Spare Talent

If you’re British, please be assured that I am not talking about ladies of the night, but a trend that I’ve been increasingly aware of over the last month or so. Seems that suddenly there’s more really good talent—both on the retained and the outsourcing sides of the fence—out on the street. What’s behind this trend and does it suggest that there is a tectonic change afoot? When shared services operations and outsourcing teams undergo what is euphemistically called a "major business restructuring," there’s more than a hint of irony in the situation. If shared services and outsourcing is not a major business restructuring, I don’t know what is. The situation brings to mind the old adage "what goes around, comes around." Are our current approaches to shared services and outsourcing operations in flux? Are shared services teams being restructured as we learn more about the interconnection between the retained and delivery center teams and find that the "belts and braces approach" is no longer necessary? Are organizations now finding that shared services and outsourcing can REALLY deliver, hence a reduced need for an expensive retained team? Are outsource providers now rethinking their sales and solutions strategies, finding that less is more? Or is the talent on the street not able to demonstrate the capabilities required in an increasingly globalizing delivery model? I suspect that it’s due to a bit of both. There’s no question that global delivery organizations will require different skill sets over time; after all, structuring talent in the right way is a work in progress for an evolving business model such as shared services and outsourcing. But I wonder whether some of the talent out on the street may not have the right capabilities to meet the needs of globalizing organizations. As a "for instance", consider the CVs of some very senior (and pricey) folk I have seen over the past few months. The bios seem to fall into two buckets: first, those that are narrowly focused proudly tout operational prowess as evidenced by deep process excellence and the attainment of Six Sigma black belts; alternatively, there are those that are hedging all employment bets by declaring that they can do anything from organization design to selling a deal in 15 countries across all enabling functions. Perhaps these folk are missing the plot. With the evolution of shared services and outsourcing models, deep process and quality expertise is now a given, embedded in even junior staff members. And the big picture guys forget that no one can master every global sourcing capability under the sun. There are very few sourcing polymaths. So perhaps there is a reason why there’s all this spare talent. Too deep, and the professional does not have the breadth of capability required to see the bigger picture and lead. Too broad, and the professional is a jack of all trades and master of none.

Spare Talent

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