Posts Tagged “digital distribution”

The War For Talent

The war for talent was first declared in 1998 in a McKinsey Quarterly article authored by Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod.  The authors continued to publish extensively on the subject, but most compellingly in War for Talent (Harvard Business School Press, 2001) whose major premise is that talent is strategic and the key to successful competition and profitable growth.  They proposed that the strategic nature of talent was not an issue of temporary significance but one that would remain the cardinal rule for decades to come.  They were right: as never before, corporate success depends on both understanding the requirements for talent—especially in a host of emerging areas of leadership and expertise—and the ability to acquire it rapidly and effectively.

In the content-centric businesses of publishing, media, and information, the requirements for talent to navigate digital content creation and distribution are changing and evolving faster than ever before.  Consumers of content—from the general consumer to professionals and educators—are demanding content to be served wherever, whenever they want, and in the format of their choosing.  Yet, few companies in these industries are prepared to meet these demands.

Penguin’s CEO John Makinson recently told a Reuter’s sponsored media conference, “It is tougher to predict how we will be 12 months from now, as an industry, than pretty much at any time that I can remember” and that “structural changes in the industry that were largely outside the control of publishers made it very hard to predict next year’s performance.”

I plan to follow these developments closely with a specific emphasis on identifying the kinds of strategic leadership that provide businesses with greater control over their environments, especially with regard to the predictability that comes from analytics and the value that is created from greater proximity to the consumers of their content.  This will include profiles of the new CEO, illustrations of the strategic importance of the CTO, the new leadership roles required in marketing and sales in the world of social media, and the rapidly emerging role of analytics in understanding and harnessing the incredible velocity and volatility of markets today and well into the future.

The rise of web-based businesses almost 15 years ago illustrate that in times of transformation, talent is the only effective weapon.  During the dot.com boom at the turn of the last century, there were heated battles for acquiring the new talents required to build the innovative platforms, products and services that were becoming the backbone of the Internet.

I was involved in a number of startups when the hiring of web designers, web developers, database administrators, developers, and network administrators (to name just a few) took place at record speed, truly living into the maxim: he who hesitates is lost.  But it wasn’t just technical expertise that was needed.  Managing and scaling new businesses that run entirely on the Web also required the vision, leadership and management experience that comes from seasoning in the field: experiences with both success and failure.  My role was, in fact, to help these businesses fill this gap.

When the dotcom bust came, many said that the war for talent was over, but the Internet bubble of the late 90s was, in retrospect, a mere skirmish.  We are in a time of continuous business transformation where the “steady state” of business as usual is hard to imagine.

Michael Moe, Co-Founder, GSV Asset Management and GSV Advisors, spoke about the transformation in education and educational technology on November 29 at SIIA’s Ed Tech Business Forum and concluded that “the number 1, 2 and 3 challenge are talent, talent, and talent.”

People are central to your strategy. Or, as was posted on the smallbusiness blog several years ago:  If the answer is, “It’s People, Stupid,” what’s the question?   The question is: What is the one most important Critical Success Factor for an organization to achieve success?