Interim/temporary managers to support foreign investments in Lombardy

Lombardy is still one of the most attractive areas where to install the Italian subsidiary of an international company. Nevertheless, no matter how much an area can be investor-friendly, a foreign investor, when implementing an international expansion strategy typically needs to reduce potential risks and costs related to the operations in a target country: an interim management solution may be of substantial help in achieving both goals.

The high seniority of interim managers quite often brings an excellent network of business connections through which they may easily know interesting business opportunities for acquisitions and JVs: in a way, they may represent a kind of proprietary deal flow, very useful in a business system characterized by the presence of a huge number of SMEs.

The interim manager, aside from the potential deal origination, may be also useful to manage many delicate aspects of the entire operation (due diligence, management assessment, coordination of the other professionals, e.g. lawyers, accountants, etc.).

Knowing who interims are and how do they work, may be interesting for a potential user, especially for operations abroad.

With this goal, Senior Management Worldwide, the international interim group chaired by Maurizio Quarta, has carried out an extensive survey on interim managers in 12 countries, with over 1.200 respondents. Here you may find a quick synopsis of the survey in order to know more about Italian interim managers that may be working on behalf of a foreign investor.

Age and experience: in interim management, experience and seniority are everything. That’s why 78% of the interim managers are over 50.

Seniority is also confirmed by the type of roles: at board level (37% executive member), in Advisory/supervisory role (34%), as a NED (24%). And as first line managers as well (24%).

Speaking about functional experience, the most wanted are managers from Finance (24%), Sales (20%) and Operations (29%).

Project duration – On average, Italian projects looks a bit longer than elsewhere: 65% of them are over 9 months (47% the international data) and less than 25% under 6 months (over 29% the international data).

Company size – The Italian economic backbone are the SMEs: no surprise that 43% of the Italian interims have experience in companies with less than 50 millions turnover.

Cost of manager – On average Italian interims seems to be less expensive than their international colleagues: over 42% of them are in the 600-800 euros per day compensation range (less than 30% the international data).

Written by Maurizio Quarta – Temporary Management & Capital Advisors www.tmcadvisors.com

Survey published on HR On Line nr.18/2016:http://www.aidp.it/hronline/2016/11/18/temporary-manager-ai-raggi-x–italiani-e-europei-a-confronto.php