This document is a student assignment on the topic of talent management. It includes an introduction to talent management, the need for talent management, challenges in talent management, the role of HR, and examples of talent management practices at Accenture and Infosys. The conclusion discusses future trends in integrated talent management.

1. i
COVER PAGE
Title : Talent Management.
Subject : Strategic Human Resource Management
Level / Semester : III / Oct 2010
Programme : MBA - FULL TIME
Subject Tutor : Dr. Jaishree Desai
Name of Student : Vivekanandan M
Student’s Registration Number : GPBL-B/F10/15
Date of Submission : Dec 01, 2010
Word Count : 1930 words
Word Limit : 2000 words

2. ii
Checklist
Students Name Vivekanandan M
Registration Number GPBL-B/F10/15
Date of submission of the Assignment
01/12/2010
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Are the references/bibliography listed in the Assignment?
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All references material has been cited from the books & the
Universityof Wales online library. Any other internet source
quoted is with the permission of the module tutor.
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the “Guidelines to Writing Assignments”
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Declaration:
All material written in this assignment is my own and I have not used any material, content or
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___________________
Signature of the student Date: 01/12/2010

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TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE No.
List of Figures 1
Introduction 2
Introduction to Talent Management 2
Need for Talent Management 3
Challenges in Talent Management 4
Role of HR in Talent Management 5
Talent Management practices followed by MNCs 5
Future Trends in Talent Management 8
Conclusion 9
Bibliography 10

4. 1
LIST OF FIGURES PAGE No.
Figure 1 - Talent Management Process 3
Figure 2 - Talent Management Practise at Accenture 6

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Introduction
There is a talent war across companies, geographies and industries. Attracting right talent,
developing & retaining that talent becomes the key differentiator between a successful
organization and an ordinary one. Increasingly companies view the ability to manage talent
effectively as a strategic priority. Yet research finding reveal that senior executives largely
blame themselves and their business line managers for failing to deliver an effective talent
management strategy. CEOs need a powerful understanding of the role talent plays in their
companies and the way it combines with business processes to expand or shrink shareholder
value. This paper describes the role of HR, their strategic importance of talent management in
Multinational Corporations (MNC) and how talent is seen as a bridge between the workplace
and the market place and has become central to the MNCs ability to win in global
competition.
Introduction to Talent Management
Talent Management is the process of developing and integrating new workers, developing
and retaining current workers, and attracting highly skilled workers to work for a company.
The term “Talent Management” was coined by David Watkins of Softscape published in an
article in 1998[1]
.
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development define “Talent Management” as “The
systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement/retention and deployment of
those individuals with high potential who are of particular value to an organisation”.
MNCs that adopt Talent Management, will focus on co-ordinating and integrating the
following HR activities,
 Recruitment – attracting high skilled workers
 Training and Development – providing continuous learning
 Job alignment – aligning employee skills with job requirement, which again should
align with the business objective
 Retention – developing and implementing practices that reward and support
employees
 Leadership development – special development programs for high potential
employees and future leaders
 Culture – develop a positive, progressive and high performance working culture
 Workforce planning – planning for future business needs
[1]
http://www.hreonline.com/pdfs/03012008SoftscapeDocument.pdf

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Figure 1: Talent Management Process
Thus Talent management is nothing but, recognizing a person's inherent skills, traits,
personality and offering him a matching job. Every person has a unique talent that suits a
particular job profile and other positions will cause discomfort. So, it is the job of the
Management, HR to place the candidates at the right job.
Talent Management is beneficial to both the organization and the employees. The
organization benefits from - increased employee productivity, between alignment between
individuals' goal & business goals, commitment of valued employees and a better fit between
jobs and skills. Employees benefit from - higher motivation and commitment, career
development, increased knowledge, job satisfaction and contribution to company goals.
Need for Talent Management
In this highly competitive world, it is important for an organization to develop the human
resource, because they provide competitive edge to their business. Following factors has
made organizations to follow Talent Management practise,
 Globalization – Talents are scattered around the world and are free to move from
country to country. This has made organizations to hire talents from across the world.

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 Increased Competition – With increased competition in the market place, MNCs are
in constant look out for talents. This has made MNCs to hire and retain the best talent.
 Increasing Knowledge – In this knowledge era, it is important for companies to
retain talent and encourage employees in learning new technologies and acquiring
new skills.
Challenges in Talent Management
Organization face following talent management challenges,
1. Not having the right talent – As the war for talent continues, the old skills and
competencies may not work. So companies are looking for highly productive, multi-
skilled, self-managed & self-motivated and creative/innovative and out of box
thinkers.
Here are some examples a): Companies are now looking for salesman who not only
can sell products, but also solutions.
b) Product managers no longer control the operations, but they are expected to be
innovative and improve productivity.
c) Quality managers are expected to study competitor product and help the
engineering team build better products and solutions.
2. Changing Business needs – Business needs are changing based on the market
requirements. To be competitive in the changing business need, HR should have
resources with the new skill to meet the ever changing business need. It also becomes
important for the HR to take care of the resources whose skills become obsolete.
3. Retaining talent – With changing technology and shortage of talent, all the
companies are in constant look out for talents. So it is important for an company to
retain the talent.
4. Shortage of talent – Due to rapid growth in developing countries, these countries
faces shortage of talents across all sectors. In developed countries, because of aged
population, there is shortage of young talent.

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5. More difficult economic environment – With changing technology, regulations,
increased customer expectations and globalization, the talents to be recruited and
retained globally becomes a challenge for the HR.
Role of HR in Talent Management
During 1970s and early 1980s, the business function that was responsible for people was
called as “personnel department”. Their main responsibilities were to hire people, payroll
management and ensure that the employees get the necessary benefits.
During mid-1980s and early 1990s, organizations realised that the function of HR was
important and thus evolved the strategic HR. The main role of HR was recruiting right
people, training the people, help business design job roles and organization structure, develop
compensation package which includes benefits, employee stock options and bonuses, and
serve as a central point of communication for employee health and happiness.
With the effect of globalization and development in technology, the function of HR is
evolving towards Talent Management. The main role of Talent Management is competence
based recruiting; creating sustainable leadership pipeline; identify competency gaps and
deliver training, e-learning and other development programs to fill the gaps; performance
based pay; identify key performers and successors to key positions. Talent management
requires new process and system that will integrate tightly all the Talent Management
practices with the business management process. Thus HR function is becoming integrated
with the business in real-time.
Talent management practices followed by MNCs
This section describes the talent management practices followed by the following 2 MNCs,
a) Accenture
b) Infosys Technologies Limited
a) Accenture
Accenture is one of the leading consulting and outsourcing firm in the world.
According to Accenture, Talent Management is the capability to create and
continuously optimize the talent resources needed to execute business strategy –
attracting and developing them; guiding their performance towards optimal

9. 6
productivity in light of strategic goals; and finding new sources of value in their
performance through innovation and continuous improvement.
Figure 2: Talent Management Practise at Accenture
For organizations to truly compete on talent, Accenture calls those organizations as
“Talent Powered Organization”. Talent powered organization should not just fill the
gaps by adding people, but should be talent by combining skills, knowledge and
organizational processes thereby increasing the contribution of individuals, teams,
work groups, business unit and the entire organization. Individuals are trained to
increase adaptability, learning, flexibility, innovation and performance and thus create
extraordinary value through people.
By multiplying talent, Talent Powered Organization can create sustainable long term
competitive advantage. Aligning people with business strategy will improve employee
engagement and productivity.
Accenture perform the following process for Talent Management,
 Talent Strategy – articulating strategic goals and define talent needs (multi-
polar, world impacts, workforce strategy, segmentation)

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 Talent Resourcing – discovering and deploying talents (sourcing, recruiting
and workforce planning)
 Learning and Collaboration – defining new ways of working and learning in
a technology savvy, geographically dispersed, ever changing world.
 Performance and Rewards – measuring and managing performance; aligning
rewards with results (objectives, assessments, incentives, recognition)
 Workforce Solutions – Identifying organizations critical workforces and
defining the capabilities required to increase engagement, productivity, skills
and retention.
b) Infosys Technologies Limited
Infosys Technologies Limited is one of the India’s leading IT consulting company.
Infosys believes that HR is much more than a support function job and HR needs to
be used as springboard to drive business. Fast changing business environment has
opened up window of opportunities like – global talent sourcing and de-risking
through global task distribution, achieving global operation excellence through a
proper mix of technology and talent. Solving the talent gap is not an impossible task,
but it requires an integrated and strategic approach to talent management from
planning, sourcing, training, development and retention. Integrated talent management
practices not only help organization overcome talent shortage, but also deliver
financial results that will win the approval from stake holders.
As a knowledge driven organization, Infosys recognises the key role of its human
asserts in sustaining and increasing its competitiveness. To ensure that the talent is
optimally harnessed to stay ahead of the curve, innovation is a continuous process at
Infosys. One initiative is Infosys Leadership Institute (ILI), with its vision to make
leadership and managerial development process as integral process to business. The
objectives for ILI is to enhance managerial capabilities for increase customer
satisfaction, to develop leaders to take the organization vision forward and partner
with customers to build high performing multicultural teams. HR functions at Infosys
include creating a cool and fun place to work; sustain and leverage culture;

11. 8
successfully enhance performance and utilize talent; improve employee health and
wellness; ensure scalability of HR processes and technology; enhance effectiveness of
HR programs.
With changing employee demographics in the flat world, the entire recruitment and
development process has changed at Infosys. It is essential to source talent where it is
most cost effective and deploy in a place where it maximises the value. To achieve
this, Infosys has developed an innovative workforce management strategy – Global
Talent Program. This is the largest sustained effort by any company to recruit from
campuses outside India and deploy the skills of global workforce through training
assignments in India. Post training, these resources are deployed in their home
country.
Infosys Technologies perform the following process for Talent Management,
 Leverage Talent as the strategic differentiator – align people strategy with
business strategy to drive business results; measure HR contribution to
business growth by collecting right metrics.
 Acquire and deploy talent globally – Establish right value proposition
required to attract global talent by becoming an “Employer of Choice”.
 Scale up to serve increased demands of talent – continuously augment
workforce competency by imparting new skills and revitalising existing skills.
 Achieve global operation excellence – align HR strategy to people and
business strategy and leverage it for optimal business results.
Future Trends in Talent Management
The future of Talent Management will be Integrated Talent Management, in which HR shall
perform these functions – influencing in shaping the global workforce through performance
based culture centred on metrics based business outcome; creating on-demand model for
customers and suppliers; creating service and support excellence for internal and external
customers; creating knowledge management practises; developing mentoring intense
organization; managing job stretch and mobility; developing horizontal growth paths as the
organizations are becoming flat.

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Conclusion
The management should be innovative and proactive to win the war of talent. Using
Information Technology Systems, next generation talent management can be transferred from
reactive function to a proactive function, capable of forecasting the future talent demand.
Talents are investors in the business, who will help the organization to win in global
competition.

13. 10
Bibliography
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2010)
2. http://www.thetalentpool.co.uk/the-talent-pool/talent-development (Nov 30, 2010)
3. http://derekstockley.com.au/newsletters-05/020-talent-management.html (Nov 30,
2010)
4. http://www.hreonline.com/pdfs/03012008SoftscapeDocument.pdf (Nov 30, 2010)
5. http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=51772 (Nov 30,
2010)
6. http://www.indianmba.com/Faculty_Column/FC1046/fc1046.html (Nov 30, 2010)
7. http://www.articlesbase.com/human-resources-articles/emerging-trends-of-talent-
management-and-challenges-of-hrm-957837.html (Nov 30, 2010)
8. http://www.empxtrack.com/blog/10/post-recession-challenges-of-talent-management/
(Nov 30, 2010)
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10. http://www.sap.com/industries/insurance/pdf/BWP_Trends_in_Human_Capital_Mana
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30, 2010)
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(Nov 30, 2010)
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08D2F78190EC/0/out.html (Nov 30, 2010)
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Talent_Management_Practices.pdf (Nov 30, 2010)
15. http://www.infosys.com/HCM/white-papers/Documents/managing-talent-flat-
world.pdf (Nov 30, 2010)
16. http://www.infosys.com/Oracle/news-events/Documents/openworld-2008/improving-
workforce-effectiveness.pdf (Nov 30, 201)