One can address some of the QA and external commercial issues but there is far more of a threat to the ISP Interim Service Provider Model “lurking under the waterline”.
With my turnaround hat on many interim providers needed refinancing last year. 2010/11 is Alot more challenging. You could argue it will shake out the weaker providers, but there is an opportunity to fundamentally change the business model now to prepare for the rocky ride rather than wait and fail.
At which point you may as well sort the experience and create a more robust model that works a whole lot better and profitably at the same time. The “successful Interim management providers” like Interim Partners et al, will have even more demanding owner investors, that have expectations that go far beyond survival, and failure to achieve growth and revenue targets will cause management problems and changes too.
Without wishing to state the obvious Profit is essential to survive and we find interim provider model is not sustainable to do business at less than a 20% margin.
If you do what you do over the next few months – the facts and climate suggest you won’t even get what you’ve got. E.g the recession is 3x worse than 1990s now and there have only been 25% of the insolvencies.
Interesting times for us all.