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I hope all those in our interim community enjoyed their holidays over the festive period. Commiserations to those that either had to work or burnt the turkey.
I am really keen to hear your thoughts on how this year is going to pan out – from a UK economy point of view as well as from your own personal views on the interim market.
I am certainly no Mystic Meg and thankfully no Russell Grant (I imagine myself to be a better dancer) but have a couple of predictions of my own. On the UK economy: it’s going to get a bit worse but not by much more (famous last words). My sense is that there is definitely a chance of a double dip earlier in the year but businesses and individuals are better placed to deal with it. All sense of denial has gone and many are already in the brace position. Yes there is going to be more carnage on the high street and economic news will continue to be bleak but I don’t think we are in for a big surprise. It’s not going to feel like the beginning of 2009 when there was a sense of free fall – no understanding of where the bottom was.
So more of the same again? Well not quite – I think UK businesses are a little more resilient than we think. Post Olympics we are going to be in a much better place. The feel good factor of the games and the potential economic benefit of the parties and barbecues will hopefully have a big boost to consumer and business confidence. By the end of the year I really hope the sense is that the economy has turned and we can look forward to small, steady growth? Sorry – not even a mention of the Eurozone! Are my ideas too optimistic or simplistic?
And the market for interims? It will remain very competitive – but there is still a good market for excellent candidates with a clear proposition. My belief is that generalists will continue to find life hard. Clients don’t seem to want or have the luxury for a jack of all trades who can turn their skills to a number of issues. They continue to search for specialists – those who have unique and insightful experience into their particular problem. They prefer them to have that experience, or full understanding, of their sector. They understand that they have a good chance of finding specialist skills and they lack the desire to compromise.
We as a business do far more in the private than public sector and our outlook for the year is quietly confident – we even plan to do better in the public sector. Are you – in the wider interim community – also sensing slightly sunnier times?
I would like to take this opportunity to wish our clients and interims a happy and prosperous new year.
Doug Baird is the Managing Director of Interim Partners.
Happy new year and I hope everyone has had an enjoyable holiday period. Now that noses are truly back to grindstones I am keen to canvas opinion, whether it be tongue in cheek or more serious, as to what will happen this year in the TMT sector.
My view is that within the media world there will be continued cost pressures and perhaps a heightened level of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity. The push to digital will continue at an increased pace.
Within the telco world I see that the Middle and Far East will have more activity, particularly around launching new services to existing and new markets. Infrastructure vendors will continue to feel the squeeze but the savvy mobile operators will see increased revenues from a diversified portfolio. Perhaps the trend I saw in Q4 for MVNA/E/O start ups will continue.
And within technology I see several household names disappearing, M&A continuing for the big players and hopefully an iPad3!
I welcome your thoughts and wish you all a healthy and prosperous year.
Steve Blake is Head of TMT for Interim Partners.
I read numerous articles last week (and even watched a couple of BBC news reports) about employers’ reticence to give employee references. This discussion was prompted by Baroness Dech, who said that job references are ‘not worth the paper they are written on’ because of controversial data protection laws that give employees the right to see their references:
This got me thinking about Linkedin and to what extent referees will only give a positive reference on a previous employee because of the litigation risk. As the recommendations on Linkedin are requested by the employee directly and then posted on a public forum, how does a referee give a full true and accurate account of their experience?
With our data protection laws and appetite for social media are we in danger of stifling the age old practice of taking employee references?
Mark Kitchen is Head of Business & Support Services at Interim Partners.
I ask the question because I’m curious, and delighted, by Cameron’s veto of the latest European Treaty that is being cobbled together to prevent another financial meltdown happening in future.
Why delighted? In the main because the amendment to the Treaty does nothing to solve the Euro crisis and was very clearly another attempt to undermine the City in favour of Paris & Frankfurt. We haven’t seen the full implications of this yet, but will we be marginalised? I doubt it! Also, I must confess that I was delighted because I never thought a MP of any colour had the backbone in this current day and age to say “No!” (or should I say, “Non?”).
Why curious? Well for the simple reason that Manufacturing is more important to the UK than the City, but never gets the same attention! Manufacturing actually employs around 2.5 million people and contributes 12% of our GDP, whereas Financial Services employs 1.1 million people and contributes 10% of our GDP.
So why say no to a Treaty that protects the City when European legislation – employment directives, carbon levies, environmental and waste management directives, the list is long –continues to hamper manufacturers?
Is there an argument to say that Cameron should have said “Yes” on condition that UK manufacturing was freed from Brussels red tape?
On a final note, wishing all a Happy Christmas and New Year!
Tom Legard is Head of Manufacturing at Interim Partners.
There has been lots of talk this month about the perilous state of the economy and its outlook for next year, a similar tale really from the rest of this year. I was interested by the comments of a couple of businessmen for differing reasons this last week. Firstly from a leading retailer who said that flat is the new growth and holding position over the next couple of years will compare to the high growth model of old that had the investment community buzzing. Then from one of the best known PE house owners who comments on the need for the industry to look for “long-termism” for future investments, and that the existing model is just no longer viable.
These are just opinions of course, but if they both hold true then how are investments going to be valued going forward, will there be an even greater stagnation in the deal market as perceived values from either side of the fence differ drastically as we all dispute what the bottom of the market really looks like.
I’m personally seeing quite an interesting marketplace at the moment where my clients are looking for long term operational sense in some of their portfolio businesses and short term cash grabs in others. We can help in both cases as well as assisting in their more traditional needs of executive gap management.
My question for today relates to the current position of the market that needs a good kick start. Are perceived investment valuations changing extensively at the moment due to economic forecasts (flat being the new growth) and as a result what activity will we see in the non distressed marketplace? Sadly I think I know the answer but would be really interested to hear your thoughts.
Simon Gough is a Director and Head of Private Equity.
It is a well-known fact that war brings on significant advances in technology (as well as medicine, social change etc.) and whilst not advocating the need for more wars there have been some interesting correlations between the two. WW2 brought the computer and microwave, the Cold War brought in the Internet and the War on Terror has brought us the Xbox Kinect. This full motion sensor device uses battlefield technology to deliver ground breaking user interaction with the games console. Okay a slightly tongue in cheek comment but my point is that the connection between advances in military technology (which benefits from massive R&D investment) and in consumer technology are almost on a par. Recall how the US GPS system was never available for consumer use until relatively recently and now everything has a GPS chip in it (including my dog). When I see images of pilotless drones in Afghanistan being flown by “pilots” in Colorado using what appears to be the Logitech Wingman 3 flight controller, I question whether it is now consumer technology leading the way and if so where to next?
Steve Blake is Head of TMT at Interim Partners.
With the G20 summit failing to reach a conclusion over the weekend we have to wonder where and when this will all end! Everyone recognises the crisis – “Europe will be crippled by debt till 2021″ says Merkel but the solution seems to allude.
Having just come back from Dublin where the economy is now showing very small signs of growth there is fear that the harsh austerity measures taken in the last 12 months will all be in vain if this new crisis is not sorted.
And what about the UK? We’re not in the Euro (and as a Cabby told me it’s simple for us as we can print more money!) , but this will undoubtedly impact us.
The E & Y Item club reported in the Sunday Times that Britain’s Gross Domestic Product could fall by 4% to below it’s level during the 2008/09 recession. Over 3 million jobs (this does not include the interim/contract community) in the UK depend on trade with the EU and politicians are saying that resolution of this crisis “is the most important thing to happen to the UK economy this Autumn”
Even closer to home Interims are asking me what the effect is on the interim market and interim opportunities. Sadly I have no crystal ball for the future but whilst there are signs of some areas of the Market contracting in certain non critical business areas, we need to remember the Market in general has not stopped. Yes Its harder, decision making is sometimes slower and sometimes not made at all but there are still opportunities!
The REC job outlook for September 2011 indicates demand for interims and contractors will remain at current level or increase over the next 12 months. Over 2/3 of employers surveyed are planning to keep their contract workforce over the next 3 months and 22% saw increases.
But the most interesting statistic of all is this one – 86% of employers are planning to match or increase the number of non permanent staff, deferring commitment to permanent staff whilst there is economic uncertainty.
We benefit in the UK from a Market that understands the value of a flexible workforce and corporate agility. The positive impact of an experienced interim who can achieve operating efficiencies and cost reduction, who can show the quickest way forward on achieving transformation and who understand the FS regulatory landscape is not lost.
So tell me what you think about the Euro crisis and it’s impact on the UK?
If you’re an interim do you see fewer opportunities or no change and if anyone has that crystal ball maybe they would like to share!
Angela Hickmore is a Director at Interim Partners.
Interim managers often tell us they go into this partly from a lifestyle choice. The opportunity to work hard for some months but not all of the year can be very attractive. However, if you’re on assignment and have your head down working away, I don’t know about you but I find my lifestyle changes immeasurably as the nights darken, oh, and remind me again why the clocks go back (no, with small children you don’t get another hour in bed). Running home after work in the cooling heat of the day in summer is almost pleasurable, in the mellowing sun of autumn is a delight, but in the blustery, leaf-strewn chill of winter is never fun. Allow me a moment to moan. People are greyer, more irritable and there seem to be more of them on the daily commute. It’s a real effort to exercise or even to make yourself go out at night (although it’s still mostly worth it when you get there). Battening down the hatches in front of the TV/iPad seems infinitely preferable of an evening.
But the good news for industry is that I imagine we are probably more productive. No wistful gazing out of the window wishing you were in a park or on a beach, or snatched lunch breaks in a rare London patch of sunlight. And work feels strangely homely compared to the sight of wet and miserable shoppers tramping the streets outside.
Roll on the spring, but in the meantime it’s good news for British industry in my view. Does your work pattern change according to the season? I’d be interested to hear how you manage (or not) to maintain a healthy balance in your life.
Liz Sinclair is an Account Director at Interim Partners.
It’s been a while since we have seen one of the papers covering the “scandal” of £1000+ / day interims working across the NHS, but The Telegraph obviously has information from some “NHS Accounts” (how about that for a spurious source). The article covers 14 temporary executives, most of whom have worked in the NHS on a permanent basis, left through retirement or redundancy and then returned to work for the NHS on an interim, day rate basis.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8857511/NHS-fatcats-take-pay-offs-then-come-back-for-more.html#disqus_thread
As at lunchtime today there were 187 comments in response, the vast majority vitriolic.
To my mind it is distinctly unfair to level criticism wholly at this group; the more serious problems are in the system. Interim Chief Executives don’t force their way into roles, it’s a demand lead market. If your local trust appoints any interim executive board member, it means they generally have a leadership problem, poor succession planning, or they have a gap they cannot fill on a substantive basis. If your trust appoints someone who “presided over a hospital whose own doctors said some of its services were worse than the Third World” then that is a whole separate issue, but the onus lies of the board of the trust to make sure references and reputation of any potential interim appointment check out. And the board should be using an interim as a short term solution, and getting a substantive recruitment campaign under way as soon as possible. A good interim will not try and draw out a role, most are looking for the exit point and want to help an organisation get onto a more stable footing.
At executive board level, the number of instances of candidates deliberately leaving permanent employment in the NHS specifically to go interim is very rare. Early retirement or redundancy is often the catalyst, and often because it provides candidates with the financial cushion to set up a limited company and to sit on the sidelines for up to 6 months to await the right role. Any permanently employed candidates making enquiries to Interim Partners about coming onto the interim market are given fairly frank advice, the market is improving but is certainly not booming and very few interims can rely on being consistently engaged on an ongoing basis.
Steve Melber is Head of Healthcare at Interim Partners.
There has been a campaign running for some time now for a “Robin Hood Tax” or “Tobin Tax” on financial transactions where a levy is applied to all share, bond and currency trades. The debate intensified this week when the Church officially came out and supported the idea (I wonder if this was an attempt to divert attention from the pickle they have gotten themselves into at St Paul’s).
The Church is not alone, the EU is very much in favour of implementing a transaction tax and Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel are keen to implement it. They no doubt do so knowing full well that London will bear the brunt of such measures and take the effective risk of driving its valuable financial services sector abroad. If additional taxes were proposed on agricultural or engineering output instead I very much doubt the French or German stance would be so enthusiastic.
David Cameron and George Osborne have naturally been cautious on the idea in a bid to protect the UK’s interests, agreeing in principle but arguing such a tax would need to be globally implemented to avoid a mass flight of financial services businesses to relocate in countries with more favourable tax conditions. There has already been the “super tax” on bonuses, the four year banking levy came into force this year and now the Tobin tax is under discussion. Will there become a point when the UK will lose its appeal to be a major centre for financial services? How big in reality is the threat to the UK’s financial sector from other global locations and what could those locations be?
Your thoughts as ever are appreciated.
Andrew McIntee is a Director and Head of Financial Services at Interim Partners.
