Will Interim Managers FIND that Silver Lining in the Clouds of a downturn?

At Impact Executives we firmly believe that Interim Managers, if astute, will find that silver lining….

For those that receive the hard copy of our Business Review you will see that the thrust was all about how to make a profit from the downturn. Read the online version.

For Interim Managers you should be seeing the glass overflowing! As well as thiving in the good times we see opportunity increase in the bad times...but it is all about re-positioning yourself to take advantage. I am constantly asked what the market is like by every Interim Manager I speak to...my reply is that we are seeing more opportunity than this time last year, there is no downward pressure on day rates, assignments for us are not getting shorter, there is no one sector that is overriding others in opportunity. In terms of function, as one would expect there is slight increased demand for Finance, HR and perhaps IT Programme Managers/Directors involved in streamlining and outsourcing. These roles could see an increase in day rates as demand increases, otherwise it is business as usual.

There is however more 'window shopping' or 'show casing' where clients are exploring the prospect of utilising an Interim Manager but then feel obliged in this climate to appoint internally..what we call 'the Internal Solution'...what Interim Managers are referring to as 'wild goose chases.' This must be expected so you need to be juggling more potential opportunities. As far as Interim Managers themselves are concerned, the good will prosper and thrive but inevitably there are a few bad eggs within the IM community who perhaps in desperation start behaving unethically in their relationship with the provider community and also clients...a word of caution, it is a very small world and all the top providers talk to one another.

Looking beyond this opportunity of downturn, what are the prospects like going forward...well a new report from KPMG this week, accessing previously unpublished data from the United Nations Population Division, shows that the UK and other developed countries such as the USA, those in Western Europe and Australia face a slow-down in the supply of both skilled and unskilled labour in the next few years if there is not a significant increase in the immigration intake.

KPMG believe the labour crunch will arrive as Baby Boomers (born 1946-1961) exit the workforce, and are not replaced in sufficient numbers by Generation Ys (born 1976-1991) and Millenniums (born 1991-2006), leading to a 'demographic faultline' which will impact negatively on the supply of labour and talent. As a result, there will need to be a much greater flow of labour (in the form of migrants and interim/temporary workers) between countries, and companies will need to adjust their resourcing and mobility strategies accordingly.

Given these factors, companies need to increase the flexibility and required mobility of their workforce, and to ensure that executives have the skills and international experience. All good news. The CBI is predicting big increases in the use of interim managers and flexible workers. In a survey in 2007, in 500 firms who between them employ 1.1 million staff at any time, 3% of employees were of an interim/temporary nature. This peaked to 7% in utilities and 5% in manufacturing.

So I hear you say great, so what can I do to maximise my own opportunity in this increased IM market of opportunity?

The last Ipsos IMA Mori audit, based upon 28 members though slightly distorted by large one function, high volume-lower level providers indicates:

• Increase for Programme and Project Management
• Increase in opportunity in Manufacturing and Business Services
• Reason for assignment cited most often..'Business Improvement'
• Length of assignment for Impact Executives is approx 8 months though we have had several complete recently who had been in place for 5/6 years! For IMA members the average is 134 billable days
• Average day rate is up, the highest since the survey began….all good news

Whilst we are seeing assignments driven by growth and expansion, the opportunity will be in business process re-engineering (BPR), corporate restructuring, integration, consolidation, re-alignment, and streamlining.

One of our competitors and also the IMA Interim Manager 'induction day organisation' advise you should put a block of words at the bottom of your CV to be picked up in providers' database searches. Whilst we do not advise doing this, it is very important for you to seed your CV with the words that clients are likely to be seeking if you have the experience, thereby increasing the number of opportunities you are approached about - simple - but very few Interim Managers stand back and tweak their CV every few months in line with market needs.

Thanks for some inspiration from KPMG for this blog - The Global Skills Convergence - The Labour Crunch. The report finds that in contrast much of the developing world, including some Arab and Latino nations as well as India, continues to offer rising pools of talent. In China, however, the faultline will apply from the middle of the next decade, as the application of their one-child policy in the mid-1970s will impact labour markets precisely 40 years later. The report poses the question whether this could be the issue that knocks China off its current growth trajectory?

The report argues that in the 21st century labour and talent will increasingly be able to flow seamlessly across the globe. This concept of the free-flow of elements was first put forward by Thomas Friedman in his 2005 book The World is Flat. KPMG's report extends the concept from capital, technology and information to include labour and talent too.

Bernard Salt, a Partner with KPMG in Australia and primary author of the report, said, "Without a surge in the annual intake of working-age migrants there will be a slow-down, if not a contraction, in the pool from which the labour force is drawn at the end of this decade in the US and by the middle of the next decade in the UK and many other developed markets. This will have a number of implications for corporates. One of these will be that, over time, large multi-national corporations will increasingly expand their head offices out of the traditional western headquarters and into the new territories of the developing world. We are going to see a change in the landscape over the course of the next few decades."