Corporations across the world have been seeking a compass to survive and grow in a multi-directional, multi-polar world, and looking for insights to respond to short-term pressures while investing in long-term growth. One of the major areas of focus in the emerging world is talent , its sourcing and deployment for the benefit of businesses. Accenture has recently conducted a study, ?Strategies for Achieving High Performance in a Multi-Polar World?, focusing on these issues. Deepak Malkani, partner, Accenture, who leads the talent and organisation performance practice in India, talks about the changing trends and way to manage business transformation in an interview with MG Arun. Excerpts:
What prompted Accenture to initiate the study on strategies for achieving high performance?
We did the first study on the multi-polar world, when, through our association with several companies worldwide, we understood that the business climate was changing fundamentally. Multiple centres of excellence were emerging globally. For instance, we have seen the emergence of India in the IT sector, South Korea in telecommunications, and Brazil in bio-fuels. This was not only in the area of innovations. We also saw a multi-directional flow of capital?from the East to the West, as against the other way round.
So, we conducted research with emerging market multinationals. We decided to look at the strategies that 400 multinational corporations employed in the world of complex change to emerge as high performers.
Are high performers doing something quite different from the others when it comes to talent?
Yes, they are. One of this is tapping more innovative and non-traditional sources of talent. Many companies are finding their traditional talent pools being weaned away. For instance, the engineering industry is finding that engineers are being taken away into the IT industry. Similarly, the retail sector faces high attrition. So, they need to look at alternatives. One retail giant did the experiment of employing retired people, above 60 years of age, to handle their cash counters. This worked, as these senior people were found to be more honest and willing to stay longer in those jobs.
There are large corporates who have been inviting unemployed women to explore what is called a ?second career?. If channelled well, the women talent can help prevent high attrition to a large extent, especially when some sections of the industry have seen attrition levels of 25-30%. In the pharmaceutical industry, when a sales person leaves every three years, you’re losing all the knowledge that has been garnered in those three years along with him, impacting productivity.
Another way is to look beyond metros and cities at different community space and mapping out talent supplies there. We, for instance, have done a talent supply mapping study to power our group to the level it is today in India.
What are the key requirements for a networked organisation, and how will it drive change?
One of the things we talked in this study was building a networked organisation. This would mean the corporate would work as one global entity although it is locally driven. There is flexibility to understand the differences across the world so that they are able to adapt to it. Here, you will have professionals who are able to work in virtual teams. Then, one should have good systems to move people easily and deploy talent management, which allows that. Many consumer companies collaborate on innovation across borders while developing a new product.
New technologies are enabling the growth of networking in corporations.The explosive growth of social networking, the common use of mobile and internet technologies, and telepresence are also driving this. More and more businesses are recognising that creation of new things cannot happen just by focusing on one particular department, but by pooling the best ideas from anywhere.
Innovation in companies like P&G happens by collaborating with customers. Another big area is organisation network analysis. Do organisations really work in the typical pyramid hierarchies? What about the horizontal linkages? Who influences decisions? Network analysis will in fact help organisations de-bottleneck decision-making process.
How well do you think the concept of a networked organisation will work in Indian companies?
Indian companies are just evolving and coming close to maturity when it comes to real collaborations. There are only a handful of Indian companies with a really global footprint. When it comes to innovative ways of sourcing talent, insurance is a good example. Even when most companies had frozen hiring talent due to the financial meltdown, insurance companies have been recruiting staff in thousands.
The downturn has seen large scale downsizing in many companies. How can this be handled keeping long-term growth in mind?
Resorting to indiscriminate layoffs will seriously hamper the future growth potential of organisations. A holistic organisational approach rather than looking at individual businesses is important. The challenge is to get the most productivity from our talent base. And when you come out of the downturn, how are you placed to tap your talent. Corporations need to build the muscle needed to handle their growth in the future. Instead of taking an uninformed, one-size fits all, decision on lay-offs, one should take a thorough exercise and take a relook at one’s structure, processes and operating models. This would be right time to take such decisions. Here, people?s roles will be called into question. There would be senior people doing just transactional activities. The common skills in an organisation will be concentrated in different silos. Work involving mere transactions can be pushed to people down the line which will leave more time for seniors to look at strategic issues. Second, the duplication of processes needs to be eliminated. You can implement simple technology interventions, which can even eliminate a management process altogether.
Third is looking at your operating model, and deciding what to do in-house, what to outsource and where to choose to work from. This is also the time to selectively invest in your best people, and develop leaders.