Date:07/10/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/10/07/stories/2007100759800600.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

A global model ‘needed’ to tap talent

Special Correspondent

Photo: M. Vedhan

PROMOTING PLACEMENT: Joji Gill, Director, Human Resources, Microsoft India, handing over the first copy of a placement brochure to Lakshmi Narayanan, vice-chairman, Cognizant Technology Solutions and chairman, NASSCOM, at a conference in Chennai on Saturday. —

CHENNAI: “Successful companies are those that identify the best talent and make sure that the best are behind the opportunities they pursue,” according to Nasscom chairman and Cognizant Technology Services vice-chairman Lakshmi Narayanan.

While capital and commodities are now easily available in India, business needs to develop a global delivery model that taps talent wherever in the world and applies it in whichever context required. A significant challenge before business in India, he said, was to develop a concept of performance management that facilitated the collaboration of superior talent from all over the world. While culturally performance management in India was linked to tenure, experience and educational qualifications, elsewhere it was based on performance, merit and potential.

He said that in order to develop the leadership bandwidth necessary for rapid growth, businesses needed to include a larger number of women in management positions and encourage more innovative research.

Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan spoke at the Sunergeo 2007 National Study Conference on “Globalisation—the paradigm shift in Human Resources” organised here by the Department of Social Work of Madras Christian College.

Given the importance of talent in today’s knowledge economy, human resources management had a significant role to play in strategy definition and on executive boards.

He pointed to an experiment in human resource development in a global multinational corporation based in London that identified leaders and developed them differently to create future executives. Wherever they were located, their performance measures, compensation and benefits were managed by a single corporate human resources unit.

Joji Gill, Director, Human Resources, Microsoft India, who has the experience of working in the U.S., Europe and China, said that in a small and interconnected world where talent flowed across national boundaries, human resource management was a key driver.

Successful human resources management, she stressed, involved strategic thinking about talent acquisition, talent management, engaging employees and ensuring efficiency, quality and productivity.