Interim Marketing Executive Saves Boyden Client from Launching Product in US

Client:

US-based composites maker for power transmission products

Office:

US Interim Management

The Situation:

"It was not the answer the customer wanted to hear, but it was the right answer." That's Tony Barack's conclusion after completing an Interim Manager assignment with a company that had hoped to sell an anti-ballistic protection technology to the United States military. If successful, the new technology would have pushed the company - a composites maker for power transmission products - into a new business and required it to build a facility in the Unites States to manufacture the system. With such risks in play, the company turned to Boyden to find an Interim Manager with the experience to understand the product and its uses and evaluate whether or not it could be successfully sold in the U.S.

The Challenge:

“It was an unusual assignment for us,” said Cheryl A. Cavanagh, Managing Director of Boyden Interim Management in the America’s.  “The majority of our Interim Executives move into the client’s business and operate all or some part of it, or hold down a senior staff position. In this case, our Interim Executive was asked to review a new product, evaluate an intricate market, the military use of technology, and determine if the product had any merit in the field.”

Boyden asked Barack to take on the assignment because of his experience, in his own words, “of being a bridge between technology and technologists and the marketplace for my entire career.”

“Tony could understand the technology and its capabilities. He was quite skilled at researching the market and testing whether or not the product could be utilized,” Cavanagh said. “One of the strengths of the Interim Management model is the availability of extremely experienced executives with varied backgrounds that fit very specific needs.” 

A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in Economics, Barack spent the early years of his career with the technology transfer and commercialization arm of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He was part of the NASA’s program to transfer space and rocket technology to civilian uses.  The new procedures and outreach strategies he initiated dramatically improved the effectiveness of this effort and as a result a number of business relationships were established with major corporations and high tech firms.

Later he joined the Carnegie Mellon University’s Research Institute in Pittsburgh, an organization that conducted contract research and new product development for private companies and government agencies. Again he helped to bridge the gap between the laboratory and the marketplace.

He accepted the Interim Management assignment because he felt it was a “perfect fit for my talents, experience and disposition.”

The Boyden Solution:

For nine months, Barack focused on learning every detail possible about the protection needs and threat issues in combat, the product his client proposed developing and how it squared up to the military’s needs and expectations.

“I dug very deep into the market and talked to scores of experts inside and outside of the military to gage where this product might fit. Then we evaluated whether the product was capable of meeting the need as it was at the moment and then well into the future,” Barack said.

He concluded that the product was “underdeveloped” and would require considerable enhancements to meet the new higher threat levels now being faced by today’s military.

“My recommendation was for the client to either invest substantial dollars to bring the product to a state where it could compete in the military market; or divest itself of its interests in the defense market and concentrate the company’s resources on its core business. That’s what happened,” he said.

“While my answer wasn’t what the company wanted to hear, everyone appreciated the great risk involved in bringing an under developed product to market. Had they gone ahead, a real potential existed for severe and negative economic consequences,” he said. .

Being able to provide the right answer can be attributed, in part, to the Interim Management model the customer utilized, Barack believes.

“By far, Interim Managers have much deeper backgrounds and experiences in any number of fields they participate in than the internal staff they support. The success of the concept rests on the premise that the Interim can be two levels above the requirements of the job in terms of expertise and experience.

“And, as an Interim I was free to dig as deep as I needed to without interference – even from the normal day to day obligations a permanent staff member would have – to accumulate the knowledge needed to make a sound recommendation. In addition, my term was short so I wasn’t a threat to others in the organization whose careers might be affected by the final decision.

“The Interim model is a very logical and positive environment in which to challenge a problem or issue, study it, evaluate it and come to a conclusion,” Barack concluded.

“Tony represented what the practice of Boyden Interim Management is about,” said Cavanagh. “We are building this practice by identifying unique executives who can move quickly into an organization and bring their special talents to the assignment.”