Leadership as a Service

Yet another tagline or a commitment for the future?

“Leadership as a Service”. How does that sound to you? It’s “everything as a service” nowadays, so why not interim management? Using this type of branding is probably just an attempt to catch that wave, right? Or does BDO intend to tap into a new market here? No, but there’s very good reasoning behind this. Bear with me while I elaborate.

The evolution of Interim Management: two major developments

BDO has been active as a successful provider of interim management solutions ever since 2008. It is needless to state that a lot has happened during that 15-year stretch. BDO as a company as well as the interim management market evolved a lot over the last years. ?

For starters, the number of candidates for freelance temporary assignments grew incrementally. Nowadays, many more people make a deliberate decision to build their career in a different manner than before: they decide to no longer climb the corporate ladder and instead go their own way. And they do so at a younger age than before. These candidates want to work for their own account and oftentimes create a management company as a carrier for their business. Nothing new here, except that people take this step more easily than in the past. But I’ll get back to this point a little later.?

A second phenomenon is that the interim management market is essentially unregulated. There is no approval or accreditation needed from any government body and no formal set of criteria to meet for a company to start an interim management business. There are no thresholds to enter the market. As a result, over the years dozens and dozens of new initiatives appeared: nearly every recruitment-, temp labor-, consultancy- and accountancy agency created a spin-off business in the field of interim management. The number of players in this market grew dramatically, not even taking into consideration a similar development in the “parallel universe” of ICT and engineering.

As a result of both developments – many new candidates as well as agencies – competition started thriving. Everybody tried to get a hold of a piece of the market to grow their brand and do good business. And of course, everybody tried to do things their way. Whereas interim management agencies in the early days were rather “all-purpose” in their approach, along the way we saw more specialisation. The market got sliced and diced into segments and sub-segments, and no niche was left untouched. It is fair to say that the interim management market reached maturity and was there to stay.

Until this point, we have overlooked two important aspects that mark the interim management market. On the one hand: the market is not in the hands of professional agencies alone because the digital side of the market has (obviously) also developed rapidly. Think about LinkedIn for example, or other online platforms that created a marketplace for companies and freelancers to do their business. On the other hand: the market for interim management assignments is so much bigger than what goes through the hands of agencies and these internet platforms. A lot of assignments run through personal networks: people get hired thanks to personal connections and references. After all, it’s a people’s business so this hardly comes as a surprise. As a result of all this, there is no way to tell how big the market for interim management assignments truly is. Nobody can make any hard statements on market shares and the relative importance of the various segments of our market.

The skills and traits of an Interim Manager?

Allow me to come back to the point that I made earlier: who is the interim manager we are talking about? Or rather who qualifies as an interim manager??There is a clear distinction to make between freelancing and interim management. The key is in the word “management”. An “official” definition of the term interim management doesn’t exist. There is no formal standard to be met. But as a “rule”, not only in Belgium but also in the international arena, an interim manager is a freelancer with outspoken managerial experience and skill.

For us at BDO, an interim manager is a highly qualified professional who aims to provide effective business solutions over a finite time span, to deliver value to the organisation of the client, to generate lasting results... meet objectives..... These – often - complex solutions may include change, transformation and turnaround management, business improvement, crisis management, and strategy development. Do not confuse an interim manager with an archetypal business consultant: the interim manager will not only give a client a piece of advice to implement, but they will go the extra mile to implement these solutions themselves. Also: an effective interim manager?responds fluidly to unexpected situations. They are agile, responsive, and willing to assess situations and change tactics if things are not going according to plan.

At BDO, we subscribe to this positioning of interim management. It has been in our DNA since we started working in this market: we aim to bring true management solutions to our clients by delivering top candidates for assignments that require a special combination of knowledge, experience, personality and cultural fit. Another way to put it: we deliver candidates with strong leadership traits to support our clients with “coaching”, administrative aspects, mediation…

They are not just doers who execute tasks, but leaders who inspire, motivate, and empower others. They are not just problem-solvers who fix issues, but visionaries who create opportunities. It’s all about “tell-how and show-how – execution”. They are not just managers who oversee processes, but innovators who drive change. They can be directive or participative, assertive or supportive, depending on what works best for the client and its team. They offer leadership as a service, meaning they tailor their leadership style to the client’s needs and context.

Practical solutions, long-lasting results

Leadership … as a service. As BDO is a service organisation, for consultants working at BDO it is only natural to be service-driven. We also take great care in making sure that our interim managers have the same?service mindset. The interim manager we present comes in with the aim to bring workable solutions or meaningful change at the client: not to beef up their own curriculum. They want to deliver and leave a trace in the organisation but do not necessarily need to be remembered themselves. They are?committed to delivering durable and good results in their assignment . Remarkable, but then again, doesn’t the same go for all true leaders?

Circling back to the point where we discussed how our market evolved and so many new players entered, each trying to find their unique spot. It is only logical that we at BDO have chosen our spot too. Those who know BDO will acknowledge that our way of working is pretty down to earth. We have eyes for what counts and we address the issues at the right level, like a true business partner does. Regardless whether you have been in contact with the colleagues in the Tax & Legal, the Audit, the Accounting or any of the BDO Advisory departments, you will have experienced that we all share a profound desire to connect with our clients and to bring practical and hands-on solutions.

We choose to focus our interim management business on leadership profiles because we are at our best when doing so. We talk to the client’s leadership about their challenges and bring them solutions at the right level: candidates with whom they can partner for the time of their assignment.

Some call it “executive” interim management. Others claim to focus on C-level positions. These designations are chosen to add gravitas, but are they meaningful? When dealing with a corporate client, we will use the corporate lingo because we understand it and it helps us address the issues that are on the table. When talking with the general management of a family-owned SME, talking about C-level profiles would be rather pompous so we don’t. And when discussing the needs in the public sector – a well-known territory for BDO, by the way – we adapt to their “taxonomy”. What kind of service provider would we be if we expected the clients to match their challenges with our language? It’s up to us to make communication as clear and bias-free as possible. Calling leadership “leadership” is just an example.

A final thing I want to address is a widely spread misconception. Many clients know BDO for its activities in the realm of “financial services” like Audit, Accountancy, Tax & Legal. As a result of this, it is easily overlooked that BDO also has a thriving Advisory (management consulting) division which BDO Interim Management is part of. BDO is one of the biggest companies in the world when it comes to those financial services, so for anybody who is “blindsided” by this: apologies accepted.

All joking aside: BDO Interim Management is happy to take on any assignment for a leading (interim) role in the field of finance management, but we go way broader than that. We offer our clients the comfort of knowing that they can ask us for any type of leadership profile they might need, at any time. We are well equipped to deliver a suitable solution, regardless the region, the industry or the expertise. But that part of the story you already know.

Leadership as a Service. I hope I made my case for using this tagline. Delivering leadership solutions with a clear service drive is what we are about at BDO Belgium. It’s our credo. And as we succeed in convincing more and more clients of this credo, we believe we will be considered as leaders ourselves. Servant leaders, leaders in service. Leadership as a Service. What better way to put it?