Gemini is able to provide interim managers through Gemini global Staffing Solutions (www.gemini-global.com). The following article describes a personal experience of interim management. Please contact us for further details.

This month Marcus Bowen describes his experience as an interim manager for the real estate portfolio of a major international insurance company.

A suitably qualified and experienced interim provides the best of both worlds; an internal consultant who is deeply immersed in the job in hand but without the long term employment commitment. The interim' implements with the best interest of the business and has no incentive to cross sell other services or create for himself a long term position.

Traditionally, when a business faces such a need they hire-in a suitably qualified individual as a staff member. This may be augmented by some input from management consultants and consultancy sections of large surveying business.

So why depart from this approach? Putting aside some of the secondary benefits of hiring an interim such as cost effectiveness and head count avoidance, the principle reason made a lot of sense… Why hire permanent members of staff when it is unclear a long term solution will need them?

Assignment objectives could be summarized as follows:

In summary the assignment was in 2 parts;

My role reported into a director at Regional Head Office in Hong Kong and at Head Office on a different continent. There were about 16 local business units, from Japan to Indonesia. Understandably, each echelon had its own priorities as well as some they shared.

In October last year, toward the end of the assignment, I organized and facilitated a 3-day conference in KualaLumpur for all the local business property managers, who varied from administrators to project managers. This was a good introductory platform for the new estate director.

At the conference, local businesses participated in a benchmarking interview on their facilities management approach. We pooled the results to look objectively at the collective strengths and weaknesses against best-in-industry measures.

Finally, based on conference feedback and findings, I developed a series of 'best practice' work streams to pursue over the coming year. The day I left I switched off the laptop and Blackberry and handed over the running to the new manager, but I remain on call if they have any special requirements.

To my mind, the assignment was successful because of two other characteristics of interim management appointments that I have observed: the interim’ can drive the change agenda much harder, faster than an internal employee as they do not have to worry about long term relationships and 2) as the position is clearly a ‘means to an end’, existing stakeholders in the change process are more likely to take advice as impartial and in the best interest of the business as a whole (however unedifying!).

Marcus Bowen is director of CASP-R. A management consultancy specialising in corporate real estate, with bases and registered companies in the UK and Hong Kong SAR, with plans for bases in mainland China and USA.

^Top