Executive Grapevine: Does the interim market need to consolidate to survive?

Written by Raj Tulsiani

Green Park CEO Raj Tulsiani sets the panel debate for Executive Grapevine’s 2018 Interim Guide:

As a 20 year plus veteran of the interim management industry, I think years of an increasing transactional focus and a race to the bottom on fees has lowered service levels. Consulting teams can lack the business acumen of more seasoned veterans with lived in industry experience needed to add enterprise value.

The industry’s lack of specialism has resulted in placing itself under threat from disintermediation through online platforms like LinkedIn. In short it must adapt, innovate, specialise or die.

I expect to see the interim management move into a structure more like executive search, where there is the emergence of four or five super firms with other organisations moving into micro-niche specialisms such as GDPR or cyber security.

Integrity and deeper subject matter expertise are required to become more strategically relevant to the organisations we serve and to stop market share being eroded by self-proclaimed experts online.

What senior leaders tell me is they need is an honest set of distinct value-based partners who provide the benefits of working through experienced specialist intermediaries. I expect a great deal of market corrections and exits that will redefine interim management provision as a critical valuable business tool for the next 20 years. We also need recruiters that understand the broader corporate objectives of enterprises beyond the single vacancy to be filled. This could be by supporting a diversity strategy or the implications of a change management programme, not just the readily designed value of a business transformation resource they find resources on.

This article was published in Executive Grapevine’s Interim Management Guide 2018 on the 6th of February 2018. To read the full panel debate, click here.