Competing in an increasingly complex market environment can challenge even those companies that seem to be the most resilient.One big hurdle is having the scope of talent that can deal with so many varied issues that face companies - from product development and marketing to supply chain management, and everything in between.Hiring even one person for each of these tasks can be financially daunting, let alone building even a small team.The way a growing number of companies are successfully tackling this is by engaging what is now referred to as ‘fractional’ management.Do We Need Another Chief?Almost every company has a chief executive office (CEO), and many have ‘chiefs’ of other key departments. The question is do we need more?The answer is a conditional yes. We need more specialists, but we don’t necessarily need them on a full time basis. For SME’s we need them in areas that are not our core focus (for example in marketing for a B2B company or in operations or finance for a design driven company or a manufacturer).A growing number of organizations are seeing opportunities in bridging this employment gap by hiring fractional management. A fractional CMO or a fractional COO can be a game changer - without a budget crushing salary expense.“Every business needs a CMO, no matter how big or small, but you don't necessarily need one full time. It’s not always affordable, especially in today's market,” said Amy Anderson, co-founder and CEO of Wild Coffee Marketing.“Many companies find that to hire someone on a consulting basis to come in and evaluate what you are doing, and understand who your customers are, what activities are happening, what the acquisition costs are, what the underlying technology is - and then go in and build the strategy, is very effective. After that the CMO can exit, and maybe they check in quarterly with you quarterly and revisit that strategy and look at the KPIs and the metrics and see how things are going. “You can have a marketing team that continues to execute on that strategy. But you need a senior strategist that can develop the strategy and lay out a plan,” she adds.What Is A Fractional ManagerThe fractional employee is one who divides his or her work week among multiple employers. Usually, the time is defined in discrete terms, such as two days at one company and three days at another. The fractional employee may be self-employed or work for an agency that specializes in offering fractional services to a particular industry, according to Signature Analytics.This is not the same as using freelancers, which implies hiring someone to do a one-off task or project.Typically, a fractional manager would be hired either on a semi-permanent or permanent basis. They key is that unlike full time employment, they would be contracted to work on a part-time basis.Lower Costs, Bigger Results, Less RiskThe advantage is that companies can bring in the talent they need - but they act as consultants and can deliver the results you need without the risk - and cost - you take when hiring a full-time employee. Fractional employees generally forgo benefits such as medical, paid leave and other typical benefits afforded to full time employees. For example, you can think of a fractional CMO as an Interim Marketing Director. They are there to help you meet certain marketing growth objectives. They can offer their experience and help build solutions without needing to invest in the commitment of a full-time employee, said GigCMO.This enables companies to have access to the right people, especially in scenarios where they need people with a wide range of very specific skills.“In a digital marketing environment, for example, you have SEO, paid digital,organic, social, blog writing, headline writing, website development, PR - each with its own expertise. It's our belief that it's really hard to build an in-house team, that's economical, and that covers all of those skill sets. And then do you need all of those skill sets all the time? Do you need a full time SEO person on board? You can outsource pieces to agencies, but then you need someone in house who's really skilled at managing agencies and holding them accountable and negotiating contracts. A fractional CMO can help you outsource all of those pieces, and then draw from a fractional team as needed, based on the needs of the business. It's more economically sound,” said Ms. Anderson, who has over 25 years experience working with brands including Calvin Klein, Seventeen magazine and The New York Time Digital.As opposed to a project-based or short-term hire, a fractional hire will likely develop a personal and emotional investment in the organization.Because the fractional hire continues to interact with team members, loyalty emerges that is not apparent from other kinds of non-traditional hires. Instead of committing to only a single issue or concern of a business, a fractional executive is encouraged to identify opportunities across multiple parts of an enterprise. In other words, fractional hires do not have the campaign-centered myopia that is inherent in a short-term hiring scenario, said Signature Analytics.They're also a great option if you're ready, for example, to grow your marketing efforts, but you're not sure where to start and don't want to throw your marketing dollars away, according to GigCMO.Success Is Built on a Strong FoundationOne of the reasons companies don’t succeed as much as they could when working with fractional managers, is because they focus on activities rather than progress.“A lot of companies and executives think if they have a lot of activity and a lot of tactics happening out in the market, that somehow that is beneficial to the firm. I think what people forget about is that it must be built on a strategy that addresses specific target markets and market segments. “Our team looks to develop five KPIs for each of our clients. So they know that they need to work towards those five performance indicators. Those KPIs need to guide our strategy and tactics. That creates the foundation and lets us know how we are performing,” said Ms. Anderson.The Expertise You Need, When You Need ItMany small to mid-sized businesses are just going through the growth process for the first time when they hire a fractional manager. Not only will your business be able to benefit from their marketing knowledge, but these are also seasoned C-suite executives who can guide you through the growth process.“One of the challenges companies face is how do you assemble a team of disparate contractors and get the right skill sets right, negotiate the price and then keep the costs under control?What we’ve done at Wild Coffee Marketing is to pull together a wide range of marketing specialists under one roof, and then let clients choose what skills they need and how much their services you need.“A marketing program might be that in this quarter our emphasis is organic traffic growth. And in the next quarter we are going to layer on a really strong inbound marketing program through Salesforce, with marketing with email automation. And we're going to build those sales funnels at a really strategic level together with your business development team,” said Ms. Anderson.Fractional hires, or “executives-as-a-service,” cannot by nature exceed budgets and they cannot typically act independently of outside approval.The business benefits because it receives complete, defined deliverables and a real return on its investment, without having to deal with in-house politics or infighting, said Signature Analytics.