Talent Supply Chain Management: An Alarming Look at the Mismatch Between Talent Strategies, Processes, and Corporate Objectives

Overview A recent independent survey of over 250 professional services firms has uncovered the impact of these realities on the service-oriented firm. These findings highlight significant disconnects between the ultimate desired operational state of the services firm and their current ability to execute to achieve that state. These findings clearly illustrate a trend in the services industry that includes:

• The achievement of acceptable processes and automation of tactical resource planning/management has resulted in a shift towards considering the strategic impact of the manner in which the talent inventory is managed.
• Aggressive prioritization of service line profitability in order to ensure the acquisition, development, retention, and integration of talent pools drives firm success.
• Active search for areas of possible improvement over the management of the talent inventory that will positively impact the firm's ability to improve service-line profitability while decrease operational inefficiencies.

The nature of these trends seems to suggest that service firms are beginning to identify a need to treat the talent inventory with supply chain-like discipline, but are poorly prepared to optimize day-to-day operations of the talent inventory that would permit a true talent supply chain.