Décideurs Magazine: Towards transition management 4.0

Throwback to the interview conducted by Magazine Décideurs in which Dorothée Baude talks about her vision of interim management!

What is the difference between an interim management consulting firm and a strategy consulting firm?

The interim management firm works with interim managers who, beyond rethinking a business model, for example, implement it.

In addition, Reactive Executive’s Interim Managers intervene in emergency situations and must make decisions quickly, unlike strategy consultants who analyze and often advise general management to make the best decisions.

To conclude, the Interim Manager is operational, he has a strong leadership, he animates the teams, he makes quick decisions and intervenes in all types of management functions at short notice within the framework of missions with high stakes.

As for strategy consultants, they analyze a situation, present their recommendations via deliverables to general management or the decision-making committee and support the implementation of their recommendations.

Do you observe a feminization of the profession?

Yes, the profession tends to feminize. At Reactive Executive, in 2019, 21% of female interim managers applied to work with us. More and more women are interested in this profession and practice it. Nevertheless, the majority of interim managers remain men.

What is the profile of the managers in your base?

Reactive Executive has built up a pool of transition management profiles in order to respond to issues of organizational transformation, performance improvement, change management, strategic project management, crisis management and relay management.

The transition managers in our pool are general, financial, human resources, industrial, purchasing & supply chain, information systems, sales, marketing and communication departments.

These managers are in the vast majority of cases fifties and interim managers who have been in this profession for at least 4 years. Indeed, Reactive Executive has chosen to work more with transition managers than with managers in transition.

Finally, to be a transition manager, you have to be apolitical, entrepreneur, independent, autonomous, oversized, operational and a leader of men! Not everyone can therefore claim to be an interim manager or to become an interim manager because you should not want to be part of an organization; the project has indeed a beginning but also an end!

Are you looking to develop your base with profiles from different departments than those generally covered by interim managers?

Our base is made up of approximately 10,000 interim managers and has varied profiles as mentioned above. Admittedly, Reactive Executive has more missions in general management, finance, human resources, industrial, purchasing & supply chain, but our base also has more and more profiles in the digital field. Our new generation transition management firm is moving towards transition management 4.0 with hyper-connected, hyper-specialized transition managers who will have to know how to speak to generations Y and Z who do not react to organizations with a pyramid hierarchy.

How can interim managers seize digital opportunities?

Digital opportunities require knowing how to support organizations in their transformation projects and this is a real opportunity for Interim Managers. Today, IT and marketing departments are the most advanced in the digital sector and human resources must also evolve to support the transformation of businesses. This should not be limited only to the deployment of tools but to the change of collaboration in compartmentalized and hierarchical organizations. In this context, it is necessary to establish more collaboration between the different hierarchical strata and move towards the model of the liberated company. Also, the role of managers is changing because knowledge is now accessible to all and authority no longer has a place with the new generations in particular. For interim managers, this is a real opportunity to support CIOs, HRDs, marketing and communication directors in their challenges and issues. We also see more and more “Chief Digital Officer” profiles applying to us.

Is there not a risk of uberization of your profession?

It is inevitable, uberization affects all trades. In our profession, we must therefore be more and more agile and reactive. Admittedly, a new business model must be considered, but this is not incompatible with our current business model. Do you think the princely families travel via Uber? No, they have their own vehicle and private driver. The same goes for our profession; some customers will prefer to have their own driver while others will prefer to use Uber. Also, everything depends on the interlocutors, the projects; this is why two business models are not mutually exclusive in our professions. Now, it is a question of clearly defining the strategy and positioning of your firm; do we want to be the private driver of our customers and intervene on much more strategic, sensitive, complex and high-stakes transformation projects and/or do we want to intervene on more traditional and therefore mass missions?

What do you think of a 100% transition Comex?

It’s the future ! The day when France will have understood that the senior executives only stay 3-4 years in their position because they are dismissed for “incompetence” or they no longer adhere to the strategy and/or the values ​​of the company, the companies will make more use of interim management! Indeed, the Interim Manager is selected according to the context and the strategy of the company, he carries out his mission then leaves as soon as the company implements a new strategy which will have to call on different skills. It would therefore cost companies less to call on interim management rather than dismissing their senior executives at each period of change!