July 2006 Archives

Impact Executives is actively involved in placing Interim Managers around the world, the most recent non UK placement was in Algeria and however hot it is here today in the UK (potentially record breaking day) our Interim manager will be a lot hotter in the Algerian desert! An article based on a study by the Hay Group indicates that Asia, Eastern and Southern Europe are 'hotting up for talent.' We believe there could be increasing opportunities for Interim Management, as these emerging regions outstrip Western Europe as new pay 'hot spots.' Good news for increasing day rates?

The study, carried out by consultancy Hay Group, compares salary, bonus, tax and cost of living information at senior management level across 29 countries. And surprisingly, it is Turkey that is coming top of the league, with senior managers earning an average net salary equivalent to £79,000.

Hot on their heels is outsourcing superpower India, with managers taking home the equivalent of £77,700. Russia, Brazil and Poland follow in third, fifth and sixth place respectively.

The most conspicuous absentee from this group is China, which ranks 26th with average salaries of £42,200. "As an emerging economy, Chinese salary levels remain pegged at a low level, even accounting for the effect of China's undervalued currency on international comparisons," says Ben Frost, author of the Hay Group study.

Western Europe also fares poorly - the UK is 23rd in a league of 29, France 20th, and Scandinavian countries are at the bottom of the table with Finland and Sweden ranking 28th and 29th respectively. The US rank 13th, behind Spain, Japan, Portugal and Ireland.

"This should make sobering reading for companies in Western Europe and the US, who face not only an increasing competitive threat from buoyant new economies, but a cross-border war for managerial talent," says Frost.

Switzerland, Germany and Japan are the only major western economies making it in the top 10, confirming once again Switzerland's status as a high-salary nation. Japan has also managed well in the face of recent economic stagnation. "For those senior managers who have retained their jobs, salaries are holding up well and buying power is further boosted by recent years of price deflation," observes Frost.

"Companies operate in an increasingly open and competitive global economy," he continues. "Our research shows that emerging economies are offering executives significantly higher disposable incomes than the Old World - which is likely to make these locations an attractive prospect for senior talent."

Source: The Hay Group

Review by Emilie Filou-World Business.com

Link to original article: http://www.worldbusinesslive.com/newsalerts/article/570031/HumanCapital/a+new+pay+world+order/

Indian outsourcers oust 'big six' vendors from the 'top ten'.

Inconceivable once upon a time that stalwarts in the outsourcing world like Accenture and IBM would drop out of the top 10 list of the world's outsourcing vendors together with CSC, EDS, and HP. Indian companies have outperformed and replaced many of the traditional big players amongst the world's top outsourcing vendors. This is according to the latest annual survey by US company ACS in conjunction with Sourcing Magazine. Will we see perhaps some potential acquisitions launched by the traditional 'big boys' as the Indian vendors continue the onslaught? Interim Managers with good outsourcing experience continue to be in demand by our clients-always good to hear from you if you have not been in touch with us recently?

Original article courtesy of Silicon.com

Top 50 outsourcing rankings reveal a changing of the guard...By Andy McCue Published: Friday 14 July 2006

Indian IT companies have outperformed and replaced traditional big players such as Accenture and IBM in a study of the world's top outsourcing vendors. US company ACS came top of the ranking of the 50 best managed global outsourcing vendors for the second annual Black Book of Outsourcing study but the rest of the top 10 is notable for the absence of any of the other 'big six' outsourcers - Accenture, CSC, EDS, HP and IBM. Instead they are replaced by India's Satyam, Infosys, Patni Systems, Tata Consulting Services and HCL who came second, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth respectively.

HP came in at number 13 on the rankings list followed by Accenture at 22, IBM - last year's number one - at 35, EDS at 36 and CSC next to the bottom at number 49. Notable names to drop completely out of the top 50 rankings from last year's study include Atos Origin and Siemens Business Services, while the 'freshman 15' new entries this year indicate further changing of the guard ahead with the likes of Russian offshore outsourcer Luxsoft coming in at number 45.

The survey, in conjunction with Sourcing Magazine, questioned 12,755 qualified outsourcing purchasers or users and 3,340 outsourcing industry employees, asking them 26 questions on leadership impact, influence, management performance, client satisfaction, employee satisfaction and organisational excellence. The companies were then rated on a 100-point scale based on the responses from buyers and employees. The total list ranks 872 outsourcing vendors in 63 countries worldwide.

Link to original silicon.com article- http://services.silicon.com/bpo/0,3800004865,39160315,00.htm

Whether you are an avid member of the Telco community or a user of a mobile phone, the world of telecoms has an impact on us all whether in the office or at home? It was very interesting to hear Tony Lavender reveal (in his capacity of heading up Ovum's global telecoms research programme) his view of the future. My money is on the service providers, who sit on top and have lots of opportunity for innovation. What do you think?

See report below of our sister company-Harvey Nash Executive Search.

'The future of communications event'

Report from the third in a series of talks by Tony Lavender, director of global telecoms research at Ovum, organised by the Executive Search Technology practice of Harvey Nash-Tony led the seminar over breakfast at the Lanesborough Hotel, attended by a select group of Senior Executives from the telecoms sector.

His talk covered a very wide range of issues facing the communications and media businesses in the immediate future.In particular he demonstrated the complexity of the developing market, encompassing devices, delivery channels, service providers, technology changes and the growing influence of content management.In particular the moves by traditional operators into content based services significantly changes their business models, but is almost essential to maintain reasonable margins.

He illustrated the threats of the new entrants e.g. Google, Yahoo, to the traditional operators, particularly in the content area.The battle for the 'connected home' between consumer electronics companies, telcos, satellite, cable and portals is an intriguing area.The role of devices and the influence of advertisers is still uncertain.

In the enterprise sector, large companies are increasingly looking for fully integrated fixed and mobile solutions, but SME's lack the knowledge to take advantage of new technology applications.However, major investments in Next Generation Networks by the major network providers are essential for maintaining margins, even if the shape of their future business is uncertain.However the size of this necessary investment risks recreating the historical monopoly situation - an issue yet to be addressed by regulators.

Finally the only certainty about the future structure of the industry is that it will be complex.Fewer core network providers needing major scale at the wholesale level, more MVNO's and niche providers at the retail level, and battles for the control of content.

Tony covered an extremely wide range of issues, illustrating key market development areas and the difficult decisions faced by the different players.The following discussion was wide ranging and generally confirmed the executives' concern about the decisions they face affecting the future of their various companies.

In the Impact Executives house journal 'In the Interim' we publish a survey on the Interim Management market every 6 months, in our last survey we reported that the proportion of female Interim Managers was increasing, in December 2005 it was standing at 13% compared against 9% in June 2003. 13% is typically a higher percentage than you would expect in an average Executive Search database. Whilst there are a number of reasons for this fact, one reason is that women do not experience the so called 'glass ceiling' in Interim Management.

Link to Impact Executives-house journal-Issue 15-survey:

http://www.impactexecutives.com/pdf/In-The-Interim15.pdf

Management Today published this week a list of '35 women Under 35' these are according to Management Today-the future leaders of UK plc? Every time Management Today publish this list they ask BoardEX, the corporate research company, to look at the number of company directors within that age bracket in the UK. Among a sample of 1,419 London Stock Exchange and AIM-listed companies, they found a total of 162 directors who were in their 'salad' days. Of these individuals, 142 were male (88%) and a mere 20 were female (12%). The proportions had not changed since last year. Management Today suggest that this could be the female 'marzipan layer' in practice. A full 30% of British managers are women but most of them have yet to rise higher than the stratum just below board, the male 'icing' on the cake. Interesting..your thoughts?

Harvey Nash/Impact Executives and the CBI recently launched a book 'From IT Strategy to IT Reality' and I had the privilege of speaking with Ian Pearson who is BT's futurologist who attended the launch party. But one of my favourite feeds all about predicting the future is from a Trend Watching site-Trend Watching.com, which each month looks at a particular space and this month looks at the deeply fascinating online world's of 'MMORPGS', 'being spaces', 'second life' and 'metaverses.'

The world of Interim Management and the lives of Interim Managers move very rapidly, there is no 100 days when you start an assignment so keeping up with the latest thinking and trends is absolutely vital and one only has to look at the phenomena of the social networking site 'MySpace.com' and the price that was paid for it by Murdoch and News Corp.to appreciate that there is a whole new world out there and technology beit Web 2.0 or whatever will continue to change all our lives, so enjoy and marvel at what is already unfolding in cyber world or are the two already converging. What do you think?

Link to Trend Watching.com:

http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/