What drives a business to be the best? Competition. That’s what raises customer expectations and the ability to attract and retain talent.
Competition is accelerating at pace. According to the Wall Street Journal, investment in startups for the first half of 2021 reached $150 billion. The easing of pandemic restrictions, a developing growth in economic confidence, and accelerated innovation has also increased competition and the need for skills. But demand for talent is now outstripping supply.
McKinsey’s The Skilful Corporation report claims that 87% of companies either have a skills gap, or will have one in the next few years. In addition, 53% of organisations believe that reskilling existing employees is key to tackling the shortfall, but over half of capability-building programmes are not achieving the desired outcomes.
Further shifts in working cultures, including the growth in hybrid working, are creating new challenges for employers. Retention of highly skilled and valuable employees is getting more difficult. According to Microsoft’s latest Work Trend Index, more than 40% of workers are looking to change jobs.
A new wave of competition is not the only challenge brands face today. Rigid silos beset by bureaucracy stifle innovation and a customer-centric mindset – making it difficult to meet the needs of customers, employees, and partners.
Aligning expertise to meet the moment
Expertise will be key to unlocking an organisation’s potential. It’s the ability of the organisation to learn, adapt, react, respond, and continue on this cycle, that will set it apart from the competition.
Where does this expertise come from? More often than not, expertise already exists within the organisation, but it has to be emancipated through informed and experienced guidance.
Working in tandem with an aligned partner will enable businesses to benefit from knowledge gained from working with other businesses across the same sector.
The right partners can help organisations build unified, cross-functional teams. Furnished with the right tools and training, employees can enhance their individual spheres of expertise and forge a powerful and enduring culture of customer-facing performance.
Setting up for success
The right tools and training can enhance expertise, but on their own they’re not enough to earn the repeatable customer experiences that define a successful business. Empowered and engaged people are the indispensable ingredient to a winning brand.
Any organisation looking to navigate a future on a limited resource of skills will require a flexible, resilient, low-code platform which forms the backbone of employee capability and management.
This platform should enable skills development, easy collaboration and work empowerment. It shouldn’t demand a degree in data science, but should allow both employers and employees to evolve skills, tools, and strategies around the needs of customers. Everything connected, integrated, and communicating with purpose to take the pressure off, as organisations compete for talent and embark on internal retraining.
Salesforce’s Trailblazer Community, a digital learning platform, strives to remove barriers and uncertainties around digital fluency by making technology accessible. To find out how we could empower your workforce and accelerate expertise, get in touch.
Expertise Accelerated: Unlock the potential in your teams
With this guide, you can learn how to free the talent in your organisation by connecting and aligning skills.
