Digital Transformation Game Plan

Chapter 12. Growing and Empowering Talent

World-class digital capability requires world-class talent. In a market where everyone is seeking talent, acquiring and retaining talent are becoming some of the highest priorities in a digital transformation journey. In this chapter, we discuss the critical factors that affect the result of acquiring and retaining talent.

Build More Core Digital Capability In-House

Building technology at the core of an organization requires not just the right processes, architectures, and technology itself; it requires the right technical talent—people—to deliver them. Almost without exception, talent comes up during every conversation we have with CIOs and senior technology executives. Everywhere we look, there seems to be a shortage of technology talent. What kind of capability to recruit and retain in house and what kind of capability to borrow and rent from partners thus becomes a critical question to answer for any organization going through a digital transformation. Let’s have a look at two of the key areas involved in increasing talent available to your organization.

Insource Versus Outsource

As discussed earlier, when the majority of technical assets are viewed as a utility, the conventional management wisdom will lead to outsourcing as much as possible. As a result, many businesses outsourced the majority of their IT functions, especially software development, to third-party vendors. Some kept a few key functions internal—for example, program ...