In the late 90’s McKinsey declared the war for talent and argued that, in a knowledge economy, having the right people is even more important than having the right strategy or technology. Recruiting and retaining the “best and the brightest” quickly became a corporate mantra.
Yet today, the firm is more concerned with the skills gap. In data science, for example it estimates a shortfall of 140,000 to 190,000 data scientists and 1.5 million managers who have the skills needed to use the insights to drive decisions. But even that understates the problem.
With technology accelerating change in the marketplace and automation replacing highly skilled workers with robots, the decision to invest in any particular set of skills is far from a forgone conclusion and platitudes about “investing in our people” will no longer suffice. We need to start thinking seriously about viable strategies for managing the skills gap.
The Evolving Challenge
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
There is nowhere that success breeds failure as quickly or as unexpectedly as the tech industry. One time stalwarts like DEC, Borland and Lucent are long gone and mostly forgotten, supplanted by firms that, in many cases, have themselves fallen on hard times or gone out of business altogether.
Through it all, one company that has been able to stay at the forefront of technology is IBM IBM -0.07%. One of the strategies it employs in order to stay on top is its academic initiative, which partners with universities in order to ensure that corporations develop and maintain the skills needed to get the most out of its products and services.
When I spoke with Jim Spohrer, who runs the university program at IBM, he stressed that its curriculum has to be continually transformed. For example, a firm that invested in the “best and brightest” business analysts five years ago would still be unprepared for the big data environment of today. Other areas, like cognitive computing are completely new.
Spohrer sees the marketplace in a state of constant flux between the skills needed for transformation and the supply of people who have them, so IBM works hard to help its partners and customers stay ahead of the curve. Yet that’s become far more involved than simply hiring the “right people.” You need a coherent strategy.
A New Era of Talent
We desperately need to change the way we think about talent. In 1997, when McKinsey published its report, the lines dividing companies and industries were fairly clear. Competition really was like a war and the resources you brought to battle largely determined whether you would succeed or fail. That’s changed substantially.
In today’s semantic economy, it’s not so important what assets you own, but what you can access. The basis of competition is no longer between firms, but ecosystems. Open architectures and cloud technology have made it easier to tap outside resources—such as partners and highly skilled contract workers—to get things done.
Consequently, a new era of talent has arisen in which the fundamental decision managers have to make is not who to hire, but which skills to develop in-house and which can be accessed within an external ecosystem. Many firms, for example, focus on research and design and contract out manufacturing and logistics, while others see those as core skills.
There are, of course, never cut and dried answers to these types of questions. The future is always uncertain. But we do need a clear framework for thinking about them.
Focusing Of Platforms
Taso Du Val is someone who deals with the skills gap everyday. As Founder and CEO of Top Tal, his clients depend on him to deliver world class developers with the most sought after skill sets. He also advises them on what capabilities they need in-house in order to work with advanced programming environments.
Du Val sees a crucial distinction between platforms and individual technologies. While he can deliver top talent in any given technology from around the world, his clients must have adequate platform expertise in order to be able to make use of it. Otherwise, the enterprise will not be able to integrate the new capabilities effectively.
Date: June 15, 2014