Blog

Straight talk from operational reality.

Experience, patterns and straight talk from over 14 years of assignments in restructuring, SAP transformation and operational stabilisation.

A deadline without commitment is not a plan. It is an excuse with a date.

In transformation projects, there are two kinds of deadlines: those nobody commits to, and those that stay green until they collapse. Both cost the same. In both cases, what is missing is not the deadline, but honesty about it.

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Donato Blandolino

Managing Partner

23 October 2026

Reading time 6 min

From assignments. For practical application.

Project & Programme Management

Project recovery: The first ten days are decisive

A project that has gone off track does not need a new plan, but decisions and an honest status assessment. Four measures and a ten-day plan for recovery.

Donato Blandolino

22 September 20266 min

Operations / Interim Management

Local knowledge is not expertise: The internal specialist and his blind spot

The internal specialist knows every machine. But when did he last see the inside of another plant? Why depth without breadth feels like expertise, and four ways to give him a basis for comparison.

Donato Blandolino

20 September 20266 min

Leadership & Capacity

“We don’t have enough people” is almost never true

Ten managers, two hours of meetings a day, two and a half full-time positions. Why companies request more positions instead of reclaiming time, and which three checks will show you within a week what you are already paying for.

Donato Blandolino

15 September 20267 min

Restructuring & Turnaround

Plant turnaround: why the shop floor comes first, not the plan

In a plant in crisis, it is rarely production that is broken, but the willingness to report problems. Why we start on the shop floor, put out the most visible fires first and what sequence the first few weeks must follow.

Donato Blandolino

12 September 20268 min

Interim Management & AI

Interim Management 2035: The skills artificial intelligence will not replace

In ten years, a substantial part of what is sold as interim management today will be redundant. What can be automated, which skills will become more valuable as a result, and how to recognise an interim manager who will still be needed in 2035.

Donato Blandolino

10 September 20267 min

Transformation & Leadership

If your change was a training session, it was not a change

New process introduced, 120 employees trained, three months later everything runs as before. Why training does not change behaviour and which four levers actually work.

Donato Blandolino

1 September 20266 min

Operations & SAP

Process and system are drifting apart: Three signs you can check in one day

Two service providers blame each other while production waits. How to tell whether the process and ERP system in your manufacturing operation have drifted apart, and why the gap can only be closed under a single point of responsibility.

Donato Blandolino

28 August 20266 min

Founder Story

I first faced the problems we solve today myself

From goods receiving and logistics to plant management: Donato Blandolino on the personal story behind SMART iNTERIM and why transformation fails or succeeds at the interface between operations and SAP.

Donato Blandolino

20 August 20267 min

Leadership

If you only hire weaker people, you set your own limits

What looks like competence is often a self-created bottleneck. How to recognise that you are the limit on your own organisation, and how to remove it.

Donato Blandolino

14 August 20265 min

Transformation

Yes, AI will replace consultants. Just the wrong ones first.

AI takes over analysis, benchmarks and slides. What it does not take over: implementation, conflicts and responsibility. Four questions to help you assess whether your external support is replaceable.

Donato Blandolino

11 August 20265 min

Transformation

When the biggest problem is not a problem at all

Four statements heard in every factory, and what really lies behind them. Why many problems are not problems, but perspectives.

Donato Blandolino

11 August 20265 min

Processes / Master data

Master data: The real productivity problem in industry

In one factory, we found eleven Excel files that production depended on. The oldest was over ten years old. Why it is not wages or site costs that hold back productivity, but master data that nobody trusts.

Donato Blandolino

7 August 20266 min

Transformation / Project management

Why transformation projects keep repeating the same mistakes

Every failed ERP project leaves behind data, experience and causes. Yet companies repeat the same mistakes. Why this pattern persists and what helps in practice.

Donato Blandolino

30 July 20268 min

Leadership / Transformation

Personality First: Why the difference between status and personality determines the outcome of transformations

In transformation projects, it is not software or methodology that determines success. It is the personality of the people who drive change. A case for Personality First.

Donato Blandolino

23 July 20267 min

Project Management / Operations

Why the wrong project managers are celebrated

Average project managers fight fires. The best ones make sure there is nothing to burn. Why organisations systematically reward the wrong behaviour and what real project leadership looks like.

Donato Blandolino

16 July 20267 min

Project Management / Operations

Why projects fail not because of implementation, but because of the method

Gantt charts have never saved a project. Most projects fail not because of implementation, but because of the method. Four principles that really make production projects succeed.

Donato Blandolino

9 July 20267 min

Change Management / Transformation

Change management or risk management? Why training alone does not bring about change

When change fails to take hold, the usual response is more training. Why this rarely works, how genuine change management differs from pure risk management and how transformation in production actually succeeds.

Donato Blandolino

11 June 20267 min

Operations / Process optimisation

Optimising material flow: The most expensive machine is usually idle

If you want to optimise material flow, you do not need a project or software, just two hours and a factory floor plan. Because the biggest cost problem in most plants does not appear in any metric: the time material spends waiting rather than being processed.

Donato Blandolino

18 August 20268 min

Operations / Interim Management

“We can handle this internally”: Why familiarity breeds organisational blindness

“We can handle this internally.” That is often the first sentence. And sometimes the most expensive. Not because internal teams are poor, but because anyone who works within the same system every day eventually stops seeing it.

Donato Blandolino

16 April 20266 min

Transformation

The 3 real reasons why transformation projects fail

Not strategy, not resources, not the system. Three patterns we find in almost every failed transformation project.

Donato Blandolino

19 March 20268 min

Operations & Restructuring

Not a resource problem, a focus problem

Full calendars, no results: Why resource shortages during critical project phases are usually a myth, and what really helps.

Donato Blandolino

19 February 20267 min

SAP & Restructuring

Restructuring and SAP from a single provider

Why restructuring and SAP transformation belong together, and how operational transformation succeeds when processes and the system are managed together.

Donato Blandolino

22 January 20269 min

SAP

SAP S/4HANA implementation: Why the system is not the problem

SAP implementations do not fail because of the technology. They fail because of how companies set them up. The three most common mistakes, and how to get it right.

Donato Blandolino

25 December 202510 min

Personality First

Working as equals is not a slogan

Why background makes a difference in consulting, and what distinguishes operational experience from methodological expertise.

Donato Blandolino

27 November 20259 min