The enabling role of information technology in the global war for talent: Accenture's industrialized approach

Abstract

The globalization of information technology (IT), in which developing countries play a major role, has caused a “war for talent.” To meet challenging growth targets, service providers find that recruitment and retention are of key importance. For developing countries globalization offers the opportunity for economic development. The central question of this paper is how IT can be used to support service providers in these fields. Specifically, this paper focuses on Accenture's human resources management (HRM) processes and the suite of applications implemented to support them. Accenture's industrialized approach makes effective and efficient HRM processes possible. The conclusion is that the HRM applications now working in parallel will ultimately converge into a fully integrated application suite. As a result, the exchange of employees between the company's branches would be still better supported, as would the collaboration between those employees. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.