Talent Management in Emerging Markets: 1 Insight to Act on Today (Part 3, Localise)

This article is written by James Eyring

Increasingly, companies rely on Emerging Markets for revenue growth; this is particularly true given slow economic growth in the US, Europe and Japan. One of the greatest challenges to capturing growth in these markets is having the right leadership capability. Based on our on-going research on Talent Management in Emerging Markets and experience with companies, here is one insight into Emerging Markets that you can act on today.

Avoid the Global Standards Trap!!!

Over the past few years, many MNCs have accelerated centralisation to:
• Gain efficiencies in their processes and services
• Ensure consistency in offerings globally (e.g., leaders get same training anywhere in world)

However, these global standards don’t always work in Emerging Markets. For example, several companies with whom we have worked have a global standard of limiting high potentials to a portion of the management population at any given level in the company (e.g., 10%). This allows them to focus their development resources.

This sounds reasonable because you want to differentially invest in your best people. However, demand for leaders in a high growth market will quickly outstrip supply if you only invest in 10% of your current managers (see more information on Forecasting in Part 4 of this series).

Other companies fall into different Global Standards Traps. A few examples:
• Developing leaders with the same programmes globally, even though the complexity and pace of change in high growth markets demands different and new skills
• Evaluating jobs based on past revenue performance whilst ignoring future high growth
• Sending managers from headquarters to Emerging Markets to develop instead of sending managers from Emerging Markets to develop in more mature markets

Our research on Talent Management in Emerging Markets shows that companies relying on Global or Regional processes for Talent Management have lower impact on outcomes than do companies that design and deliver locally meaningful programmes.

You can leverage your global and regional practices. The key is having flexibility to adapt and add to these practices at a local level. Companies that do this have higher impact on their outcomes (e.g., better leadership bench, lower turnover, better recruiting) than do companies that must adhere to global standards.

To maximise your impact, make sure you keep these tips in mind:
1) Design global processes for Emerging Markets, not just developed markets
2) Allow local groups to add additional processes that help them grow (e.g., additional high potential programmes, management trainee programmes, etc.)
3) Allow localisation of practices if it better serves a particular high growth market

(c) 2011 Organisation Solutions Pte Ltd.

About the Authors: Dr. James Eyring is the chief operating officer of Organisation Solutions, a global consultancy specialising in organisational design, development and change solutions worldwide. James has more than 20 years of experience in the field of Organisational Development and his areas of expertise lie in large-scale organisation design and change, leadership development, and the design and management of distributed organisations.