medical Equipment Devices.
Human Resources Leadership
- Interim Head of Human Resources for a fresh food delivery business with the key issues of shoring up the leadership team and developing an improved health insurance program.
- Interim Head of Human Resources for a medical services company with the key focus on assessing and improving benefits plans while recruiting a permanent Human Resource manager.
Do You Need Help With Interim Management?
Contact Flow Consulting and learn how we can help you with Interim Management improvements.