Interim management
Leadership on time, with full operational responsibility.

Default lead time 1–3 weeks after the initial conversation — in urgent cases under one week if the engagement scope can be clarified in a 60-minute meeting.

What concretely affects the lead time:

• Clarity of the engagement scope — if role, weekly scope and expectation are clarified in one meeting, 1 week is realistic. With complex stakeholder constellations involving advisory boards, more like 2–3 weeks
• Current load in the senior team — we deliberately keep senior bandwidth free for interim engagements, but during acute sprint phases of ongoing engagements the bridge can extend by 1–2 weeks
• On-site effort — in Vienna we start fastest, for engagements in DE/CH 1 additional week for travel and setup logistics is planned

In crisis cases (surprise staff loss, vendor escalation, marketplace block) we start with senior lead within days — the formal contract runs in parallel to the operational beginning.

Range 4–18 months, depending on engagement trigger.

Typical engagement durations in our practice:

• Staff-change bridging — 4–6 months, parallel to recruiting the successor
• Department build-up — 6–12 months, until the internal team and senior successor are trained in
• Transformation accompaniment — 6–18 months, depending on programme complexity (replatforming, ERP migration, internationalisation)
• Escalation engagement — 3–6 months, focused on crisis stabilisation
• Fractional senior for founder teams — 6–18 months ongoing, with option to extend in quarterly steps

What we don’t do: very short engagements under 3 months — at this duration the onboarding effort outweighs operational benefit. In such cases we recommend either a consulting engagement (business consulting) or a PM engagement (project management) instead of an interim setup.

Extension option: all engagements are extendable in quarterly steps. That enables planning certainty for both sides without permanent contract binding.

Hybrid is standard: 1–3 days per week on-site, the rest remote. Fully remote only in exceptional cases.

Why on-site share matters for leadership roles:

• People leadership — 1:1 meetings, performance conversations and cultural steering measurably work better in person
• Stakeholder relationships — leadership, advisory and cross-functional partners (IT, sales, accounting) in DACH mid-market are strongly oriented to personal presence
• Cultural anchoring of the role — a pure remote interim role is rarely perceived by the team as "real" leadership, which reduces effectiveness

What is efficient remote:

• Operational day-to-day — vendor steering, KPI reviews, sprint planning, mail and Slack communication
• Stakeholder updates and reporting
• Strategy preparation and documentation

Travel effort is included in the full-interim fixed price or retainer — we do not invoice separate travel flat fees.

Fully remote we accept for fractional sparring engagements (tech-lead sparring for founder teams), not for disciplinary full-interim roles.

Three engagement formats, each with a clear fixed price or monthly retainer:

• Fractional sparring engagement (1–2 days per week) — from € 1,700/month net. Senior sparring for founder teams or as tech/marketing/operations lead accompaniment in mid-market companies without full-interim need. Weekly presence and reporting paths clearly defined
• Full interim engagement (3–4 days per week) with disciplinary responsibility — fixed price after discovery, depending on role, engagement duration and stakeholder constellation. Delivers full head-of role including people responsibility, budget responsibility and stakeholder reporting
• Escalation interim — fixed-price phase over 3–6 months for crisis stabilisation with extended SLAs and on-site share

What is included in the engagement: operational leadership, people responsibility, vendor and agency steering, stakeholder reporting, 1–4 on-site days per week depending on format, travel effort, tool setup if needed.

What runs separately: technical implementation work (development, integration, hosting) — those run through our web, Shopify or WooCommerce teams and are calculated as own fixed price or retainer. Recruiting accompaniment for the successor is usually included; larger recruiting programmes as a separate effort position.

After the initial conversation you receive a binding offer with clear engagement scope — no surprise invoices, no hidden surcharges.

Structured handover is no afterthought but an integral part of every engagement — we document continuously, not only at the end.

What the handover includes:

• Process and tool documentation — maintained continuously during the engagement, finalised in the last 4–6 weeks
• Vendor and stakeholder briefing — we personally introduce the successor to all relevant external partners and internal stakeholders
• Recruiting accompaniment for the successor — requirements profile, tech and subject interviews, selection recommendation to leadership
• Parallel phase 4–6 weeks — the successor takes over step by step, we remain available as shadow lead
• OKR and KPI handover — all ongoing goals, tools and reporting structures are formally handed over

Optional post-handover accompaniment — accompanying retainer from € 1,700/month net:

• 4–8 weeks sparring for the successor on specific operational or strategic questions
• Quarterly review with the successor to support the onboarding phase
• Escalation standby for critical topics, without ongoing operational responsibility

The model prevents knowledge being lost with the end of our engagement — with classic solo-interim placements that is often the weakest point.

Yes — recruiting accompaniment for the successor is included as standard in full-interim engagements.

What we concretely take on:

• Writing the requirements profile — based on the role we are currently executing operationally ourselves, with honest assessment of what is really needed vs. what is wish list
• Briefing recruiting partner or searching directly — we know DACH recruiting houses for e-commerce, digital and operations senior roles and can recommend them matching the profile
• Leading tech and subject interviews — we check whether candidates can carry the role operationally, not just whether they can describe it well on slides
• Assessing cultural fit — because we already know the team and stakeholders from the ongoing engagement
• Selection recommendation to leadership — written, with honest reasoning and risk indicators

What we also say honestly: if no candidates fit, we recommend extending the search instead of an emergency hire. A bad senior hire devalues the entire interim engagement in retrospect and typically costs the company 12–24 months until the position is clarified again.

What we don’t do: classic headhunting on commission basis. We accompany recruiting within our interim engagement — the actual search operations are taken on by either the internal recruiting team or a specialised recruiting partner we coordinate.

Clear delineation — we are operational leadership take-over in the digital area, not a universal senior replacement.

What we don’t do:

• Industries without digital focus — pure manufacturing, mechanical engineering, construction or pharma roles without digital component. Specialised industry-interim firms exist for those
• Managing director or board mandates with corporate-law responsibility — we take on area leadership but no managing-director appointment. On demand we recommend specialised managing-director interim firms
• CFO and accounting leadership — finance-specific senior roles sit outside our discipline. Specialised finance-interim providers exist for those
• HR and people leadership as standalone — we take on people responsibility within an area leadership, but no pure head-of-people roles
• Performance-marketing operations as daily click work — we steer KPIs and agencies, but daily ad-account management belongs with performance specialists or performance agencies
• Deep industry vertical without digital reference — e.g. pharma sales, construction-industry acquisition, insurance mathematics. Industry-senior profiles are needed there which we cannot replace

What we actively hand off: if a request clearly belongs in another discipline, we refer transparently — no invented engagements, no selling of disciplines we are not strong in.

Standard response to every request: within 24 hours on business days — even with no faster SLA contractually agreed. During the agreed weekly presence days de facto significantly faster.

What is possible beyond that:

• Escalation phases — agreed extended availability (4 h response in CET business hours or on-call with under 30 minutes via SMS) for defined time windows like Q4 season, migration phases or acute vendor conflicts
• Full interim engagements with 3–4 days per week — on agreed presence days we are continuously reachable like an internal senior; on off days the 24-h business-day default SLAs apply
• Crisis escalation — when the engagement is purely crisis stabilisation (personnel conflict, vendor escalation, marketplace block), the SLA is contractually sharpened to the crisis duration

What we don’t promise: 24/7 availability without real backup structures. Clear response-time contracts with the senior lead and the backup member are more professional than suggested always-on promises that don’t hold up in practice.

Backup model: the fixed senior interim lead has a second senior team member as backup for holiday and illness cases. Stakeholders get to know the backup member at onboarding so that no familiarisation phase is needed in an escalation case.

Three structural differences.

• Senior lead with real backup instead of solo risk — classic interim placements place a single person. With illness, escalation or holiday the engagement stalls or is improvised in handover. With us a second senior team member exists as backup from day 1, already known to stakeholders
• Apparatus in the background instead of single role — the senior interim lead brings the full clickpuls apparatus. If an engineering sprint, a marketing audit, a vendor negotiation or a discovery for a sub-project becomes suddenly necessary in the engagement, we pull specialists from our own team. With a solo interim you have to engage a separate agency or freelancer for each of these topics
• Operator practice from own P&L instead of pure manager career — over 15 years of own shops, own brands, own warehouse and own digital products. A head-of-e-commerce or head-of-digital role is for us day-to-day business we know from our own responsibility — not "new industry" into which we have to onboard for 4 weeks

When a classic solo placement fits better: when the engagement requires an extremely specific industry profile (pharma sales, insurance mathematics, construction acquisition) that we cannot cover from our operator practice. In those cases we say so openly and recommend specialised industry interim firms.