How I first discovered the “Transition management”

In 1996 after 12 years of experience in Supply Chain at different Management level within SmithKline Beecham, I have decided it was time for me to face new challenges and discover new horizons.
After a discrete lobbying in the International Operations Management Division in London I received an offer for China. The Polish Operations Director in Tianjin was looking for a temporary support in a local project to implement JD Edwards. My role was to make sure that all requirements from Warehouse, Shipping and Invoicing were taken into account by the Chinese Project manager. Also during this time he asked me to confirm whether or not a new Warehouse was necessary to face the increasing demand. After 6 months, JD Edwards was in place and I could confirm that the current warehouse was sufficient for the next few years according to the evolution of the Sales Forecast.

This was really my first experience with a very different culture. The background I had plus my flexibility has helped me to take a new job in a very short time and drive successfully the project until the end.

During my last month in China, The VP for International Operations called me to know if I was ready to take the first plane for a Global Supply Chain in Rio de Janeiro. This was really the kind of offer I couldn’t refuse. The first week of February 1997 I arrived in Brazil, just before Carnival.

At this time, SmithKline Beecham had just started a global project around the world to formalize and standardize its Supply Chain Processes, Organization and Systems. Nobody in Rio had the profile and the experience to lead the project locally. After the meeting the Brazilian General Manager, Mr Paul Hughes, asked me if I was ready to take over this job. This was the kind of proposal I was expecting since long. At the end of my mission in China, I started my second transition Management mission in Rio, in an office with a nice view on the Sugar Loaf.

In 6 months, I have recruited a good MRP2 Manager, as the Supply Chan skills were very limited in the organization. Also I had to choose the team members of the future project team and organize the training for all the participants. At the end of my mission, the project was on track and I could come back in Europe.

I didn’t know when I left Rio that the job of Interim Management would, 10 years later, become my day to day challenge.

L'Interim Management selon Wikipedia

L'Interim Management, ou management de transition en français, est un terme anglo-saxon qui désigne une pratique consistant à recruter un manager ou un dirigeant de manière ultra-réactive, pour une durée temporaire et pour une mission prédéfinie. Cette pratique répond généralement à quatre situations types :
• Gestion de crise
• Management de projet
• Conduite du changement
• Remplacement temporaire

Plusieurs facteurs expliquent le succès de l'Interim Management :
• Rapidité : les cabinets d'Interim Management s'appuient sur un vivier composé exclusivement de dirigeants et de managers expérimentés et disponibles dans toutes les fonctions de l’entreprise. Ils peuvent ainsi répondre à un besoin de ressources en quelques semaines, voire quelques jours, au lieu de la durée de plusieurs mois requise par les cabinets traditionnels.
• Expérience : les interim managers sont des cadres et dirigeants généralement rémunérés plus de 80 K€ en salaire brut annuel. Ce sont des professionnels expérimentés, habituellement âgés de plus de 40 ans et ayant déjà accumulé une forte expérience du secteur dans lequel ils remplissent leur mission.
• Objectivité : les interim managers n'ont pas d'a-priori sur l'entreprise dans laquelle ils interviennent. Ils apportent une vision neuve et extérieure sur son organisation et sur ses défis de développement.
• Engagement : puisqu'ils sont détachés au sein de l'entreprise, les interim managers sont responsables au même titre que n'importe quel employé.
• Culture du résultat: les interim managers, du fait de leur position élevée dans l'entreprise, possèdent les leviers nécessaires pour agir efficacement. Ils sont là pour remplir la mission qui leur a été confiée et n'hésitent pas à prendre les décisions nécessaires, même quand elles sont difficiles. Ils ne sont pas sensibles aux questions de politique interne et ne constituent donc pas une menace pour les autres managers.
• Transfert de compétence : l'arrivée d'un interim manager au sein de l'entreprise est l'occasion d'un changement de pratiques. Il apporte une vision et des compétences nouvelles dont peuvent bénéficier les managers en place.

My last experience: 14 months Transition Management in Shannon (Ireland) for Schwartz Pharma.

At the end of 2007, at a time where everybody was ready to celebrate Christmas, I was contacted by the Supply Chain Director of Schwartz Pharma in Shannon (Ireland).
Following a Management decision the Supply Chain Manager of the Plant had just been dismissed, and the question was : “ Are you ready to come to Ireland to fulfill the job until the end of a new recruitment ? ”
The first working day of 2008, I took over the job, initially for a 3 months mission.
In two words, the Shannon Plant is manufacturing the bulk of an old range of products, but more than this it’s also Controlling and Planning the entire Supply Chain of one of the Blockbuster of the group manufactured in 3 different plants in Germany.
When I arrived, the Supply Chain Direction was divided in 3 parts: Supply (Production and procurement Planning), Demand (Customer Service, sales & marketing), Warehouse.
The situation I found there was strange; after an interview of each member of the team, I quickly discovered that all people were willing to work although their knowledge in Supply Chain was poor. The system they were using was SAP, but the configuration of the ERP was very basic and had never evolved since it was implemented in 2003. But more than this the atmosphere between the people and in particular the relationships between the Supply Team and the Customer Service & Demand team were extremely bad.
My first job was to reestablish normal working conditions between the people. Therefore immediately decided to formalize daily and weekly meetings with all demand and Supply people. The purpose of course was not to organize meetings for the pleasure of doing it, but just to force people to work together around the key Supply Chain Processes:
1. Sales & Operations Planning
2. Master production Schedule
3. Scheduling of Production and Shipment
4. Follow up of Execution (Shipment, Production)

Also, during these meetings I tried as much as possible to use my sense of humor, to facilitate discussions and remove the stress between the people.
One of the great challenge I had to face during my stay, was the Irish culture, a culture made of enthusiasm and traditions often hidden behind a strange “ocean of tranquility”…. Also I have always been very surprise about the “learning curve” of the people, a curve that I had never seen before in any of the countries where I worked in the past ( Brasil, China, France, Netherland, UK,…)
For example It took ages before the Supply & demand team became able to do a good Sales and Operations Planning. I finally discovered the only way to teach them something, was to asked them to practice and practice, rather than spending hours in a classroom.

After 3 months a new Supply Chain Manager came in the company and after a few days of “knowledge transfer” he became autonomous.

After this first mission, the Supply Chain Director asked me to stay longer in order to remodel SAP for the management of their Blockbuster manufactured in Germany. This mission appeared after a modification of the Business model the Company was using to Supply this product.

In this project management role I started to revise and prototype in SAP the different processes, before delivering training to people:
1. Receiving and analyzing Sales Forecast
2. Treating customer Orders
3. Material allocation
4. Preparation of shipment
5. Invoicing
6. Analyzing Master Production Schedule and MRP
7. Creating purchase orders
8. Follow-up of executions with sub contractors
9. Master Data creation and Update.


After a successful “Go live” of the SAP remodeling project in September 2008, I was asked to stay until the end of the year to do the same exercise for the old Products they were manufacturing.

In December 2008 the Production Manager made me an offer to prepare and deliver a SAP training for all the Production Supervisors. At this time almost nobody in Production had a single idea of what SAP was and a lot of errors were generated at the end of a Production, which was creating big troubles in Finance. Therefore I developed a special training program for “Operations” which lead to an intensive 2 months program with 5 modules:
1. Master Data
2. Production Planning, MRP, Scheduling
3. Creating, Releasing Process Orders
4. Confirming, closing Process Orders
5. Correcting errors and COGI’s

At the end of February 2009 I was very pleased to celebrate with the Shannon the Success of our joined efforts in a very nice restaurant in Bunraty.

“Kill The Skills" why interim managers are needed in times of crisis

I wrote this message more than 10 years ago when I was working for a major Multinational Company in the Electronic Business.This company was facing a major restructuring after a merger and as Operation Director at that time I was fighting to protect people from the desaster of a severe restructuring.
Today in 2009 all this seems to be so far, but as Transition Manager I am now working to help Companies to face this difficults period and help them to be prepared for when the better days will come.

“Kill The Skills"
Alliances, acquisitions, mergers often look like real battlefields where employees are expressing openly or secretly their new stress, distraction and confusion.
Although top managers appears on TV or in Magazines with "AquaFresh" smiles, presenting how they were so clever to imagine the new "partnership" with brand new strategies leading to maximum growth and top profitability for happy shareholders, situation inside the new corporation rarely looks so easy.
As stock exchange value goes up ,delighted by this new generation of head-cutters, situation in the field often looks more like the Bronx in New York.
Through the last 6 years, the total value of mergers in the world was multiplied by six, reaching 2300 billion dollars in 98 ("Au secours, mon Entreprise fusionne!"-"L'Express"-August 26Th, 1999).
Following a recent A.T Kearney study made on a hundred companies that recently faced a merger between 1993 and 1996, 58% of them have partially or totally killed the existing values (human and organizational assets) of one of the 2 companies, without any capitalisation.
Two third of them have openly admitted to have missed their strategic objectives.
Frequently, the expected savings that have justified dramatic rationalization decisions never happened or were achieved on the surface after massive restructuring based on simple considerations like headcount or facilities numbers, creating chaos in the organisation, generating later on considerable indirect costs . General root causes for significant secondary cost increase after restructuring can be:

• -Best elements are leaving rapidly, creating confusion between survivals.
• -Within management, best "Politicians", after intense lobbying , carefully keep for themselves and friends key positions, leaving the others in an unbearable waiting mood.
• -Reorganization remains at "reconstruction" stage at inferior levels, creating a durable mess still alive 2 or 3 years later .
• -Senior people ,sacked for the privilege of being "amortised ", disappear with experiences and know-how, leaving behind them an empty shell.
• -Absence of care to create a new culture in the "just born" corporation, helping to keep the existence of hostile clans.
• - Desynchronisation of existing synergies between R&D, Manufacturing , Marketing...
• -People, at shopfloor level wandering about the rumours, progressively looses their productivity.

So what? Losing your job after a merger or an acquisition, is it good or bad news?
Fighting to keep your position within your current company, with unclear borders in your role, with degraded atmosphere, is not necessarily the best option.
Think twice before taking any decision!
But if you want to try to survive in the new environnement, and continue to surf in this new climate, you can probably find your inspiration in "The new science of Disorder" by Ian Stewart , in which you will learn faster than anywhere else how to face the wonderful random and uncertainty of chaos...…or you can work with us, as they are so many other ways than disorder to keep those skills alive after the storm.
Emmanuel de Ryckel

En attendant la fin de la crise, pensez à l'Interim Management.

Le Figaro publie ce matin cet article sur la précarité de l'emploi des Cadres en cette période de crise. Une solution pour elles, le recours au Management de Transition. L'Interim Manager, opérationnel en un temps rapide pourra ainsi préparer le terrain pour une organisation optimale et définitive pour la reprise (EdR)
Les recrutements sont en berne chez les cadres
À chaque jour sa mauvaise nouvelle. Aujourd'hui, c'est l'emploi des cadres qui confirme son repli observé depuis l'automne dernier. « La situation du marché de l'emploi des cadres devient particulièrement préoccupante », avoue Gabriel Artero, le président de l'Association pour l'emploi des cadres (Apec).

En mars 2009, le volume des offres d'emploi confiées à l'Apec s'est établi à 20 400, soit une baisse de 21 % en un an. Les deux secteurs les plus touchés sont l'industrie - à peine une entreprise sur trois envisage de recruter en 2009 - et la construction - 64 % des entreprises qui recrutent aujourd'hui ont des plans moins importants que l'année dernière à la même époque. Deux secteurs (banque assurance et médico-social) tirent leur épingle du jeu et restent relativement porteurs malgré la crise. Quant à l'ingénierie, la recherche et développement et l'informatique, ils font de la résistance et prévoient de continuer à embaucher des cadres, mais dans des proportions moindres que l'an passé.

L'évolution est pire en ce qui concerne les offres cadres sur Internet. L'indice de diffusion calculé par l'Apec est en chute de 40 % en mars, par rapport au même mois de l'année précédente. « Le repli est général, indique l'Apec. Il est particulièrement marqué pour les fonctions finance comptabilité et ressources humaines, et, dans une moindre mesure, les services techniques et la communication. »


Les jeunes dipômés moins sollicités

D'après l'Apec, la proportion d'entreprises de plus de 100 salariés qui recrutent des cadres diminue également : moins 12 points sur le premier trimestre en un an et à peine une entreprise sur trois, contre une sur deux il y a un an, prévoit d'embaucher avant la fin du mois de juin. Le recours aux jeunes diplômés est aussi en régression : seules 30 % des entreprises, contre 37 % il y a un an, envisagent d'en intégrer.

En ce qui concerne les fonctions, seuls les postes offerts en direction générale et en santé, social, culture restent timidement dans le positif (+ 1 % et + 6 % par rapport à 2008). En revanche, les postes offerts en production, services techniques, informatique et ressources humaines chutent tous de plus de 30 % sur un an.

Le Figaro économique 22 avril 2009

THE BEST IS YET TO COME

Hi,

thank you for your visit. I am currently rebuilding this site and it will be fully operational in a few weeks time. In between if you want to know more about Transition Management in the Supply Chain aera don t hesitate to contact me , my mobile phone is 0033672756842 and my email ederyckel@aol.com.
Talk to you very soon.

Emmanuel

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TRANSITION MANAGEMENT - SUPPLY CHAIN

My name is Emmanuel de Ryckel. I have 20 years of experience in the Industry and in the Supply Chain area; since 6 years I am working as Transition Manager in the Phamaceutical Industry. I am now available for missions in Production, Procurement, Distribution Planning, Warehouse. I have a strong background in ERP implementation or remodeling, particularly in SAP.
I am flexible for missions at different levels, from Strategy to Execution, in countries like Belgium, France, UK, Brasil, Ireland..;

Qu’est-ce que le management de transition?

Le management de transition est la mise à disposition de cadres de direction opérationnels dans le but de mener à bien une mission spécifique de transition, de transformation ou de crise. L’entreprise qui fait appel à ces services ne dispose pas des ressources internes en termes de qualification ou de disponibilité pour atteindre les objectifs à court terme ; c’est donc dans ces circonstances que le management de transition apporte une valeur ajoutée importante.De nombreux facteurs font du management de transition le puissant outil de gestion moderne qu’il est devenu aujourd’hui:
• Rapidité : L’on peut mettre en place des managers de transition en quelques jours, par opposition à du staff permanent. Cela est déterminant lorsque la contrainte de temps est essentielle.
• Expérience : Nos managers de transition sont toujours surqualifiés pour la position qu’ils prennent en charge ; c’est l’un des principes fondamentaux de la profession qui garantit des résultats rapides et de qualité. Ils ont par ailleurs déjà été confrontés dans leur parcours antérieur à des problématiques semblables à celle pour laquelle ils sont pressentis.
• Objectivité : Le manager de transition n’est pas influencé par le passé et les jeux d’influence ou de politique interne ; cela lui permet de se concentrer sur le cœur de sa mission et les objectifs à atteindre dans le meilleur intérêt de l’entreprise Cliente.
• Responsabilité : Contrairement aux consultants qui ont un rôle de conseil pur, les managers de transition font aussi bien l’étude de cas que son implémentation, ce qui les rend totalement responsables de leur action vis à vis des Clients.
• Effectivité : Le fait d’agir au niveau du Comité de Direction ou au niveau C donne au manager de transition l’autorité nécessaire pour mener à bien des initiatives ou des transformations importantes qui vont avoir un impact significatif sur les structures et/ou les résultats de l’entreprise. Contrairement à un intérimaire classique, le manager de transition n’est pas là pour gérer la continuité.
• Engagement : Les vrais managers de transition exercent cette activité à plein temps. Pour eux, cela n’est jamais une activité que l’on fait en attendant une opportunité de carrière. Ils sont heureux dans ce métier par les défis, le changement, la découverte et l’apprentissage permanent que celui-ci leur apporte.