Transformation Through Talent Acquisition

Talent Acquisition is typically thought of as a tactic, as needing to fill a position due to attrition or expansion. But some organizations have had transformative success by treating talent acquisition as a core strategy.

As an example, let’s look outside the fashion and jewelry industry at an example explored in the book “Talent Wins: The New Playbook for Putting People First”.

The general situation applies to just about any industry: a company (Volvo in this case) didn’t have the scale to compete as a low-cost player but didn’t have the right products to compete at the luxury end (vs. BMW and Mercedes). It realized that the only way to be able to develop the high-end products would be a total revamping of its design, development and production talent base, which it tasked to its Chief Human Resources Officer.

It was more than just changing skill sets within the same framework and traditions. It needed to refresh the way people approach problems and expand their “peripheral vision”.

The company spent the next five years hiring 3,000 new people in engineering and development. But they didn’t stop there: they hired marketers from Google to transform their approach to social media, Nokia engineers to bring fresh ideas to navigation system development, and fashion industry designers and craftsmen.

As a result, Volvo net revenues are at an all-time high and its newest models are competing successfully with luxury brands.

While we’re not suggesting that U.S. fashion and luxury brands need the same level of fundamental transformation, we ARE saying that it is often important, if not necessary, to bring in fresh thinking to the company in the form of high-level talent with different viewpoints and experiences. We’re not alone in calling for the infusion of European designers into U.S. brands, for example.

We hope to start a conversation with you on this topic and winning through talent in general. We hope to hear from you.