I recently read an article on “Capturing Talent” that was published in the Economist Newspaper .
The article is about skill shortage in Asian countries across industry verticals.The opening lines of this article unfurls a compelling story.
“It SEEMS odd.In the world’s most populous regions the biggest problem facing employers is a shortage of people”.
This thought made me remember the old story which I had heard many years back of two sales representatives of a Shoe Company who went to an African country to study the market potential.The story goes like this…
“The first sales rep saw the people in that country bare foot and came back and reported lack of market potential and a problem.The second sales rep went to the same country and also saw people bare foot and reported an opportunity to sell his company’s shoes”.
That made me think of “Reclamation” a concept well known in the physical world of Land and Real Estate.Land Reclamation we all know is a way to build and develop physical assets.Similarly “Talent Reclamation” is a way to build and develop the soft infrastructure of an enterprise.
What does reclamation mean?
The dictionary definition is – “the conversion of wasteland into land suitable for use of habitation or cultivation”.We have seen in the last few years , millions of tonnes of earth being moved to reclaim land and build the hard infrastructure in countries like India and China which is today the new Asian home to many global companies.
I see the next phase of reclamation happening around the softer component around Talent.
So how would this work?
Let us take India’s example which has two key assets – Agriculture and Manpower.
We saw in the last decade or two many enterprises that capitalized on the agricultural produce and turn this asset into a marketable output.The growth and success of the Food Processing Industry is well known in India which many companies like the Uniliver and Nestle’s of the world drove here.
I see Talent Processing as the next wave of opportunity to fuel the world wide need for talent.Emerging Markets will lead this new talent centred economy.And just as many core infrastructure projects in the area of telecom,Airports and Inter state highways are funded by global consortiums , Talent Development would need a similar global commitment and investment.
Talent Reclamation will happen with the right collaborative efforts of the enterprise and the academia.The business stakes are high enough to keep it limited to individual effort.The collective effort of global corporations and local intelligence should trigger the change to build an education based talent economy.
Dheeraj Prasad
