Roy Egberink is a freelance supply chain professional. Following a 20-year career with various multinationals, particularly in the fashion industry, he decided to start his own business. He recently did an assignment for an Involvation customer so we decided to ask him to tell us more about the role of an interim supply chain professional.
What do you enjoy most about working freelance as an interim supply chain professional?
I like the challenge of putting my knowledge and experience to good use in a new environment in order to plan and execute improvements. Another thing I enjoy is turning a very general brief such as ‘simplify our operation’ into concrete ideas for improvements and then working with the organization to implement them.
How does your ideal assignment look?
That would be an assignment involving the aspects of people, processes and systems. It’s always a challenge to strike the optimal balance between those three elements. Besides that, I enjoy working at the intersection of operations and sales/marketing – it’s fun to improve/simplify the operating model in order to achieve better results.
What was your most recent assignment, and how did it go?
I’m currently working on a project for O’Neill, which is a great company with an impressive history. Unfortunately, its performance has been disappointing over the past few years. On the one hand, the fact that it’s a small organization makes it easy to bring some structure into the tangled processes that have evolved over the years. But on the other hand, the size of the company means that it has limited resources and that can make it difficult to set up an effective operation.
What do you see as the benefits of being part of Involvation’s interim supply chain network?
Working with Involvation gives me access to terrific assignments such as the one for O’Neill. Apart from that, I really value being able to exchange thoughts and ideas with my contact person, Alex Tjalsma, both about the assignment and about supply chain management in general.
Is there anything else you’d like to add about your work as an interim manager?
For me, the great thing about being an interim manager is the temporary nature of the role. How can I help to improve the internal organization and hence the company’s performance within a limited time frame? That time pressure makes it extra challenging and keeps you on your toes.
