As an executive who has spent his career growing companies, taking companies publicly, and selling businesses successfully, Cyril Moreau says that when he evaluates a parachute in a company, so first of all he does. Whether the company is venture-capital backed or in private or manufacturing, energy, semiconductors, or industrial equipment, it is always the first step to ascertain the current state of operations. Here are 4 stages of interim action for a company to improve growth and stability.
Step 1: Taking Hold
When a company wants to expand into new markets or scale operations to support current and future growth, Cyril takes on the role from an Interim CEO to executive chairman / interim executive, where they are part of the CEO and management team Coach and serve together. He describes how in the holding phase, an interim executive identifies what is broken – even fast-growing companies in need of repair. What’s getting in the way? What is causing trouble? Perhaps a bad product is being shipped, which results in customers complaining. These are real serious problems that you must address within the first 90 days. It is important to take orientation, evaluation, learning, and corrective action on broken things. It was your predecessor’s problem until you arrived, but after 90 days, it’s your problem. You have to do something about it. ”
Step 2: Immersion
The next phase is six months or immersion, where an Interim Executive is collecting a lot of information about what is working and what is not working in a company. For example, evaluating people’s skills is important to determine what people are in the right versus the wrong situation. “What skills does the company not have that are critical to success going forward?” Which often focuses on getting the A-player in the right position.
Step 3: Reshaping
After the immersion, an interim executive will spend a period of time from nine months to 18 months major changes. You start making changes that are really important to the long term success of the company. This is a period of great change. During this phase, an executive head may take initiatives such as:
Step 4: Consolidation
Finally, its consolidation time. You see what’s working, what’s not – then make the necessary adjustments. Till now major changes have not only been identified, but they have been implemented and refined. A company may be ready for an exit point or transaction, or the keys can now be handed over to a permanent executive, who will continuously refine, focus on a new three or five-year plan, new products, new technologies will roll out .
Historically, boards associate interim officers with turnarounds. Today more and more interim executives are asked to help take a company through growth and expansion. A set of skills and experiences may be entirely sufficient at certain stages of the size of the company. Some people are able to hone their skills and grow with the company through various stages and some cannot.
International Executive Consulting LLC consists of an expert team of operations, technology, finance, marketing and sales leaders who have built successful organizations and grown rapidly. To find out how an interim can affect the growth of your company, call 202-258-5376.