Created Business 4 Years Ago : Consultant Saw the Need for Interim Management

William Crandall is the father of the interim management placement business. In fact, he created it just 4 years ago with the formation of his San Francisco company, Corporate Staff Inc.

This is how it began:

As a management consultant, Crandall observed that a lot of his work consisted of projects for large companies. Then he was hired on a permanent basis by a company and was given a project to run.

“When I had completed that first assignment there was a question of where the next assignment was, so I thought that this meant maybe companies didn’t have to hire people permanently just to handle projects,” he said.

Crandall said he also observed that a number of small and growing companies were hiring permanent managers to handle tasks that changed quickly. “I saw a lot of situations in business where something other than a permanent employee was needed.”

At the same time, he said, demographic trends were creating a growing labor force willing to work on a part-time or interim basis.

“There were a lot of ‘Me Inc.’-type management people, including retired executives, managers who’d lost jobs in work force reductions or forced early retirements and a group of traditional independent consultants who always had the dilemma of not being able to market themselves for the next job while they were doing one,” he said.

“We also had a lot of women who’d had careers and stepped out to have family and now wanted back into the work force on a part-time basis.

“I felt that this would form a significant resource base” for a company that marketed their services to business.”

The personal computer is largely responsible for the success of interim management services so far, Crandall said.

“The PC and its processing capability allows people to work on individual and small group bases with much more productivity than ever before. Without that, this business probably could not have happened. The PC makes these people very productive.”