The DNA of SMACKING Talent

Space the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new lives and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Remember Star Trek, the ubiquitous science fiction saga that a majority of millennials grew up with? The narration by William Shatner was a constant in all the episodes and movies of the Star Trek franchise and was THE MOVIE for us science fiction junkies. You are wondering why the reference to Star Trek and what relevance it has to this story?

Well, I’d like to believe that the Enterprise is a ship that not only symbolizes mankind’s quest for more knowledge and his unwavering curiosity, it also is a vehicle that showcases how that thirst can push us to make superior technologies that will aid in the development of the human race.

Just like the Enterprise, organizations across industries are on the lookout for newer technologies and paradigms of doing business, to make it simpler, faster and better. The IT space has been hurtling at light year speeds in terms of creative evolution over the past several decades. From the invention of the first computer by Charles Babbage in 1822 (the date is disputed) to the latest tablets, the IT industry has gone through nearly four waves of change–Mainframe, client/server, PC, Internet—and now finally SMAC.

SMAC or Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud has turned business models on its head and has companies scampering for survival. Most businesses woke up late to its development and that has even resulted in companies going bankrupt. Take for example Kodak. The digital revolution has rendered the film rolls useless. Netflix, which was founded in 1997 as a DVD-rental agency, was offered to Blockbuster for $50 million in 2000. Blockbuster refused. Circa 2014, Blockbuster is bankrupt while Netflix has hit $1 billion in revenues.

Yet another example of how adoption of technology can become a game changer is the growth of Amazon, an online retail chain, and the death of Borders, an international book and music retailer. With the proliferation of the Internet, growth of the laptop/tablet industry, books, music and even shopping is at the fingertips of the customer. Concerns are already been raised about how Flipkart, Myntra and other online stores are eating into the profit margins of consumer durables sold in big retail chains.

The evolution of technology has made it easier for the consumer, but it is changing the way business operates. Malcolm Frank, Cognizant Executive Vice President, Strategy & Marketing, in a whitepaper “Don’t Get SMACked: How Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud Technologies are Reshaping the Enterprise” talked about how “widget winners” will usurped by “digit winners”: Very plainly, if you have not built key portions of your business on the principles and realities of an emerging computing model — the SMAC stack — then you are at risk of being usurped by those competitors that have.

In this cover story, we aim to find out how SMAC is changing business models and how that in turn is impacting the talent equation in these organizations. With the rhetoric on technology and innovation, how many companies are actually taking a leading disruptor like SMAC seriously? While SMAC technologies are helping to recreate customer engagement cycles, how is it affecting the talent and what are its repercussions on the larger talent market? How will SMAC change the paradigms of the HR manager in terms of the kind of talent, the nature of jobs or even the location of the job?

For the first time, there are four disruptive changes than one – Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud. Hence, the scale and scope of this particular disruption is tremendous. The pace at which technology is evolving will add more opportunities and challenge universities and organizations on how to skill the employees.

SMAC is poised to become mainstream in another five to six years. According to Ganesh Natarajan, Vice Chairman and CEO, Zensar Technologies, says, “SMAC has become mainstream for the top 30 per cent of any industry. If you look at the insurance, retail and healthcare industries, it has become absolutely mainstream. The sectors where it has not become mainstream are traditional industries such as manufacturing and infrastructure.”

The way technology has been consumed over the years has changed dramatically. This has led to a tectonic shift in the way business processes function. “A banking major could become a retailer and vice versa as boundaries and businesses collapse. For example, Airtel Money is a bank while Airbnb is a hotel; in fact it is the largest hotel chain in the world. When iPhone arrived, it disrupted the business model of Nokia and we all know how that story ended. The consumption of the processes itself is changing and it is not just limited to the device,” says Mritunjay Singh, Chief Operating Officer, Persistent Systems.

So, how is the industry reacting to SMAC? Well, here is a lowdown on what the current trend is:

According to the Strategic Review on Report on the IT-BPM sector for 2014, NASSCOM estimates the sector to account for $118 billion in FY14. Exports are estimated to rise 13 per cent to $86 billion driven by the ability of the industry to offer solutions that integrate SMAC based offerings with traditional services. “While the industry is on target to achieve its long term targets of $175 billion in exports and $50 billion in domestic revenues, the nexus of forces (SMAC) will continue to drive change and create new opportunities. Internet of Things, smart grids, hybrid and personal clouds, software defined networking and storage, 3D printing and multi-channel consumer connect will drive key client investments,” the report said.

Gartner predicts that by 2017 SMAC will drive more than 26 per cent of the total enterprise software market revenue, representing over $104 billion new revenue from SMAC. According to research by International Data Corporation (IDC), which predicts that the IT sector will grow to become a $5 trillion industry, SMAC will contribute 20 per cent of the overall industry.

Software giant IBM, which has been at the forefront of the SMAC change, has estimated that the market of data and analytics will hit $187 billion by 2015. “To capture this growth potential, IBM has built the world’s broadest and deepest capabilities in Big Data and analytics—both technology and expertise,” Dilpreet Singh, Vice President and HR Head, India/Southasia, IBM, says. “Two-thirds of IBM Research’s work is now devoted to data, analytics and cognitive computing. IBM has earned 4,000 analytics patents. 57 per cent of companies now expect to devote more than a quarter of their IT spending to these new systems of engagement by 2016, nearly twice the level of 12 months ago. Earlier this year, we launched the IBM Watson Group, a $1 billion investment and an ecosystem of partners and developers that we expect to scale rapidly,” he added.

Ranjan Tayal, Senior Vice President & SBU Head – HCM Solution, Ramco Systems, says, “At Ramco, our product philosophy revolves around MUSIC, which in essence is similar to SMAC. MUSIC is an acronym for Mobility, User Interface, Social, In-Memory and Context aware applications and represents a convergence of technology and usability trends. A substantial part of our R&D investments are towards building the MUSIC capability into all our offerings.”

How is SMAC going to change the talent needs of the organizations? Its impact would be multi-fold: It would lead to the development of an entirely new skillset, while also fostering collaboration, entrepreneurship and innovation as it has opened up the IT sector to an entirely new range of IT professionals for whom being different is the mantra to success. It will also decentralize and democratize work as information will be at the fingertips of the employees.

Binu Philip, Director-Human Resources at Microsoft India, says, “The opportunity posed by app stores to host applications has led to millions of individuals taking up app development as a part-time or even a full-time profession. Several ISVs have taken to app development and some of them have apps that have been downloaded over a million times already. In fact, several studies have projected SMAC to generate more jobs as well.”

This trend is not only beneficial for IT professionals, but also for the companies. They will have access to a larger and wider talent base than they could dream of. It is just that organizations need to be more agile and find faster, better and newer ways of dealing with their talent base. The mobile and social aspects of the SMAC stack has already impacted the talent acquisition and recruitment processes of companies. It even led to the birth of LinkedIn, which is now increasingly redefining talent sourcing and changed the way companies looked at recruitment.

Talent mobility is one of the single biggest transformation that the new technology has brought in. Through mobility, employees can access information anytime, anywhere. With millennials taking over the workplace, the concept of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) has also flourished. That has also brought in avenues for employees to be connected through social networks. Talent mobility will become more important as companies will have to coordinate with multiple employees at different geographical locations and with the advent of SMAC, logging into office will never be a problem. “Through mobility, organizations are able to provide instant access to employee self-service portal, thus improving employee productivity by providing information real time,” Tayal added.

However, there is a downside to it. “Companies, which traditionally have a single-track focus, will find it difficult to do talent migration and mobility. The jobs that were there a few years back will no longer be in demand. As you upskill or reskill, the ability of what you want to choose and do becomes much higher. If you don’t acquire new skills, your mobility will become a challenge,” Raja Shanmugam, Co-Founder, President and Chief People Officer of Happiest Minds says.

Most organizations have not figured out how HR can be leveraged properly. Adding to that, HR itself is not forthcoming in terms of taking ownership of the problems they face and getting the C-Suite or the Board to ride the decisions along with them. HR leaders need to change and need to do it quickly. Here are five tips for HR and how they can use SMAC more intelligently:

Take control & ownership: It is time for HR to take control. They need to take charge of the communication in order to drive managerial effectiveness and also help manage the communications within employees. This would foster collaboration and teamwork between teams and for that they need to clearly understand how they can leverage SMAC. HR is a professional function. They need to stop whining and take ownership of what they do and be accountable to the Board through the results. The only way to do that would be to use Analytics to map the exact requirements of the organizations – be it talent or retention or engagement – and meet its needs.

Leverage SMAC for talent processes: Though social and mobile have become a way of life and most companies are beginning to tap Big Data and Analytics for information, they are yet to fully understand the impact on talent processes. HR needs to understand how it can leverage SMAC for processes within the function be it for attracting talent, creating learning infrastructure, improving retention and engagement.

Prepare for the future, but stick to the basics: It is the duty of the HR teams to prepare the employees of any organization for evolution or change. It is also the duty of the HR team to fundamentally change the way they operate as businesses undergo transformation or evolutionary changes. So, while SMAC will change the way businesses operate, it will not change the core functions of HR. “I do not think SMAC will essentially change the core of HR function, but may provide us with new ways and resources for being more effective,” Philip added.

Be digitally savvy: Technology has already changed the way we hire, interact and engage with our talent pool. People are using mobile interactive tools to determine where to go, what to buy and whom to trust. It has also changed the way talent interacts with HR. If HR wants to keep track of the pulse of the organization, it needs to talk to talent in their language on their turf – Talk to GenY on social networks and mobile so that they relate to you as one of their own.

Sharpen your skills: As the technology needs of the companies evolve, it will also lead to reorientation in the talent and the job market. “From a talent perspective, it becomes imperative for both the organization and the employees to constantly reskill themselves so that there is a mix of both the old and the new. The paradigm has to shift to if “I want to succeed five years down the line, what do I have to do from now”? Shanmugam said.

HR professionals are strategically deploying the SMAC concept across processes and systems. Many HR leaders have been instrumental in adopting the technologies and also facilitating its use. HR has to evolve from a command and control function to a much more networked and receptive function through social listening, and improving policies to cater to the aspirations of the employees. This change in HR is required. “We have done that fairly successfully at Zensar, but when I talk to many HR Heads I feel like they are watching the world go by,” Natarajan said.

Recruiting employees is an area that has really taken the lead on using social channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to maximize effectiveness as it allows them the ability to narrow down the talent to what they are looking for easily.

By moving towards HR-enabled mobile applications, SMAC will make HR teams and more importantly the business as a whole, more efficient as it takes technology to a new level.

The new paradigm of doing business is mobile and social. Since there is a lot of uncertainty in terms of we don’t know who the customer is, how they are going to interact with us etc., it will change the basic way we are doing business. HR needs to become the driver of growth by helping the individuals engage with the organization by building and adding value to it.

Like Dilpreet Singh of IBM says, “Today, leading companies aren’t just changing the way they work; they’re using smarter solutions to reinvent it entirely…In the past, companies relied on the intuition of managers to bring out the best in their workers. Today, they can use advanced analytics to find their best performers, understand what motivates them and use those insights to help other employees become more engaged in their work as well. By using social research tools to define its culture, the company can attract the right candidates, hire the right people and engage existing employees to drive performance.”

The market will see demand for a change in the skillsets and increased connectivity as organizations will depend on a global workforce. Companies will now look for managers with data as well as people skills. In conclusion, it is not just necessary to change but to do it smartly.