INSIGHT · INTERIM MANAGEMENT
Customers Don’t Buy Consulting – They Buy a System That Works
Ulrich Köster · 22 August 2026
After many years as an interim manager in Operations and Supply Chain Management, my view of consulting services has changed significantly.
I believe that most companies in a critical situation are not looking for consulting in the traditional sense.
They do not need another presentation explaining why forecast accuracy is too low. Nor a process map with 70 swimlanes. Nor another workshop concluding that communication, transparency and collaboration need to improve.
Most companies already know that.
What my clients actually want to buy is something else: a proven management system that solves a specific problem and continues to work after the interim manager leaves.
For me, this is the essential difference between traditional consulting and successful interim management.
Consulting analyzes. Interim management has to deliver.
Of course, an interim assignment also starts with analysis. I need to understand:
- How does the organization operate today?
- Where do delivery problems arise?
- Why is inventory increasing?
- Why are production plans constantly changing?
- Why are the forecast, sales plan and procurement not aligned?
- Why are there so many meetings and still too few decisions?
But analysis is only the diagnosis. Ultimately, the client does not pay for the diagnosis. They pay for the problem to disappear, or at least become manageable.
If delivery performance is poor, for example, identifying that Sales, Supply Chain and Production plan differently is not enough. The company needs a functioning management system:
Monthly S&OP. Weekly S&OE. Clear frozen planning horizons. Consistent demand figures. Defined escalations. Binding decisions. Measurable KPIs.
The value is not in knowing these terms. The value comes from making the system actually work on Monday morning.
Companies buy speed and experience
An interim manager is often called in when time has become scarce.
Delivery performance is falling. Inventory is rising. An ERP system produces poor replenishment proposals. A site misses its production targets. Suppliers create bottlenecks. Growth outpaces the organization. Or nobody can clearly explain which number is correct.
In these situations, spending six months developing a theoretically perfect target model is of little help. The client needs speed.
This is where experience creates economic value. Someone who has solved a problem several times does not start from zero.
I do not need to reinvent S&OP every time. I do not need to rediscover ABC/XYZ or ABC/HML segmentation. I do not need a fundamental debate about which items should be managed through forecasting, min/max, make-to-order or consumption.
I bring a proven model. Then comes the decisive work: the model must be adapted to the company, rather than the company to the model.
The client is really buying an operating system
I increasingly describe my approach as a kind of operating system for Operations and Supply Chain. A good operating system connects several elements.
Planning
What demand do we expect? What quantities must we produce or procure? What capacity do we need? Where will bottlenecks arise?
Management
What decisions are made daily, weekly and monthly? Who decides? Which deviations are escalated?
Organization
Who is responsible for demand planning? For supply planning? Who owns inventory? Who decides when Sales, Production and Supply Chain have conflicting objectives?
KPIs
Which KPIs actually steer the business? OTIF? Out-of-stock? Backlog? Forecast accuracy? Inventory turns? Schedule adherence? Supplier OTIF?
Above all: what decision follows when a KPI turns red?
A KPI without consequences is ultimately just an attractive number on a screen.
An example: poor delivery performance
Consider a typical problem. A company achieves 93% delivery performance against a target of 98%. The first response is often: we need more inventory.
Safety stocks are increased. A few months later, inventory has risen significantly, while delivery performance is still only 94%.
Why? Usually, the problem is not too little inventory overall. The wrong inventory is in the warehouse. Slow movers have twelve months of coverage, while the most important A-item is short by two weeks of demand.
The underlying problem is the planning system. It needs, for example:
- Product segmentation
- Differentiated replenishment strategies
- Proper forecast cleansing
- Aligned replenishment lead times
- Service-level logic
- Regular reviews of inventory parameters
- Effective S&OE management
This is the installation of a functioning system.
Presentations or operational reality?
Concepts are necessary, and every major change project needs documentation. But I now ask a simple question in my assignments:
What will still work here six months after I leave?
If the answer is “we have an excellent presentation,” the project probably has limited sustainability.
If the answer is “our S&OE takes place every Tuesday at 9 a.m.; we use one consistent demand figure; bottlenecks are prioritized according to fixed rules; responsibilities are clear and delivery performance is transparent,” something has been created.
Good interim managers sell outcomes
This also changes how we view our own business model. Ultimately, a company is not buying 120 consulting days. It is buying a result.
A functioning S&OP. A manageable supply chain. A procurement organization with clear category strategies. Production control that generates stable plans. A management system that identifies deviations early and ensures decisions are made.
Of course, this takes work: analysis, meetings, data cleansing, conflicts, process design, training and system adjustments. These are inputs to delivery, rather than the product itself.
The best system is often surprisingly unspectacular
Another lesson from many assignments: the best systems are rarely spectacular. They usually consist of a few clear rules.
Who decides? When? Based on which numbers? What deviation is acceptable? When do we escalate? Which action takes priority?
Companies with many problems often want a complex solution: new software, new dashboards, a new organization or new consulting projects. Sometimes this is necessary. Very often, however, something simpler is missing first: a clear management rhythm.
Daily management. Weekly S&OE. Monthly S&OP. Clear KPIs. Clear responsibilities. Clear decisions.
The technology is often not the main problem. The company lacks a shared operating system.
Interim management means responsibility
This is another decisive difference from traditional consulting. An interim manager cannot stop at saying “we recommend improving the forecasting process.”
When I take operational responsibility, the questions are: how do we improve it from Monday? Who does what? What data do we need? Which products are segmented? Which forecast errors are corrected? Which promotion effects are removed? Which tool is used? When is the review? Who decides on deviations?
The perspective changes completely. A recommendation becomes responsibility. A concept becomes a process. A presentation becomes a management system.
My clients buy three things
In my experience, successful interim assignments come down to three central benefits.
1. Experience
The client does not need to solve every problem from scratch. They buy knowledge of which solutions have worked, and which have not.
2. Speed
A proven system significantly shortens the time from identifying a problem to implementation. In critical situations, speed is a major economic factor.
3. Sustainability
The greatest value is created when the company can run the system independently after the assignment. That should always be the goal of an interim manager: to become unnecessary because the system works.
Conclusion: implement a system that lasts
Perhaps we interim managers should describe our services differently.
“I install functioning management systems for Operations and Supply Chain.”
“I implement an S&OP/S&OE system that enables a company to manage delivery performance, inventory and capacity.”
“I take responsibility, make decisions, implement the necessary processes and leave behind a system that continues to run without me.”
After many years in interim management, this is what I believe my clients really expect. They buy the confidence that, in the end, something works.