Link, share, join, listen ...
Link, share, join, listen ...
It is a common sentence that I hear …. “our business is different from any other” but the more I place professional Interim Managers into assignments the more I realise that “most businesses in a given sector are the same”. Of course, some companies are better than others at sales, delivery, cash flow management etc but, in essence, if let’s say the sales channel is B2B, service based and the sales cycle is long how different can the sales process be?
There are, however, differences at a functional head level, one senior manager will be very different from another and differences in skillsets contribute to poor key stakeholder or subordinate management, bad customer service, lack of drive and ambition etc throughout the whole function.
Surely what every organisation wants is the best functional heads who are capable of driving profit whilst the organisation as a whole deals with the changes in the economy. My question is where do we find these “best in class” functional heads? Will they be an executive that has been in the same industry man and boy? Or do we start and embrace executives from outside our industry that can bring a specific skillset such as “lean”?
I am interested to hear your thoughts and I would especially like to hear from Interim Managers who work in and out of support services and have delivered a “best in class” assignment within a support services organisation.
Mark Kitchen is Head of the Construction & Support Services Practice of Interim Partners.
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:09 am
Like you Mark, I firmly believe in the benefits of cross fertilisation of skills across industries. I came to support services following lengthy periods in both retail financial services and utilities. I believe I was able to offer the businesses in support services a completely fresh approach to their sales & marketing efforts, particularly around all factos relating to the overall customer experience. This is of course not to say that they were doing things badly previously but being able to bring the experience of how other industries approach common issues and challenges proved to be invaluable to my client companies. Parcelforce for example, which was my most recent placement, were a strong profitable operation, but who needed assistance with developing their customer service and the overall culture of the organisation. Whilst they realised the requirement, they were also very aware that the skills just didn’t exist within their business, and only sparingly available within their wider industry. By applying the experiences and skills gained within the retail financial services and utilities markets I was able to make a huge difference to their customer service which had a direct and immediate effect on their bottom line via improved retention and new business effectiveness.
November 4th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Peter,
Thank you for your response, it is good to hear an example of how professional Interim Managers work effectively across sectors and bring best in class expertise.
Mark