August 22, 2024

How the Right ERP Strategy Can Improve Your Business

How the Right ERP Strategy Can Improve Your Business

It’s a common scenario: A company invests big bucks in a massive ERP implementation only to watch the effort stall. Or worse, fail altogether.

Maybe the problem is the lack of planning or ERP software curation. Maybe it’s not thinking ahead for future needs. Or maybe it’s not having an experienced ERP implementation executive who can make that integration sing.

For all that goes into ERP implementation — ERP, or Enterprise Resource Planning, is, after all, managing, streamlining, and tying together all essential business processes — strategizing every step should be a non-negotiable.

“ERP systems usually get replaced every seven to 10 years. I’ve been with some companies where they hadn’t replaced them for 25 years,” says Bruce Howard, an InterimExecs RED Team member and Interim CIO who has spent much of his career implementing ERP solutions.

“There’s a planning phase to bring all of the pieces together and make sure you’ve got a clear approach and clear people assigned. And then you need a methodology for the way you select systems and implement,” he says.

To better understand the components of a successful ERP implementation process and a clear look at how an ERP strategy can support business operations and better decision-making, we asked Howard and interim executives Tony DeLima and Alonso Vargas to walk us through the essential elements.

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August 16, 2024

Fraud Risk Management 101: How to Protect Your Business From Corrupt Clients and Employees

Fraud Risk Management 101: How to Protect Your Business From Corrupt Clients and Employees

Maribeth Vander Weele once saved a client from a disastrous $250 million deal. The client was $90 million into the deal when intuition told him something was wrong and he hired her firm to do a fraud risk assessment. Ten days later, her firm had “put together enough red flags about that individual” that the client was able to withdraw from the deal without losing a dime. A year and half later, law enforcement investigated, shut down the company, and sent the leaders to prison, she says.

Wander Weele, whose company, The Vander Weele Group, now specializes in oversight of large-scale grant programs for government agencies, says that more people need to do “pre-diligence.” That is the deep dive into the background of the partners that will tell you whether they are people you want to do business with.

“People come to us when they have some intuition about a deal. Everything else looks good in the deal, but that intuition is kicking in. We deep dive the internet. We put together facts, dive through thousands of references to that individual or company, and put together a story of who this person really is,” she told Robert Jordan, CEO of InterimExecs in an interview.

In another case, her team investigated a company that grew from $27 million to $300 million very quickly — an unbelievable feat given the company’s limited infrastructure. Learning that requires looking beyond the usual data points of the financials.

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August 10, 2024

M&A IT: The Overlooked Key to Deal Success

M&A IT: The Overlooked Key to Deal Success

PwC’s 2023 M&A Integration Survey found that just 14 percent of respondents reported achieving “significant success” in a merger or acquisition. The “secret sauce” to their M&A success? A whopping 88 percent point to the importance of IT integration.

Despite that, the fast-paced world of mergers and acquisitions often means that information technology concerns take a backseat to strategic business objectives during due diligence.

This oversight can be a costly mistake.

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August 9, 2024

Recession Proofing Your Business: 7 Steps to Take Right Now

Recession Proofing Your Business: 7 Steps to Take Right Now

Stock market volatility. Rising unemployment rates. Still-high interest rates. Will those tricky statistics lead to an economic downturn? The jury is still out. But it makes sense to do what you can right now to recession-proof your business.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a small business owner, or a business leader overseeing a Fortune 500 mega-corporation, there are steps you can — and should — take right now to increase the chances your company will survive economic uncertainty.

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August 8, 2024

Why Acquisitions Fail and How to Get it Right: Advice from Experts Who Have Mastered the Acquisition Integration

Why Acquisitions Fail and How to Get it Right: Advice from Experts Who Have Mastered the Acquisition Integration

During a wide-ranging discussion, our panel of powerhouse women business leaders — Sarai Schubert, Cristina Iaboni, and Kim Marren, led by InterimExecs President Olivia Wagner — shared their insights about why acquisitions fail and the expertise they’ve gained leading companies through big and small, strategic and tuck-in mergers and acquisitions.

This insightful discussion dives into the critical aspects of navigating the M&A process, from developing a strong integration plan to fostering a positive culture for a seamless transition. You can get all of the insights by watching the full webinar here, or by reading through this edited transcript. Or get the highlights in this post that tells you how to ace the acquisition integration.

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July 31, 2024

Sales Follow-Up: The Easy Path to Exponential Revenue Growth

Sales Follow-Up: The Easy Path to Exponential Revenue Growth

When was the last time you reached out to an existing or former customer hoping to make another sale? Have you bought leads, sent them one email and never reached out again? Or worse, bought the leads and never reached out to them at all?

If your answer is, “Um, I don’t really do much customer outreach or email marketing,” don’t feel bad. It just means you’re human.

Steve Rosenbaum understands. He’s a born salesman who “starts with the follow-up” but knows that “most businesses aren’t doing it. They’re ignoring the follow-up.”

And that means they’re leaving the easy money on the table. He points to statistics showing that if a company can improve its customer retention by as little as 5 percent, it can boost the bottom line by as much as 95 percent, Rosenbaum says.


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July 29, 2024

Don’t Let Your Acquisition Become Another Statistic: Ace the Integration with a Playbook

Don’t Let Your Acquisition Become Another Statistic: Ace the Integration with a Playbook

It’s widely reported that half or more mergers and acquisitions ultimately fail. But it doesn’t have to be that way. To look at why so many deals fail during the integration process and learn how to ratchet up the chances of success, we talked with three interim executives with a track record of dozens of successful mergers and acquisitions.

You can watch the video to hear everything they had to say, click over to read our edited transcript, or read on for a summary of the highlights.

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July 24, 2024

When it Comes to Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Will You Choose a Babysitter or a Change Agent?

When it Comes to Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Will You Choose a Babysitter or a Change Agent?

You’re on a public company board and the phone rings at midnight and it’s not good news: Your CEO or CFO has passed away. The next morning, the board convenes in emergency session. There’s only one subject beyond condolences for the tragic passing: Who is going to step into the interim CEO or CFO role?

Will you choose a placeholder from among your board, or will you choose to do something more proactive?

Let’s dive into the options.

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July 11, 2024

What If You Were Judged Like an Olympic Athlete?

What If You Were Judged Like an Olympic Athlete?

You’re getting ready to send the most important email of your life. You prepare, you write, you edit, you re-edit, and then it’s go-time, You hit send. And then: everyone around you holds up a card with your score for the email.

Doesn’t sound too comfortable? And yet, this is how we dissect our favorite athletes, and how the rigorousness of the Olympics treats every contestant. Brutally, dispassionately.

The measure of success: Olympic Gold.

Can the same brutal, dispassionate honesty help an organization reach the pinnacle of success?

Glen Tullman thinks so.

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July 10, 2024

Nearshoring in Mexico: Pitfalls, Potential, and Possible Problems

Nearshoring in Mexico: Pitfalls, Potential, and Possible Problems

Thanks to global supply chain disruptions, growing hostilities between the US and China, and rising import tariffs, U.S. companies are reconsidering a business plan that calls for them to outsource so much of their production to foreign companies in Asia. Instead, they are pivoting to onshoring back in the US, and “nearshoring” production in Mexico.

This new supply chain approach calls for sourcing products closer to home. For U.S. companies, that means setting up suppliers in Latin America — specifically, Mexico.

Mexico benefits from its geographic proximity to the U.S., its well-established export-oriented industrial sector, a labor force that values manufacturing jobs, and its inclusion in the US-Canada-Mexico North America free trade agreement, notes Forbes.

The move to Mexico is happening fast. Axios reports that the number of companies making moves to nearshore their production nearly tripled last year — to 42 percent of the companies polled, versus 17 percent in 2022 and just 11 percent in 2021.

Those companies join behemoths such as Walmart and automotive giants General Motors and Tesla that are already well on the way to bringing manufacturing closer to home.

With so many companies jumping on the nearshoring bandwagon, we asked two executives with experience working in Mexico for their advice. Klaus-Juergen Wolf, who has spent 15 years as a C-suite interim executive, and Jay Winkler, whose consulting company, Brave Lion Group, works with manufacturing firms, shared the following insights and suggested questions you should ask, concerns you should address, and the possible problems you could face if you nearshore production in Mexico.

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