The latest findings from the quarterly Ipsos MORI survey for Q4 2011 show continued growth of the industry, in spite of the recession. Enquiries for all member firms are at a 5 year high and the average length of assignments has also increased, from 108 days in 2006, to 166 days in 2011.
The results reveal that enquiries for interim managers were the highest they have been since 2011. This is a rise of 76 per cent on the same quarter in 2010, and 4 per cent on the third quarter (Q3) in 2011.
Companies within the private sector are increasingly turning to Executive Interim Managers to solve problems and help manage change within their businesses; this sector represents two thirds (66%) of all assignments, the highest percentage for four years.
30% of requested assignment functions in this quarter were for Special Projects (up from 26% in Q3 2011) followed by Finance (17%) which saw a two point fall over the same period. C-suite executives represented 7% of the IMA business in the final quarter of 2011.
The most common reason for an assignment is Programme/Project Management, with 40% in Q4, up from 36% the previous quarter. The largest increase was seen for Change or Transition Management, which in Q4 accounted for 19% of the all assignment functions, up from 14% in Q3.
Business Improvement and Gap Management each represented 16% of completed assignments in the final wave of 2011. Whereas the former was relatively unchanged from the previous quarter (up 1 percentage point from 15%), the proportion of completed assignments attributed to Gap Management decreased by seven percentage points (from 23% in Q3). These figures are notably higher than the next most cited reasons such as but then this is dependent on how the individual providers have categorised the reason for the assignment.
Unsurprisingly, the public sector is running at its lowest level for four years with only 34% of interim management assignments accounting for this sector.
Additionally, as in previous quarters, the majority of assignments in Q4 were predominantly based in the UK (94%). However, this quarter saw an increase in the number of international assignments (6%), particularly those based in Western Europe.
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