CIO – Chief Transformation Officer 

In today’s Financial Times, Ade McCormack argues that the CIO is sitting on a golden opportunity in these turbulent times to become the Chef Transformation Officer. It is a well argued case. As the downturn erodes corporate margins, a strong focus on automation will be required to drive down costs and replenish margin. 

You can play the cheap game and focus just on cost reduction, or create new and price incomparable offerings that are in keeping with market conditions. Brooklands Interim Executives have a combined experience spanning decades in cost control and innovation, to move our clients’ operations forwards in good times and bad. 

Noting that CIO stands for Chief Information Officer not Chief IT Officer, McCormack also sings the praises of the outsourcing option for commodity stuff – networks and computers, along with associated operating systems and commodity applications. But you should hang onto your business intelligence and knowledge management technologies. Outsource your activities – not your controls. 

Brooklands Executives has a wealth of Interim CIO and IT Project Management expertise to help sort the two, develop the strategies, negotiate outsourcing and off shoring deals and then implement them. 

So if you want to rapidly extract value in IT to boost your bottom line and move the supply chain focus towards the customer, thereby enhancing their experience and loyalty, now is the time to do it. Brooklands Interim Executives is the way to do it.

“I was asked what I thought about the recession. I thought about it and decided I did not want to take part” Sam Walton – US retailer.

If you want your top team to be galvanised by the power of positive thought, then our top team of professional Interim Executives are on standby.

They work alongside your senior managers to achieve new heights in cost control, business process improvement and operational efficiency. Right now there is no time to lose in seeking ways to drive these improvements to your bottom line.

It costs nothing but 20 minutes of your time for an outline discussion, without obligation – think about it and I hope you will decide to take part.

Then call me to fix a date.

David Jensen
CEO

Male, Pale, Stale?

Derek Higgs is dead, sadly. Has his famous report died with him? Published over 5 years ago in a climate of economic optimism, it has since been vindicated by a succession of corporate failures.

The role of the non-executive Director ranges from pal of the Chairman, to regulator, to a wise third party voice. In the current climate can any enterprise afford to be run by the ‘male, pale and stale’? Fresh thinking, fresh vision, fresh ideas are called for. We might not be ready for Norway’s law that required companies to have 40% female directors by February of 2008, but why not?

Brooklands Executives has proved it’s capability to find outstanding Non-Executive Director candidates for UK companies – without a single ‘old school tie’ in sight.

Is it time to beef up your Board? If so, call us for more information.

NEWS BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2008

It is a while since I sent a bulletin, but now the holidays are behind us it is time to do so. Since there are experts out there commenting on the economy, I shall avoid that by and large. Suffice to say it is not all doom and gloom and there are glimmers of light include USA growth exceeding expectations, and discounted London retailers fairing quite well. The housing market being stagnant is not the same as a house price collapse. Nevertheless the financial sector is taking a hammering, and those offering recruitment services in that sector are in pain – Brooklands does not have much exposure there. The John Lewis Partnership, the bellwether of middle England’s optimism, has seen sales fall – but I have just ordered my new curtains from them so that should help!

What does seem to be consistent is people are seeking value. This is not to say that I believe you should cut your rates – far from it. But I do believe it is more important than ever to demonstrate where the added value is in hiring an Interim Executive and make sure your contribution is quantifiable, very visible and well appreciated by both your hiring manager and his peers.

Traditionally those businesses that continue to invest in marketing through a downturn survive better and come out stronger. This month we are spending over £50,000 on our series of ads in the Times and Daily Telegraph equity pages which promote purely Interim Executive Management. In October, we are also attending the Human Resources Summit for UK HR Directors in Amsterdam (30+ guaranteed meetings), the Recruitment Industry event in Frankfurt, and the Finance Director’s Forum on the P&O ship Aurora (40+ guaranteed meetings) - all of which adds up to a similar spend next month. We reinvest our profits for our mutual benefit with the aim of winning you more assignments.

Our stock-market quoted competitors report their business decline in the UK is offset by overseas performance. A significant part of our Executive Search work is coming from Europe and the Middle East currently and so we continue to invest in getting our name known there to seize opportunities and spread risk. In recent times the weakness of the dollar has discouraged Middle East companies from hiring UK Interim Executives – now that the ‘green back’ is in the ascendancy once more, we will once more explore the ways in which we can get a foot in the door for Interim Executive assignments in the UAE which is the region we focus on most. Indeed Stephen Goldman is there at the end of this month picking up more work from old friends and visiting a raft of new potential clients.

We intend to be in China in January 2009 on a 10 day mission to market research the future there. One thing all pundits agree on is that even if their growth rate halved, (which it might, given their rising labour costs and the cost of distribution from China to Europe due to oil rates, both of which are diminishing competitive advantage), they will experience a massive shortage of management expertise in the next decade. We know of executive search competitors making a success of placing UK executives there and a cursory glance at our Interim Executive talent bank reveals just how many of you already have experience of working with the Chinese. It has to be worth our while taking a closer look.

This time last year we lost one of our biggest fee earners – the good news is that it has had zero impact and our business is ahead year-on-year and continues to grow. Key to future growth is hiring more fee earners onto the team. We have a campaign running in the Telegraph with that objective which has identified some interesting talent. I hope to be able to announce some new names on the Brooklands team soon. If you or someone you know is considered to be a top class sales professional, hot on business development at a high level, and is hungry for a new environment, I’d love to hear about it!

David Jensen
CEO