The clocks have just gone back, the Autumn leaves in the park are swirling in the wind and the end of the year is in sight. With 12 months of doom and...
The clocks have just gone back,
the Autumn leaves in the park are swirling in the wind and the end of the year is in sight. With 12 months of doom and gloom firmly behind us now, are we really seeing the start of business growth in UK plc? Let's forget the journalistic rhetoric... so post Summer what is happening in the private sector? The view from the trenches is:
A lot of the rightsizing is now completed, there is still a lot of corporate restructuring of people in order to improve and deliver operational improvements....
In a similar vein, business process re-engineering, business integration and convergence continues....
Organisations are looking at new sectors as core markets are still not yielding the anticipated levels of business growth, new markets in nuclear, oil, gas and aerospace.....
Getting more out of less, reviewing and refining everything you do, taking costs out of the supply chain and getting your house in order, improving cost bases and efficiencies apart from continuing with unification, culture change and consolidation. To some IR is looming it's head and as we have seen with Royal Mail can turn nasty ....
There is a lot of due diligence being conducted, there are organisations with cash to make acquisitions, but there is cautiouness, bolt-ons to existing businesses seem the most desired but strategic fit.
Many organisations are looking at new sectors ....
IT investment continues, cloud computing promises to rationalise and change the way organisations work ....
Keeping overheads flat, better pricing and margins, cost control and cash management is king .....
Last week we hosted a very large client event with Richard Lambert, Head of the CBI, his stance was that British business had to re-establish its reputation. I have attached a link to his speech wich makes interesting reading:
Read Richard Lambert's speech.
At another of our recent client events we had Gartner's Head of Global Research speak to us on “Innovation: The Key Ingredients in a Return to Growth” to share their insight, featuring research from Gartner which also makes very interesting reading. The session covered best practices, including how these should be applied in an emerging and fragile business growth environment.
Gartner’s advice is to prepare for a return to growth before it happens, to be in the best position to capitalise on opportunities as and when they emerge. Companies need to listen to “fresh ideas” and “any ideas for improvement” and “deliver business value ideas which are innovative and add value, for the organisation as a whole”.
We have a great case history for a business growth scenario when SilentNight Group, the Beds Company, got more than they bargained for when they hired Interim Executive Matthew Jenkins, as its first-ever Group Marketing Director...worth a read.
With the private sector in context..Based on data from the leading UK Interim Management Providers, the public sector now has far higher levels of interim managers and the day rates are higher in the public sector, despite some thinning out, my belief is that interims are so embedded in the public sector and make such massive contributions they will remain more or less untouched for the forseeable future.
In summary, organisations continue to want to get more out of less and as we know, each interim manager has a tremendous contribution to make to organisations in both the public and private sectors as experience pays in tough economic times and having the benefit of a turn on, turn off resource certainly pays dividends.
