87 percent of business leaders say digitalization is a company priority—yet over a third of IT decision-makers doubt their organization’s ability to successfully deliver on key initiatives.
To truly realize organizational value, companies must embrace digitalization as a strategic essential, securing the technical capabilities they need to survive and thrive in the modern landscape. But with talent shortages set to plague the industry, this is easier said than done.
Here’s how digital enablement is revolutionizing the organizational playbook with a talent-first approach.
the critical skills challenge
Talent shortages are holding back digital transformation plans at the majority of companies.
With so many organizations looking to digitize, this is a worrying reflection on the state of the sector. Digitalization efforts often require a huge outlay in terms of time, money and technological resources, and businesses want reassurance that they will be able to realize the value of their investments.
A recent whitepaper by Everest Group found that despite large-scale, long-term modernization and implementation programs, 68 percent of all enterprises do not believe that their digital initiatives are having the desired impact. This, in large part, is due to talent challenges across core areas such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, cloud, and cybersecurity.
The challenge is to strike a balance between growing in-house knowledge and bringing in external talent. Where vital skills don’t exist, they must be generated—but frantically plugging holes isn’t a long-term fix.
bridging the gap
To combat these growing talent concerns, enterprises are undergoing a wholesale shift; pivoting to an integrated model that enables them to bridge talent shortages across a longer term. Randstad Digital’s approach enables organizations to avoid widening skills gaps, retain strategic control, and deliver results.
- Global talent centers: We’ve created specialist talent hubs across the world to offer access to ready-built, highly trained teams that can instantly provide organizations with a global delivery capability.
- Managed solutions: We leverage our experience and expertise to deliver against your desired outcomes, taking elements of your digital enablement and passing them to our specialist team to take care of for you.
- Talent services: Our world-leading talent engine can quickly provide you with the right skills, wherever you need them. Our global talent pool becomes an extension of your in-house team to deliver on your digital ambition.
a talent-first philosophy
Conventional third-party arrangements have traditionally offered organizations a fast solution to staffing shortages.
However, third-party teams frequently experience attrition and are subject to inflexible constraints on efficiency and cost measures, which often means they are out of step with the dynamic objectives and key results that lead to successful digital projects.
The solution is digital enablement—a talent-first philosophy that enables sustainable in-house capability creation. By identifying core areas of missing expertise and upcoming technology trends, organizations can double down on their efforts to create a long-term solution, focusing their training on certain skill sets and carefully injecting the right talent at the right time.
- Closing communication and coordination gaps: With the right digital enablement partner, the lines of communication are open and clear. This means that talent can be hand-picked to meet specific requirements, with bespoke, agile plug-and-play teams ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.
- Boosting internal expertise: Digital enablement allows for long-term reinvestment into existing employees, with education and retraining programs for in-house tech personnel.
With 96 percent of companies agreeing that a lasting advantage can be gained by investing in the ongoing education of their employees, joining forces with the right digital enablement partner is the key to long-term success.
This approach, in turn, boosts retention. By bringing in the latest, sexiest technology and upskilling existing staff, businesses can stay abreast of the latest trends and keep hold of top talent.
the digital enablement era
By facilitating collaboration with a specialist digital enabler, businesses are empowered to accelerate their digitalization initiatives and close the skills gap. With global access to skilled digital personnel through flexible contracts, ongoing upskilling, or global deployments, digital enablers can provide the right talent at the right time, helping organizations stay in the driving seat of their digital transformation journeys.
- Maintain strategic control: With the use of pre-vetted, cross-functional agile pods that can be quickly scaled up or down to suit shifting requirements, the goal is to give enterprises the ability to maintain strategic control over their digital transformation.
- Long-term staffing quality: Digital enablers can upskill their team to the level of in-house capabilities by taking long-term responsibility for personnel quality. This will allow them to reap the benefits of quick deployment and low attrition over the course of a project.
- Constant reskilling: Digital enablers continually reinvest in the team by means of reskilling initiatives and sustainable career structures. This nourishes the corporate talent pool and facilitates the constant closure of crucial skills shortages. In the end, this approach helps organizations realize long-term value in their pursuit of digital transformation.
realizing value with digital enablement
Digital enablement represents a paradigm shift from conventional third-party partnerships, offering a host of benefits that are redefining the landscape of enterprise digitalization.
Where traditional partnership models offer a quick fix to urgent skills gaps, digital enablement is centered around dynamic value realization, allowing enterprises to tap into specialized digital talent with agility and speed as they embark on transformation journeys.
Crucially, this approach enables businesses to retain strategic control by ensuring that objectives and key results can evolve and flex to fit changing requirements, contrasting with the static KPI and SLA-based models of conventional outsourcing. Randstad Digital’s long-term focus on in-house talent building addresses the constant, growing challenge of technology skill gaps, reinvesting in the talent pool through continuous upskilling and sustainable career architectures – taking a talent-first approach to help you accelerate digital enablement.
Ultimately, this offers a future-fit strategy that empowers enterprises to not only navigate current digital challenges, but also realize long-lasting value through enhanced scalability, agility and control of their digital business models.
Eager to find out more about partnering with a digital enabler like us? Get in touch for a personalized consultation.