Situation

Our client is an electronic components manufacturer company in South-West of Hungary. It is a private company, owned by the same family for two generations. They are TIER2 suppliers of multinational automotive companies.

The client was facing trouble because the next generation had other personal plans than taking over the company. There were basically two problems: someone had to take over the Production Management functions from the son of the company owner and in order to stay on track with its multinational buyers, it became essential to bring in an ‘international mindset’ to the local management team. The client expected an interim manager to fill in these gaps and to support the company catching up with international standards and expectations.

Action

The client got in touch with Interim Management Resourcing to find an interim manager with a multinational background who can fill in the gap of the Operations/Production Director position and implement the changes necessary for further growth and development, with a strong international touch and to create an established situation to appoint a permanent Production Manager.

The challenge was to find an interim manager with experience in an international/multinational company, who would be ready and willing to join a ‘different’ local company environment. Interim Management Resourcing presented qualified candidates within five days, both experienced and somewhat overqualified for the position. The company chose one of the two candidates, selecting the one with a more ‘coaching/mentoring’ type of mindset to face the above challenges easily.

The key challenges were

• to move from a small-scale family control towards international level leadership culture
• to introduce new leadership techniques
• to update operations management team with manufacturing best practices
• to motivate middle management through empowerment
• to introduce management development programs
• to formalize the business processes
• to implement engineering change and standardize manufacturing methods
• to focus on improving material control
• to improve the factory layout
• to define staff roles and responsibilities

Results

In seven months, the interim manager was able to make a turnaround within the company’s culture, bringing it to a professional level, introducing a new way of thinking and improving processes. The client was able to maintain its revenue level even under difficult circumstances. In his last month, the interim manager focused on the onboarding of his permanent successor.