Hiring and retaining highly skilled employees is one of the greatest challenges facing enterprise leaders today. Deloitte’s 2022 Global Outsourcing Survey found that 50% of executives see talent acquisition as a leading challenge in meeting their organisation’s strategic priorities—and 56% do not feel their organisations have the right mechanisms to retain employees.

Rapid changes in technology, the economy, and employer-employee relationships have also disrupted old ways of thinking about talent resourcing. In today’s climate, the focus is becoming less on jobs or roles and more on skills and capabilities. Continued evolution in the global risk landscape and increasing regulatory burdens are also contributing to the need for more agility and constant upskilling. For example, specialists in artificial intelligence, data science, cloud, and cyber security are in particularly high demand. 

Put simply, running business functions and mission critical business services is becoming more complicated and specialised. Without the right employees and the right capabilities, leaders may risk letting their organisation fall behind.  

For decades, a strategic imperative of outsourcing was to reduce costs by finding faster and cheaper opportunities to complete routine and repetitive tasks. But now more than ever, organisations are considering next-generation managed service providers, also known as Operate service providers, to help accelerate innovation and advantage through acessing their high-skilled and hard-to-source people on-demand. In fact, these third-party resources are becoming so important that 87% of the respondents from Deloitte’s 2022 Global Outsourcing Survey consider external workers as part of their workforce.

In this article, we’ll explore two business use cases that demonstrate the speed, scalability, and other value-drivers made possible when companies collaborate with Operate service providers to augment their talent needs. 

Resourcing with agility

In both examples—whether it’s a government entity launching an emergency relief package, a retailer developing new programmes and offerings to meet customer expectations, or any organisation and situation in between—the evolving talent landscape not only creates a variety of unique challenges for organisations, but also opportunities for operational success. 

For organisations considering working with an Operate service provider, the value of selecting the right one goes far beyond just gaining access to hard-to-source talent. Here are my top tips for collaboration:

1. Make sure that you maintain oversight and control over your long-term vision and strategy while using Operate service providers to help upskill your in-house teams alongside delivering your projects.
2. Consider service providers that offer access to and experience of working with an ecosystem of technology vendors at the leading edge of technology disruption. 
3. Consider service providers who are on top of the latest industry regulations, as well as a track record of supporting organisations in your specific market or sector. 
4. Lastly, if you are an organisation with international operations, make sure that your service provider has the critical mass to support the areas in which you do business, whether your ambitions include an onshore, nearshore, offshore, or a hybrid operational model.