Interim Supply Chain Management is a way of bringing senior Supply Chain capability into a company without a permanent hire. Usually it’s described one way. I run it a little differently.
What Interim Supply Chain Management usually means
In its usual form, an Interim Manager is a leadership placement: an experienced operator brought in from outside to run a function or close a leadership gap for a defined period, typically 6 to 12 months, then hand it back. Applied to Supply Chain, that means stepping into the Head of Supply Chain seat while a company is between permanent leaders, or while one is being found, with full authority over demand planning, inventory, suppliers, and the systems underneath them.
How I actually run it
That’s the textbook version. Here’s mine: the title was never the point, the work was.
Interim means I step into a gap in personnel right now, leading the function or not. I combine listening and doing: I learn how the operation actually works while I’m already acting on what’s visibly broken, in parallel, not as two separate phases. That speed has a trade-off: it solves the gaps a brand already knows it has, not necessarily the ones it doesn’t know about yet. If that’s what a brand needs instead, I also run the same work sequentially, slower, since there’s no urgency behind it.
Either way, it’s not a full-time commitment by default. I take on as much as the gap actually requires, and as much as I have capacity for, whether that’s a couple of hours a day or several days a week. Interim engagements typically run 3 to 6 months, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer, at a fixed daily rate, billed monthly.
What changes is whether I’m the leader or the extra set of hands the leader needed. What doesn’t change is that I’m in, working, not advising from the outside.
What that looks like in practice
- Owns the demand forecast and reconciles it against actual sell-through, channel by channel
- Sets and defends inventory targets: minimum stock, reorder points, maximum stock, per SKU
- Runs supplier and 3PL relationships directly, not through a proxy
- Drives or supports structural decisions with a five-year impact: ERP selection, 3PL transition, the first permanent Supply Chain hire
- Reports to the founder, or to the Supply Chain leader already in place, on one number: is the operation getting more stable or less
- Builds the system, and trains whoever owns it after, so the engagement has a real end
Interim vs. consultant vs. fractional vs. full-time
All four solve different problems. Mixing them up is the most common hiring mistake growing brands make.
- Consultant: defined-scope project work with a clear start and end. Advises, doesn’t do the work.
- Interim Supply Chain Manager: steps into a personnel gap right now, leading the function or working alongside existing leadership. Listening and fixing run in parallel, not sequentially, so it moves fast and solves the gaps a brand already knows about. Fixed daily rate, billed monthly, typically 3 to 6 months.
- Fractional leader: senior judgment on an ongoing but part-time basis, typically split across several clients. Fits brands between roughly €10M and €30M that need direction, not daily capacity.
- Full-time hire: the permanent answer once the role is proven, usually past €30M, with the 3 to 6 months to recruit and the 3 to 6 months to onboard.
Read the full decision framework for the signals that tell you which one fits.
Why DACH D2C brands bring in an interim manager
Growth breaks Supply Chains in a predictable pattern. A brand scales past €10M, channel mix widens across DTC, Amazon, and Retail, and the spreadsheet-and-gut-feel system that worked at €5M starts producing stockouts on bestsellers and dead stock everywhere else. The team is firefighting daily. Nobody owns the end-to-end view.
Sometimes that means a six-month search for a permanent Head of Supply Chain, which is expensive in a different way: the operation keeps degrading while the search runs, and even the best hire needs another few months to ramp. An interim manager closes that gap immediately, structuring the operation while the search happens, or instead of it. Just as often, a leader is already in place and simply doesn’t have the hours to plan and execute at the same time. Either way, I leave a system the founder, or a permanent hire, can run.
How PSCM House runs the interim engagement
PSCM House works exclusively with multi-channel D2C brands between €10M and €80M revenue (sweet spot €25M–€50M) in DACH and Europe.
The interim engagement runs the diagnostic and the execution in parallel: I learn the operation while I’m already fixing what’s visibly broken, rather than waiting for a separate discovery phase to conclude first. That speed has a trade-off: it solves the gaps a brand already knows it has, not necessarily the ones it doesn’t know about yet. Typical length is 3 to 6 months, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer, depending on what the gap actually needs. Priced at a fixed daily rate, billed monthly.
Want the slower, more thorough route instead, the one that surfaces gaps you don’t know you have yet? PSCM House also runs the same diagnostic-and-execution work sequentially rather than in parallel: a fixed-price diagnostic first, then a fixed-price monthly retainer to execute the roadmap, then a lighter retainer to keep it running. There’s less urgency behind it.
Marco Koehler, Interim Supply Chain Manager
PSCM House is operated by Marco Koehler. 15+ years in procurement, planning, and Supply Chain architecture: global procurement at Jägermeister, the inventory systems behind SNOCKS’ growth from €30M to over €100M, and Supply Chain leadership at Glow25 through its scale from €30M to €120M. Same pattern every time: an operation that worked at one size stops working at the next, and someone has to own the fix from the inside, not just diagnose it from the outside.
Not sure if interim is the right fit yet? Start with the diagnostic. It scores where your Supply Chain actually stands before either of you commits to anything.