What is Interim Management?

Interim Management is the temporary deployment of one or several highly-qualified and experienced managers for projects or line management positions. Interim Management is very different from “temporary staffing”.

What is the advantage of Interim Management over “Management Consulting”?

In Interim Management, the main focus is on implementation, and not on strategy development, analysis, or conceptual work. An Interim Manager accepts an operational responsibility until the desired results are achieved. An Interim Manager is carefully selected for each specific assignment. Main selection criteria are the practical experience, the know-how, the social skills and comparable experienced situations from earlier mandates of the candidate.

In some cases, however, the Interim Manager may be assigned to conceptual work as part of his assignment, due to his/her extraordinary skills and know-how or exclusively work as a consultant. The advantage of such an Interim Manager in the consulting role is that he knows from his own experience exactly what he or she is talking about. A strategy or concept developed by an Interim Manager will generally lead to a higher chance of implementation success and sustainability.

What is the advantage of Interim Management over “Executive Search”?

In Executive Search, the goal is to identify a suitable candidate for a specific managing position who is currently employed with another company and is looking for a next career step. An Executive Search process takes time, typically several months until the finally selected candidate is on board. In contrast, an interim manager is on board within 1-3 weeks from the time of the first enquiry. Furthermore, he or she will bring a higher qualification and experience into the Interim Management mandate than a candidate identified through Executive Search for the respective permanent position. This important difference is one of the reasons why an Interim Manager in the short term is more effective and efficient in performing his/her tasks. Furthermore, an Interim Management assignment can be ended on relatively short notice, and no severance pay is due compared with the departure of a permanently employed manager.

How strong is the Interim Manager’s perseverance?

The Interim Manager comes in with an impartial, unbiased view, without hidden agenda, without being associated with internal politics or working on his/her future internal career. The experience shows that internal staff works in challenging projects more effectively and efficiently with Interim Managers than with existing permanent managers. Seniority, skills, and the experience of having successfully mastered similarly challenging situations account for the difference.

How can an Interim Manager be trusted?

Client companies with no experience with Interim Management often hesitate to involve an Interim Manager in confidential functions and tasks including R&D, sales or finance & controlling. In reality, Interim Management is a perfect tool to upgrade internal R&D activities, to bring innovation into an organization, or to improve internal processes. More than 1,000 BRAINFORCE client companies have chosen to work with BRAINFORCE Interim Managers, often involving them in highly-confidential management issues.

In what cases is the deployment of an Interim Management Team useful?

Due to its large diversified HR pool and the capability to form and coach teams with internal resources, BRAINFORCE is able to design and deploy entire teams in specific situations such as:

• Fast build-up of a new company unit
• Replacing an existing management crew which suddenly left the company or which needs to be replaced immediately due to irregularities
• Launching a strategically important project with tight time schedule
• Complementing an existing project team with several experts
• Turnaround of a troubled company

How economical is the deployment of an interim manager?

The daily fee for an interim manager is obviously higher than the monthly salary of a permanent employee divided by the number of days per month. However, when taking into account that an interim manager brings in valuable know-how instantly, and he/she will achieve the results more efficiently and effectively due to experience and a certain over-qualification, as well as taking into account the unpaid overtime, the inclusion of all social costs in the daily rate, and the flexibility in work load, an interim manager is worth much more than his/her daily rate.

An interim manager will generally cost less than a management consultant of comparable seniority for a comparable task. Moreover, an interim manager will additionally accept an operational responsibility and will leave a more sustainable impact.

What benefits do BRAINFORCE client companies receive?

1. Enhanced flexibility and immediate improvement in its ability to act. The BRAINFORCE interim manager is on board within 1-3 weeks from the first enquiry.
2. Faster realization of strategies and projects subject to optimized planning and scheduling (time, costs).
3. Impartiality of the interim manager assigned.
4. Lasting impact due to excellent professional competence and many years of specialized experience. Interim managers have highly developed implementation skills and perseverance.
5. The large global BRAINFORCE HR-Pool with more than 3.500 carefully selected interim managers allow for a perfect fit.
 

What differentiates BRAINFORCE from other Interim Management Providers?

BRAINFORCE is the pioneer in Interim Management in the German speaking part of Europe. In the last more than 30 years since its establishment, BRAINFORCE has successfully completed more than 2.500 assignments. Each of its more than 3.500 top-qualified pool members has been selected through a multi-stage professional selection process. BRAINFORCE is the original in Interim Management!

All BRAINFORCE Key Account Managers and its HR-pool management have got an impressive professional career with a strong track record in managing people and projects. Building on this personal experience, the client’s challenges are easily understood and matched with the best-qualified Interim Managers from the global BRAINFORCE HR-pool.

BRAINFORCE is proud for its exceptionally high success rate in securing and completing mandates successfully. BRAINFORCE Key Account Managers provide a professional supervision of each mandate from the start of the assignment to its successful completion.

BRAINFORCE is the most international Interim Management provider, fully integrated, selecting on a global basis, acting locally. Being in this business, we do not believe in franchise set-ups for quality reasons.

What companies work with BRAINFORCE?

The BRAINFORCE client company portfolio consists of both small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in all sectors which generate two third of all mandates of BRAINFORCE, and renowned multinational companies, including Alstom, ALTANA/BYK Chemie, Bühler, Credit Suisse, Geberit, Heraeus, Honeywell, IKEA, Lufthansa, Novartis, Rheinhold & Mahla, Siemens, UBS, and many more.