Interim CEO/Transition Manager

For more information

Challenge

From summer 2002 through Autumn 2003 I served as Interim CEO/Transition Manager of the firm GS-Automation, Geneva: a Swiss technology company which had over the preceding two years been suffering badly from the post-2000 steep decline in international industrial production and with it the market for their highly specialized capital equipment. In this capacity I was charged by the Board with devising and implementing a turn-around program aimed at putting the company firmly on a path of survival, innovation, sales, quality jobs and profits.

I had been contacted by the Board of Directors of the firm after we had earlier in the year run a Due Diligence and made recommendations to the firm which was at that point suffering badly from the market turndown - as were every one of our leading competitors world wide. Our recommendation was to make the hard choice between (a) closing down without delay (and with it dismissing the labor force at a time of major increases in plant closures and unemployment throughout Switzerland), and (b) a radical restructuring and refocusing of the company to turn it into an effective competitor in a morose market plagued by chronic over-capacity, along with a major injection of additional working capital as needed to ensure the transition.

This latter recommendation was eventually accepted and the Board asked me to take over the job on a fixed term basis of ensuring the restructuring and at the same time to prepare for a new management team. The target for the turn-over was tentatively set for mid-2003, depending on the build up of new orders, that in turn being a direct function of the status of the international economy and our ability to reach the market with our new tools of communications and interaction with selected clients.

Response

My approach to this can briefly be summarized as follows:

Keep the full team in place, on the grounds that the staff was already reduced to the bone and their knowledge and competence of each was critical.
Find and plow major resources into staff training in key areas of sales, management, production, supply, and client relations.
Major all-court push on international sales (the traditional near-by European markets being dead as a doornail) -- this in turn driven by a major push integrating a new interactive web site and a number of support functions, including IP videoconferencing with direct low cost links to best potential clients.
Develop a first rate, cost-effective IT internal and outreach structure for the firm, with hardware, software and support services, while maxing internal knowledge and competence in these areas.
Redefine and reposition the company as a technology-driven R&D plus limited scale production boutique (making arrangements with Far East companies for later production runs of more standard machines as new models emerge from the drawing boards).
Complete overhaul of the corporate image to show that a new team and new competences were in place -- but that the company's thirty year tradition of respect for Swiss engineering excellence is still alive and working in Geneva. We regrouped around the name change of GS-Automation: Guaranteed Swiss solutions for industry. This corporate remake extended from letterhead, website and business cards to office and factory floor and to the machines themselves.
Secure the several million dollars needed to finance this transition underway over 2003.

Results

Where does all this stand today? Well the company is still there in Geneva, paying its bills, taking on new people, and after a year of hard work now has full order books. Thus we can honestly say that this first phase has been successfully negotiated. But that is just the beginning.

The most immediate management challenge today is wrestling with problems of production and on time delivery for customers who all of a sudden after three years of absolute quiet suddenly all need their machines at the same time. The new management team is doing a fine job, and the next step will be to get back to the implementation of the ambitious IT-facilitated push, including the refinement of our early attempts to create built in tele-monitoring and maintenance capacities that work. Given the fact that our new customers are thousands of miles away in most cases, this will be one of the keys to success. The outstanding pilot project of company wide technical education and skills upgrading undertaken in partnership with the Canton of Geneva is moving ahead and will hopefully this summer be renewed and expanded.

For more information

Go to GS-Automation web site for a full set of background information on the company, its products and its new international structure.
Take the Quick Tour to get a feel for the transition strategy and structure..
Go to 4 January Press Release announcing transition program.
Go to GS-A Strengths October 2003 summary to new management

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