What is a Fractional resource? And what are the benefits to having one in your organisation?

If you’re not yet aware, I am the founder of Lantern Partners Pty Ltd . We've been around for over a decade before fractional was being used as a term. But essentially, that's what we've been doing in the CFO advisory space, providing fractional resources to start up and scale up founders and providing that commercial and strategic finance support.

And over those years, we've helped a number of businesses engage that kind of support, also from a broader fractional C-suite perspective.

Primarily, a fractional C-suite resource is referring to a senior executive who's providing their services on a part-time basis rather than being a full-time or part-time employee of the business.?

It's that space in between a consultancy service and an employee relationship with the company. So usually they're required on that contractual or consulting basis to fill a specific C-level role and usually for a defined period of time.?

Of course there are exceptions,but usually they're working part -time. We find from a financial perspective, anything more than around three days a week is the point at which a business really needs to think about engaging a more permanent solution.?

So that part-time basis can range from a few days a month up until that 3 days per week range, and what they're doing is that they're providing strategic oversight and leadership to the relevant department or the overall organisation.?

What these fractional resources are bringing to the table is extensive industry experience and outside perspective into an organization to help drive growth, to solve a particular problem, or to provide mentorship to existing leadership within the business, which at the size that these fractional C-suites get involved, the leadership that exists permanently within the business may not yet be at that really senior level. They might be mid-level or they might be mid to senior level.

But to stay within the organization and to get growth within the organization, that mentorship from a fractional C-suite can be really helpful.

What are the benefits of a fractional C-Suite over Permanent Executive Hire?

The undeniable benefit that hiring fractional C-suite talent does for organisations is it allows them to engage a more cost-effective solution and lets them be more agile compared to taking on the salary and benefits of a permanent executive hire.?

The challenge businesses often face hiring a permanent executive hire can also be the time it takes for that permanent employee to get up to the stage where they're really adding value within the business because they've come from a typical kind of employee arrangement, which is typically a slower burn.

What are the benefits of a fractional C-Suite over contracting a consultant?

One of the key differences between a consultant and a fractional resource, in my opinion is that the fractional resource tends to be more involved in the doing and implementation over and above that of consultants who generally are contracted to give advice and not see through the implementation of the advice.

It's really that ongoing implementation of the solution is where fractional resources really become quite valuable. And the difference also between a traditional consultant or advisor and a fractional resource is that that fractional resource really means becoming part of the team.?

So for example Lantern Partners will attend board meetings, we coach and mentor the team, we help hire team members and we'll attend or lead kind of strategy workshops. It's very much about becoming part of that leadership team for a period of time.

It is important to remember the level of engagement is also driven by the organisation hiring the fractional c-suite, there are times for some clients where Lantern Partners has been a ‘phone a friend’ or in a coach role to a founder or CEO, however that isn’t the typical engagement for most C-suite fractional resources.

If you want to find out more about fractional resources, or understand more about becoming one yourself, send me a message I'd love to chat more about the opportunities which exist.

Championing your success,

Michelle