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Technicalities Most importantly, nearly 62 per cent of respondents felt that human resources departments need to serve a leadership role in managing skill and talent shortages. This is a vital role in the context of changing business strategies. HR leaders need to embrace this role change. Figure 4: Organizational Operations Models Phil Fersht is CEO and Tony Filippone is executive vice president of research at HfS Research. Diane Youden is partner and Kevin Pennington is director for PricewaterhouseCooper. Seven Global Business Trends Driving the Need for Human Resources to Transform Source: HfS Research and PwC 15th Annual Global CEO Survey 2012 1. Global expansion of Western companies into countries with developing economies. Slowing economies in the United States and Europe have driven growth, seeking companies to tap into rapidly developing economies in China, India, and Latin America. 2. Expansion of leading regional companies from Asia and Latin America into Western countries. Once considered only regional forces, Asian and Latin American conglomerates have expanded to North American and European countries in search of new customers. These organisations' low-cost operations create opportunistic growth possibilities in Western countries, where potential customers affected by slowing economies seek less expensive products. 3. Economic hardships of the last decade have left little fat within organisations. Recessions of the last decade and weaker economies have forced business leaders to make major staff reductions. Today's leaner companies require skills to transform business operations through process reengineering and leveraging existing capabilities across more markets. 4. Companies operate under increasingly complex regulatory environments. Financial, environmental, consumer rights, and privacy standards have advanced in both Western and Eastern economies. Employees must be knowledgeable of local market requirements while remaining vigilant against building inefficiencies into local processes. 5. The pace of business has accelerated. Organisations must rapidly launch multiple products into many countries at one time to drive revenue objectives. They must react quickly to competitive products and marketing and maintain close relationships with their customers, whose business environments are also changing quickly—all of which encourages companies to invest in talent strategies. 6. Organisations are realigning work within their teams to create nimbler standardised global business processes. Management needs better, more consistent information. Customers and supply chain processes demand simpler, but standard global processes. As a result, many organisations are creating global business process ownership models that drive consistent processes and improve allocation of capital. 7. Simple work has been automated or outsourced—the remaining work is complex. The need for talent is primarily driven by the sheer complexity of work that employees must now handle. Massive investments in ERP, MRP, and CRM systems over the last decade have left employees with the remaining complex work. Employees now need to design and manage self-service portals and inventory management systems. FALL 2012 | www.hroglobal.com [43]