Human Capital Strategy

The core skills required to operate in today's environment--continue to evolve.

The growing importance of human capital management is being driven by numerous internal an external factors:

• Business complexity. Most distributors are now selling a more complex value proposition--in many cases combining elements from a diverse portfolio of products, services, design capabilities, and analytics.
• Heightened competition. The highly competitive operating environment is compelling companies to extend their geographic, industry, product, and service coverage in the quest for top-line growth.
• Higher service expectations. Customers have ever-higher service expectations concerning product-related services (kitting, packaging, design, installation and maintenance, and so on) and transaction-and relationship-oriented services (order management and problem resolution for example).
• Evolving skills requirements. The core skills required to operate in today's environment--the ability to work with ambiguity and constant change, a comfort level with complexity, a willingness to embrace and leverage new technologies, and knowledge of both business and technical issues--continue to evolve.

ACTION POINT: Recognize the internal and external factors driving the importance of human capital management.