The potential ability of improving user experience (customers, employees, and ecosystem partners) impacts a company’s competitiveness in such a profound way that it is a do or die decision for the enterprises. However, despite their best intentions, 78% of the enterprises fail in their initial digital transformation efforts. Among those that succeed, it is a common refrain that it is talent – not technology – that determines success or failure of a digital program. Most leaders concede that technology implementation is the easy part; solving the talent and culture equation holds the key to digital dominance.

Talent may be one of several components that an organization needs to optimize to get digital right; however, as speed becomes the new currency for business (and, therefore, by extension IT), talent is increasingly becoming key to ensuring organizations are able to realize their digital ambitions quickly. The new IT model in a digital-first world is being redesigned to focus on IT services’ agility and flexibility with cost reduction as a logical/implicit derivative. This, coupled with external factors such as immigration reforms and the global geopolitical environment, is influencing enterprises to rethink their talent strategies and design talent models that support their transformation journeys.