Why are so many companies rethinking their global talent strategies right now? Three things stand out:
- the rising cost and limited availability of qualified technology and engineering professionals
- geopolitical volatility, natural disasters and supply chain disruptions
- ongoing concerns around COVID-19 and other public health challenges
On top of that, there’s also the broader context to consider: namely, the emergence of remote and hybrid work environments, which have made companies far more comfortable with the idea of managing dispersed workforces than they were in the past. Together, all of these factors point to the heightened need for companies to adopt multi-threaded global talent strategies.
Of course, the global labor market is complex — and few companies have the inhouse expertise or the means necessary to navigate it successfully. So if you’re interested in expanding your access to scalable global talent, and reducing program costs without sacrificing speed or quality, it all starts by selecting the right strategic partner.
6 key differentiators for best-in-class global delivery partners
For companies looking for global solutions that are every bit as adaptable, scalable and flexible as they are, these six differentiators should be top of mind.
1. flexibility
Reducing costs and freeing up time to focus on core business activities are the two primary goals for the majority of companies that are leveraging global talent solutions from strategic partners at the moment. But to see the full value from that investment at your organization, you’ll need to have flexible delivery models in place as well. After all, your resource or service requirements — skill sets, hours of operation, service levels and more — are going to differ from one project to the next, and the flexibility of your delivery partner should reflect that. So look for robust delivery frameworks ranging from staff augmentation to managed services and more.
2. consultative
Global talent solutions enable organizations to operate with greater efficiency, capture cost savings and bring projects to life faster. Doing that, however, requires more than just local expertise in the markets that matter. First, you’ll need your strategic partner to work consultatively with you in order to understand your business, tech, culture — and all of your challenges. You stand to see significantly more ROI if your partner takes this kind of consultative approach.
3. domain expertise and governance
Successfully executing complex global projects at the right cost and scale isn’t easy, right? It’s also why occasionally leaning on the expertise and capabilities of your strategic partner makes sense and adds value. So it’s a good idea to work with an experienced strategic partner — one that brings robust domain expertise across multiple tech and engineering disciplines to the table. What’s more, when it comes to leveraging a strategic partner for deliverable-based, outcome-driven work, a mature global project governance structure is a critical element in ensuring that your business technology investments are realized. Talk to your global delivery partner about their experience with global project governance before you decide to allocate budget.
4. quality
Struggling to source top-tier talent in your market? It’s a common experience, and one that compels many companies to explore global talent solutions in the first place. When strategic partners prioritize cost over quality, however, this underlying issue tends to get exacerbated, rather than resolved. To avoid that, look for a partner committed to delivering the highest-quality resources, not simply reducing costs for you.
5. scale and reach
Today’s robust global talent solutions should come with some amount of redundancy, or overlaps in coverage, built in. Why? Because if you only have resourcing options in a handful of countries, that may not prove to be an effective solution at all, given the potential for geopolitical volatility or disruption caused by natural events. Instead, you need a partner that operates on a truly global scale. It’s the only way to ensure you can tap into the right resources in the right places, no matter where they are or what happens.
6. security
The dramatic rise in cyber attacks, which reached an all-time high last year, underscores the importance of working with a strategic partner who understands this new threat landscape and has advanced defense capabilities in place to protect potentially sensitive data. Mind you, this goes way beyond concerns around compliance — in the event of a breach, it’s hard to overstate the possible scope of disruption to your business.
next steps
As the world’s largest provider of talent solutions, Randstad Technologies Group not only has a global network of outstanding technology and engineering talent but local branches all over the world, which gives us a level of access to talent across geographies that our competitors can’t match. Our solutions empower organizations with the immediate capability to leverage new regions without the time, stress or level of investment that would be required to do so using inhouse resources.
To learn how we can help you reduce costs, mitigate risks and operate more efficiently without compromising quality, get in touch with us today. We’ll be happy to map out all of the different ways we can deliver value.