I’m sure many of you have an immense amount of stuff to deal with on your plate, trying to maintain your business continuity in this challenging time. No words will do justice to everyone’s individual experiences over the last few months.
There is no denying it. As we know, the world has had a substantial rude awakening; Covid-19 has shown how vulnerable we all are. It has left a profound negative impact on businesses and, in turn, the world’s economy.
Some industry sectors are on the brink of complete collapse, while others that have been dwindling are rising and growing faster than ever. The current growth industries include Health Tech, Pharma, Legal and Financial Services. At the same time, the businesses that unfortunately caught at the bottom of the food chain seem to be those related to the travel and leisure industry.
Like many teams around the world, we’ve shifted to full-time remote work as well. Communication and collaboration are more important than ever. The transition meant taking a look at how we communicate virtually and how we create clarity across our teams.
However, with more people working from home, the traditional ways in which the team used to operate are outdated and not efficient anymore. Companies, management styles, and organizations need to evolve fast or suffer a major malfunction.
Businesses need to find better ways to operate. As much as any business executive wants to think, this knowledge and change are rarely going to come from within the organization, as existing individuals are too ingrained into existing processes. To think outside the box, you need an outside perspective to see and separate the trees from the forest.
You are probably reading this article and wondering, why can’t my HR department or I hire these executives full-time instead of bringing on board an interim? If you were a C-Suite Executive with a stable position during this turbulent time, would you risk moving to another organization that needs to undergo massive changes to survive? Would you put yourself through a three to six month probation period?
You might also be wondering whether you require the full-time roles. An Interim Executive can help fix the current problems you have and guide you to whether you need a full-time position anymore.
Finding seasoned interim executives who respectively have witnessed many problems in various organizations, can help ensure you do not go through the same ones. By finding interim business advisors/leaders who could lend a hand, quickly fill the voids in your management team until you are up and running smoothly and can afford to expand again.
Many organizations worldwide are searching for executives who can help them quickly transform their businesses. They are looking for executives who not only provide advice but can get the job done and thrive at solving business problems.
You need an executive who can see the full picture, executives who have learned to operate as teams instead of silos, once previously seen within corporations.
If you want to use AI to help your business, have you wondered whether you are ready for AI? Have you truly evaluated your overall marketing spend and understand your customers’ lifetime value? Are there better and more innovative ways to run things?
A number of the issues interim executives can help your business with, are human resource challenges, retrenchments, churn management, customer retention strategy, optimizing customer acquisition, optimizing customer services and customer experience centres, and optimizing IT infrastructure well as overall process mapping. Every company now has their staff working from home, how is this being managed? Have you ensured that your cybersecurity protocols are lock tight?
If you are serious about surviving the Covid-19 crisis and are prepared to make changes that can positively impact your business, then search for and bring in seasoned executives as problem solvers. There are many organizations globally that can help with this search.
At &How Intelligence, we provide virtual C-Suite services to help businesses with their technical requirements, cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, or marketing and customer engagement needs. You can work with any partner individually or as a group on a project basis, retainer, or based on time and deliverables. Remember, there is no one size fits all in this situation. Each situation is different, each project is different, and our advisors strive to work within the specific parameters to provide the best solution given the current situation.
Many businesses have reverted to merely cutting their staff numbers without truly understanding the company’s real long-term impact. Nor exploring alternative ways of reducing costs and retaining the staff to help the business for when it starts to grow again. You can now also hire seasoned executives to parachute in and handle the difficult task of retrenchment and reorganizing without it carrying a bad vibe with the remaining permanent staff.
Covid-19 has forced companies to ramp up their business and digital transformation processes. The process in itself is very time consuming and stressful, and having to run it at high speed without precise planning and execution can be disastrous. You do not call in the consultants at the last moment to try and help, as that is like calling a pack of hyenas to see if they can revive the carcass.
Remember, the transformation of a business starts with people. After that, the review of internal processes and finally the Technology, NOT the other way around. It might seem as though this is commonsense, but then again, when was commonsense that common? Over the years, we have witnessed companies destroy a perfectly simple transformation by over complicating it. Many believe that a digital transformation means buying new technology to help the business without truly understanding and evaluating the existing infrastructure and its dependencies. To conduct a medical procedure, you call a surgeon, not the local butcher.
With mounting disruption, growth, and transformational challenges, many organizations worldwide are turning to “interim” C-suite leaders to help them navigate these transitions. Businesses risk heavy losses or even extinction if they don’t bring in experienced hands skilled at fast-paced change.
Once a rarity previously brought on by bankruptcies or some other unique circumstance, and often thought of as a thankless, powerless role, specialized and short-term leaders are being urgently called upon to get companies through turbulent times. It’s where a breed of seasoned executives across a wide variety of industries are finding a new role, parachuting in, solving a particular problem, and then leaving, all in less time than it often takes for a full-time executive’s retirement plan to vest.
An interim executive is one of the most valuable yet unexploited resources for helping to quickly transform your business, especially during these difficult and uncertain times.
The best interim executives have a specific set of traits and experiences that can help you solve a major corporate issue. They have an overwhelming desire not to be the boss when things get back to the status quo.
What if Kodak, Blackberry, Blockbuster, MySpace, Polaroid, and others had the right expertise when they needed to adapt to rapid market changes? Being complacent with their existing internal processes and former position in the market led to their ultimate demise. Is this where you see your business?
It’s not all gloom and doom in the world. A growing group of business leaders with particular sets of skills, skills that they have acquired over a long career, skills that can help address your company’s specific issues or launch a project. In other words, help you survive during a global crisis.
Today, if you are still concerned and haunted by Covid-19 and its impact, and want to survive these trying and difficult times. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, maybe you can hire the &How Intelligence Team.
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