Interim Management

TSC provides comprehensive interim management services to businesses that are looking for assistance in taking their business to the next level of performance. In some circumstances, management needs more than advice, more than a consulting relationship bounded by specific deliverables, time and materials, and fixed staffing requirements. When the company needs decisive engagement on a broad range of closely related issues or on a project that cuts across functional boundaries or requires a day-to-day connection with your staff, then an interim management role may be a useful structure.

Interim management means several things:

  • first, we become part of your management team;
  • second, we plan, at the outset, to work ourselves out of a job, and
  • third, we focus simultaneously on tactical and strategic issues, shifting our actions as necessary to successfully execute the company’s business plan.

We are available to take full-time roles in your company, providing needed experience and fresh views. Our efforts generally focus on assisting our clients in upgrading their governance, strategy, structure, systems, and human resources. Ultimately, we measure performance improvement by increases in return on invested capital (ROIC).

What factors should clients consider when choosing an interim management engagement?

Factors that drive most companies toward an interim management solution include:

  1. Management does not want to focus on particular skills or experience in the problem’s domain. The problem is one that cuts across functional areas or affects multiple levels of hierarchical decision-making and therefore requires a solution that supports and integrates the breadth of the company’s operations and strategy.
  2. The problem is one that requires extended involvement by the interim management team. (These engagements typically last longer than a consulting engagement, and the team develops a planned exit scenario.) Dealing with the problem requires the team to be seen, by insiders and outsiders, as part of the company rather than as a consultant.
  3. Far more skill and dedicated involvement are required for solving the problem and creating the structural solution than are needed to maintain the solution on a going-forward basis. Management wants to solve the problem using a high-level resource without worrying about long-term changes to the senior management team.

Our overriding theme in every interim management engagement is delivering results by taking action and getting things done. These engagements are not about analyses or reports or plans — they are about execution and producing immediate improvements to the bottom line. To achieve the desired results, we concentrate our efforts on these themes: quantifiable performance management, simplifying complexity, setting and maintaining high standards, and building cohesive teams for the future.

Each interim management engagement starts with an assessment of the client’s operations. This analysis gives us the context from which we draw our description/goals of success, within which we will integrate our solution, and against which we will measure results. Our broad action plan begins with establishing the appropriate infrastructure (comprehensive planning, budgets, performance management framework, communication tools), building the team, both internal and external, assessing and meeting the needs of individual team members, and capitalizing on opportunities to improve performance.

Depending on the nature of the engagement and the existing management team, we typically structure interim roles around senior management positions, such as: CEO, President, CFO, COO, CSO, CRO, VP, and general counsel.

Our team members have extensive experience working with senior executives to solve their most pressing problems. Their appreciation for understanding the strategic issues that shape the context for every operational decision is a significant distinction from the stereotypical consultant focused on a single small problem. Within the scope of authority granted by the management team, TSC’s advisors use their direct leadership experience to set direction, establish high standards of performance, and create an environment to allow and enable people to accomplish management’s objectives. These advisors focus on execution — on actually achieving goals — by encouraging the team through appropriate delegation and close supervision.

We have served in direct front-line leadership roles, in junior management, and in senior executive positions. This background gives us the ability to inspire more junior personnel while effectively serving the client company. With our bias toward action, we find it even more compelling to produce innovative, realistic courses of action, thereby allowing the board and shareholders to make deliberate, reasoned decisions to promote increasing returns on invested capital.