June 8, 2020

How to Successfully Market a Product No One Wants to Buy

How to Successfully Market a Product No One Wants to Buy

There are marketing challenges, and then there is the challenge of marketing a product no one wants to admit they use, much less talk about it in public.

Enter Whitney Vosburgh. He’s an expert, interim Chief Marketing Officer who believes that building community can be a successful marketing strategy.

It worked for ConvaTec, a company that makes something no one ever wants to buy (but many people have to): colostomy and ostomy pouches. Those are the bags used by people who have a bowel blockage, which means they must eliminate bodily waste outside their body. It’s collected in pouches like the ones made by ConvaTec.

Not surprisingly, this is not something people want to chat about with strangers. But, Vosburgh hypothesized, putting them in a room with others facing the same challenges could make all the difference.  

Read More
April 14, 2020

How COVID-19 Is Accelerating Your Company’s Digital Transformation

How COVID-19 Is Accelerating Your Company’s Digital Transformation

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our lives in ways that seemed unimaginable just a short time ago. Within a matter of weeks schools have been shuttered, sporting events and conferences have been canceled, air travel has ground to a halt, over 16 million workers have been laid off, and those able to work from home are now doing so almost exclusively.

Commentators are already proclaiming that coronavirus will permanently change the world. Many of the expected shifts, however, are hardly new. They were nascent prior to coronavirus and emerging stronger than ever due to the pandemic-led paradigm shift.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the migration to remote work and the technologies that enable it. In the United States almost a quarter of employed individuals already were working remotely, and while this trend has steadily increased over the past decade, with coronavirus forcing millions to work remotely, we may have reached a tipping point.

If remote work is indeed the new normal, how can businesses embrace it? Alonso Vargas and Andrew Andrews-Ramirez provide digital transformation, helping organizations with everything from ERP implementation to outsourcing, to migrating to cloud technology, utilizing platforms including NetSuite, SAP, Salesforce, Hubstaff, and Office 365. They have seen a shift in how organizations are operating and have keen insights into how companies can get ahead in the digital curve.

Read More
September 3, 2019

Why Most Change Initiatives Fail. And What to Do About It

Why Most Change Initiatives Fail. And What to Do About It

“Write down a change you would like to make in an organization that you are currently with…or  change in the marketplace. Any kind. It can be a big change, it could be a small change – strategic, tactical, something you want people to start doing, something you want people to stop doing,” says Jeff Leitner as he looks around a room filled with CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, and other C-Suite executives at this year’s InterimExecs’ RED Team meeting. He continues “You’re change is absolutely, almost certainly going to fail. It’s not your fault. It has nothing to do with your particular genius – has nothing to do with your insights. Changes fail. They almost always fail.”

Jeff Leitner knows a thing or two about change and innovation. He spent the last 20 years improving organizations from the US State Department to NASA, Starbucks, Panera, and the Dalai Lama Center for Peace. In a world where innovation and disruption is key, the question is why does change rarely stick in organizations, markets, and society? Jeff has dedicated years to studying why change fails and in his most recent speaking circuit, is sharing what leaders can do to be more effective in leading change initiatives.

Read More

May 9, 2019

Top Executives Share Best Change Management Practices at 2019 Roundtable

Top Executives Share Best Change Management Practices at 2019 Roundtable

May 6 and 7 marked the fourth InterimExecs’ RED Roundtable (Rapid Executive Deployment), a gathering of top interim executives in Chicago. Executives across a range of specialties from CEO to CFO, COO, CIO, CMO, and CRO met for a mix of speakers, discussion, and sharing best practices on creating high performing companies.

The event kicked off Monday morning at William Blair’s headquarters where innovation expert, Jeff Leitner, drew on extensive research and 20 years’ experience improving operations to share why most change initiatives fail and what we can do about it. Interim executives discussed how Jeff’s findings applied to assignments they jump into where they often are called on to drive disruption, innovation, and powerful change.

Read More

March 19, 2019

An Interim Executive Helps Native American Economic Development

An Interim Executive Helps Native American Economic Development

Native American economic development is critical for tribes seeking to effect a positive long-term impact on their communities. Federal 8(a) programs have been a great resource for Native American owned business, but tribal communities have evolved with an increasing focus on sustainable strategic economic development.

Tribal nations not only focus on the importance of cultural preservation and protected lands, but aspire to overcome big challenges facing their communities. From poverty to limited access to high-quality education, minimal healthcare resources, and inadequate workforce development, tribes work to solve these problems through economic growth. Tribes that thrive economically can better support funding for education, housing, and a multitude of crucial basic services.

Some tribal nations have excelled in the face of these challenges. Tribal economies have had a profound economic impact by growing Native American enterprises, increasing revenue, and acquiring operating companies. Prosperous tribes have also developed strong internal and external business partnerships.

Read More

February 28, 2019

How to Prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution

How to Prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution

“We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another”, says Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Innovation has been accelerating for the past 300 years, but with today’s pace of technological advances, Schwab says the speed of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent. We are now entering a 4th Industrial Revolution where when compared to previous industrial revolutions, we are evolving at an exponential rate rather than linear rate.

Schwab describes: “The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.”

Read More

January 11, 2019

Poor System Integration & Company Culture Misalignment Leads to M&A Failure

Poor System Integration & Company Culture Misalignment Leads to M&A Failure

In a merger or acquisition, discord of company cultures and disparate systems can cause the demise of a once-promising partnership. About 70% of acquisitions fail when post-acquisition results don’t meet pre-closing expectations. Many of these M&A failures are caused by poorly executed integration.

What’s surprising is that M&A failures are avoidable with careful integration planning and strategic post merger integration. Pre-acquisition, it takes a lot of forethought on how company cultures might clash and how their systems will integrate. Post-acquisition, it takes a ton of strategic elbow grease to rapidly align systems (and eliminate some), retain productive employees, keep customers, and make stakeholders happy.

Read More

January 4, 2019

Jumpstart the Year With a Health Checkup on Your Business

Jumpstart the Year With a Health Checkup on Your Business

Lose weight. Exercise more. The new year’s resolutions are in full gear right now. Whether it’s getting to the gym, reading more, or eating more greens, January usually begins with a reflection of how we did and what we can do more, better, faster this year.

We focus so much on being proactive in our health and personal care. But what about our business health? Is it just business as usual, again? Or do we have bigger business goals for the year ahead?

Talking to company owners and investors over the years, we have discovered a lot less proactivity than you’d expect and a lot more complacency. We don’t mean activity – everyone has lots of to-do lists – where busy work mask over big or growing problems.

We often get calls when the house is on fire: cash is draining away from the business, employees are jumping ship, frustrations are mounting, or lack of fresh thinking, innovation and true leadership have led to stagnation in the market. Owners say to us my ‘business is failing, what do I do’.

It’s hard not to think how many sleepless nights could have been avoided for an owner if they would have just acted sooner. We mean solve the issues not just by trying to dive in themselves or harangue the management team more, but instead through resources or tools that could extend their capabilities and help make vision a reality.

Read More

December 13, 2018

Family Offices Use Interim CFOs to Improve Operations and Make Sound Investments

Family Offices Use Interim CFOs to Improve Operations and Make Sound Investments

There’s no question that the number of family offices is on the rise. A recent study by Campden Research revealed that there are over 5,300 family offices worldwide. About 2,200 of the family offices are in North America. About 67% of family offices that exist today were established after 2000.

There aren’t hard and fast rules on what a modern-day family office looks like. A single family office typically has over $150 million in private wealth and is one family. In recent years, multi-family offices have increased. In multi-family offices, families — related or not —  have shared interests, investment goals, infrastructure needs, or operational requirements. By coming together, they save resources. This way family offices can focus more energy on portfolio growth and increasing net profit margins.

Over the past decade, the way family offices invest has evolved. In the past, family offices stayed in their comfort zone, by acquiring operating businesses in their business sector.

Read More

July 18, 2018

How an Interim CFO Can Quickly Grow Your Business

How an Interim CFO Can Quickly Grow Your Business

Interim management has arrived, and it only took 50 years, from a specialty that started in the Netherlands and moved slowly around the world. And its first and best incarnation is the interim CFO.

A good Chief Financial Officer will help a business catapult to the next stage of growth. Whether public, private or private equity backed, a CFO leads and implements strategy that ultimately creates value for shareholders, increasing EBITDA and cash flow. The means to get there may look different for each organization, but companies choose to bring in an Interim CFO because they are looking for transformation. And with record-high CFO resignations, the specialty continues to rapidly grow.

Operational Improvement and Strategic Planning

An Interim CFO will streamline accounting and financial reporting, helping owners, board members, investors and the management team get a clear look into the state of the business.

Read More