IMT-PARTNERS | Achievements

6-month, full-time assignment

The Group is an ETI with 3,300 employees and 6,000 external service providers, sales of €600 million and strong organic growth.

It relies on 2 core businesses:

Deployment of fiber optic network infrastructure as part of the high-speed broadband plan on behalf of operators
Deployment & connection of optical fiber to the last point of contact (activity management)

The CEO is aware that the growth that has driven the Group's strong development will slow down (fiber rollout). Against the backdrop of the LBO, he therefore wishes to place greater emphasis on performance across all the Group's BUs, in order to improve financial performance over the medium term. The BUs have different degrees of maturity in terms of performance management and improvement.

The Managing Director wishes to create a "Group Performance Department" responsible for steering and driving the alignment and coherence of the BUs' approaches.

This "Group Performance Department" is entrusted to a young "High-Po" who joined the Group 6 months earlier, with experience in another sector.

This position is her first as a Director and Manager, so the client wishes to set up a "mentoring" program to support her in building this Direction and in taking up the position.

Duration : 6 months

7-month, full-time assignment

6-month, full-time Transformation assignment

CIO replacement

ERP deployment at all European sites

10-month, full-time Transformation Mission

Industry: Site management

"In the context of a Carve Out, our client called on IMT Partners to provide a site manager to prepare the takeover by an investment fund...". A French company with several sites, this manufacturer decided to look for a buyer for one of its production sites, in order to refocus on its home market. This site, run for many years by the same manager, needed to be upgraded, and required a strong focus on quality and production optimization. It was against this backdrop that the company turned to IMT Partners for help in optimizing the site and reassuring future buyers. Indeed, in addition to maximizing the value of the sale by optimizing industrial processes, an improvement in quality was also necessary for this site, whose workforce had experienced very low turnover over the last ten years. An external viewpoint will enable us to quickly question certain practices, and thus improve the site's profitability. The manager's mission statement was to focus on both production and quality, while at the same time taking charge of management in a context of transformation. On his first day on the job, the interim manager proposed by IMT Partners was introduced to the teams. Their reception was divided, with some people delighted that a new site manager was taking over and bringing in Best Practices, and others fearful of the arrival of a profile that would transform this industrial structure. He was quick to note these divisions, and wanted to emphasize the need to support the change process, so as to get everyone on board with the forthcoming transformations. During the first few months of his assignment, the manager, thanks to his natural leadership skills, set a course that enabled the workforce to avoid fear of negative business trends. At the same time, he works on project management, empowering certain managers who had not been sufficiently promoted until then. This rapid and effective change has enabled the company to make the most of its site, and to both find an ambitious buyer and optimize its sale. The interim manager's presence and experience of evolving in changing environments also ensure continuity of management during the change of shareholder. The assignment was a success, and the site's activity has now grown considerably, with the site becoming more competitive and the teams more motivated. For this assignment, IMT-Partners indexed its service contract with the client to the manager's performance, by setting up a performance-based contract. As a result, the manager's daily fee during the assignment was significantly lower than market practice. At the end of the assignment, he benefited from significant success bonuses, enabling him to earn a profit compared with a "standard" contract. These bonuses were triggered because the objectives set by all parties at the end of four weeks of auditing and on-site intervention by the manager were achieved and even exceeded.

Duration : 12 months

Industry - supply chain

"Our client is a French group, operating in the metallurgy sector. Within the framework of a merger of several entities, the group uses the services of an interim manager to rethink the organization of its Supply Chain... "

By manufacturing its products on demand, this manufacturer places the Supply Chain at the heart of its organization. This just-in-time operation, combined with the fact that its industrial sites are spread over three continents and eight countries, motivates the company to optimize its Supply Chain function.

In parallel with this project, a merger of several entities convinced the group's management to call on the services of an interim manager to ensure :

Responsibility for the organization, planning and optimization of physical and administrative flows, according to the rules defined in the flow designs

The organization and coordination of the different logistic services in each country

Coordination, with the support of the Quality, Industrial and Purchasing departments, of the implementation and management of subcontracting flows, in order to ensure the best customer service at the best cost

The organization, implementation and management of the flow of products and semi-finished products purchased for processing or resale.

At the same time, we are responsible for the supply chain and its reorganization.

Story-board:

The first month of intervention takes place on the various international sites so that the manager can immerse himself in the particularities of each of them, and understand the specific requirements of each market and customer expectations. This immersion phase allows the interim manager to understand the management of existing flows.

The second phase of the mission will allow the interim manager to carry out an inventory of the Supply Chain function as well as its relations with the Quality, Industrial and Purchasing departments.

To do this, it draws on audits previously carried out on the various sites by an external body and compares them with its own observations.

The challenge of the mission is threefold: the manager must ensure the responsibility of the function, optimize it, while preparing it for the transformation linked to the internal merger.

In 6 months, the use of an interim manager helped to make the function more reliable and optimize it, by combining an external viewpoint with the company's own practices: the transformation was greatly facilitated by anticipating changes in processes.

Duration : 12 months

Industry - HR

"The launch of a new commercial brand and the creation of an economic and social unit are the starting points for the merger of these two players in the aeronautics sector. The centralization of support functions is one of the components of the 5-year strategic plan, the upstream phase of which involves harmonizing the collective status of the two entities..."

Our client is a French international group in the aeronautical sector, which is launching a new service line in response to changes in its home market. It is deploying an ambitious project by regrouping two entities under a new single brand.

The positioning of the integrated structures ensures strong commercial synergies, which the group will combine with an accelerated integration plan. This approach includes the regrouping of support functions at the headquarters of the recently created holding company, as well as an agreement to share personnel between the companies.

The preamble to this transfer is to build the project of harmonization of statutes essentially governed by company agreements.

Centrally, the group did not have the capacity to second a suitable resource to lead the project, and decided to call on the services of IMT Partners to introduce an interim manager.

Story-board:

This sensitive subject is above all dependent on the respect of legal deadlines. A 16-month intervention was therefore chosen to bring the project to a successful conclusion. As soon as he arrived, the Manager focused on the background, spending 10 days getting to know the content of the existing agreements. He doubled this information gathering with numerous trips to the two sites concerned in order to get a feel for the practices and to be quickly identified by the key contacts.

The next step will be to build the project to harmonize the collective statutes and to conduct its HR/Social component.

Relying on his ability to propose management methods (he has 10 years' experience in consulting), the interim manager will manage this complex project operationally, sometimes taking on the role of PMO:

framing the project by proposing a convergence management schedule
negotiation of a method agreement with the IRP
negotiation of and harmonization of all social protection
implementation of an innovative approach to promote mobility
close coordination with the HR departments of the merged entities
finalization of agreements

For a company with more than 2,000 employees, the mission includes a strong change management dimension. Alongside the Director in charge of the transformation and with the support of the internal communications manager, the interim manager will steer the social transformation.

Duration : 16 months