With House of Fraser, Debenhams and M&S being the latest victims of this progressive fast-moving business landscape, it’s only a matter of time before we see similar traditional corporates who have been operating the same way for the last century, joining this list. However, it’s not all doom and gloom, as there is still a chance for businesses to stay in the game and ahead of the disruption curve.

Corporates today need to future-proof their businesses and be agile to compete. This means having the ability to react fast to the changing world, as well as challenging the traditional five-year strategy. Transformation is no longer a choice, start-ups with innovation at their business core are already here and are disrupting the market at warp speed. To stay ahead of this disruption, businesses need to start thinking like start-ups, by nurturing and driving innovative thinking.

 

For corporates to change fast enough and keep up with their competitors, they need support from executives who can offer fresh, objective insight to help them adapt, in addition to a constant stream of, energy and innovative fresh thinking and ideas.

 

Currently, there are many routes to implement change including the employment of permanent capability, contractors and or the use of management consultancies.

 

Recruiting a permanent member of staff is antiquated and risky. Anyone can master an interview or an application process. How can you tell you’ve taken on the right person for the job by looking at their CV and having a meeting or two with them? By the time you realise they might not be the right person, it’s too late – you’ve racked up hours of interview debt and may just not have the time and resources to go through the whole process again. Businesses need to have solutions to problems in the time it takes to sift through 100 CVs.

 

The other ‘solution’ is to work with a management consultancy. This is becoming increasingly counterintuitive – management consultancies are expensive and their long-term approach doesn’t make sense with the demand for hyperspeed reaction. At the end of the day, they profit from the failure of businesses, evident by the Big Four, who allegedly made $71m from the demise of Carillion^[1].

 

Transformation is here to stay, so to stay ahead, the solution is high-impact interim teams, who can be parachuted into businesses to react at pace. Sullivan & Stanley was formed to help the business world catch up with the times. We don’t have staff like management consultancies. Nor do we have a little black book of workers’ contacts, guarded with our lives, like recruitment firms. Instead, we have created ‘SWAT teams’ comprised of the top 5% of executives and knowledge workers. These execs are parachuted into business to solve problems and drive change. Rather than looking at CVs, interviewing candidates and putting them into positions; we handpick interims from our network to assemble bespoke teams that work on a specific project. We help future proof with our innovative thinking and transfer of knowledge to ultimately leave businesses in an overall better place. Our teams even work on a solution to the problem before they start, so the business knows what they’re buying before committing to anything.

 

Change has never been more complex or in need of rapid reaction. It’s time the management consultancy and recruitment industries became part of the solution, not the problem. The world has moved towards a gig economy and for this reason the game has now changed from ownership of talent to access to talent. Capitalise on the change effectively and your business will stay on the frontfoot and strive. Choose to stand still, and your business will struggle to keep up.

 

Pat Lynes is a business transformation expert, author of The Interim Revolution and founder and CEO of Sullivan and Stanley.

 

^[1] https://www.accountancylive.com/big-four-feasted-carillion-ps71m-fees

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