Holding the line during stabilisation, at the height of peak season

Client

The subject of this case study is the Hungarian member of a Chinese-owned corporate group with its regional headquarters in Belgium, whose principal activity is the manufacture of foamed plastic raw materials, semi-finished goods, and finished products.

The company was established before the change of political regime, has grown continuously, and has carried out a greenfield capacity expansion. A succession of challenges — COVID, declining demand, unfilled capacity, and a series of senior leadership changes — left behind a complex and fragile organisational situation.

Challenge

The company approached us with the request that our interim manager temporarily fill a newly vacated Supply Chain Manager position. What lay behind that request was considerably more complex.

The organisation had just gone through yet another change of Chief Executive: the previous CEO, who had already successfully concluded an interim CFO engagement with our involvement, had departed, and a former leader had returned to the role. This transition did not leave the logistics function untouched — old and new faces came to the fore, and the direction and expectations became uncertain. At the same time, in the midst of the year-end peak season, their largest customer's pre-Christmas stockholding requirements were more critical than ever before. To compound matters further, that customer was already in the process of downgrading the company as a supplier, owing to delays in the preceding period.

In short, the person stepping in was expected to save Christmas whilst simultaneously navigating a politically unstable organisation.

Solution

Given the complexity of the circumstances, we looked for an interim manager who, alongside logistics and manufacturing experience, also possessed a background in crisis management. Our client decided in favour of the candidate we put forward after a single round of interviews.

The December start date placed our interim manager immediately in the thick of the year-end close and stocktaking period. The primary task was to keep customer deliveries on schedule — a challenge that was simultaneously an operational test and an opportunity to rebuild trust with a sceptical key account.

The real trial proved to be the organisation and execution of the annual inventory count, conducted in the very middle of the Christmas peak. Caught in the crossfire of conflicting interests from sales, production, logistics, and procurement, our interim manager completed the stocktake on time and in good order; the subsequent analysis provided a sound basis for identifying the genuine weaknesses in inventory management.

In recognition of the fragile situation, the interim success manager and the leadership of Interim Ltd. were involved in the process to a greater depth than would ordinarily be the case. It was worth it.

When the acting Chief Executive Officer was succeeded by a new CEO, the collaboration was also placed on a new footing. The results of the inventory count, and the professional analysis thereof, persuaded the incoming leader that the interim manager's recommendations merited serious attention. From that point on, an effective and constructive working relationship developed between the CEO and our interim manager.

Results

• The project concluded one to two weeks ahead of the planned deadline. The successor became available sooner than anticipated, and the handover proceeded smoothly.
• At the key account, the gradually improving manufacturing and delivery performance meant that, by the close of the project, trust had been restored and the risk of supplier downgrading had been averted.
• One year on, the CEO confirmed that the SCM successor had settled in well, that the organisational changes had calmed down, and that results had improved.