Nurturing entrepreneurial talent key to the competitiveness of nations
Switzerland, Singapore and the United States continue to lead the world in talent competitiveness, while countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa are seeing a progressive erosion of their talent base, according to the 2019 Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) report. The report confirms that talent issues have become a mainstream concern for firms, nations, and cities, with talent performance seen as a critical factor to growth and prosperity.
This year’s report has a special focus on entrepreneurial talent – how it is being encouraged, nurtured and developed throughout the world and how this affects the relative competitiveness of different economies. New approaches are emerging to stimulate entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial talent and futureproof employees – for example, the efforts to develop bottom-up innovation and empower employees. Such progress is especially true in the cities, where ‘Smart cities’ ecosystems are increasingly acting as talent magnets. The results further show that the highest-ranking countries and cities tend to be the most open to entrepreneurial talent while digitalisation and globalisation are increasing the role of entrepreneurial talent.
Vinod Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, Tata Communications, says “Businesses and cities need to work hand-in-hand to cultivate cultures of intrapreneurship and a mindset of continuous learning above all else, as the human factor is key to the success of digital transformation. This will help unlock the positive potential that technology brings – especially in a world where humans and machines will work side-by-side and different types of collaboration and ideation emerge.”
The report also reveals that cities rather than countries are developing stronger roles as talent hubs and will be crucial to reshaping the global talent scene. This growing importance of cities is due to their greater flexibility and ability to adapt to new trends and patterns – as nimble economic units where policy can be changed more swiftly, cities are thus more attractive for talent, especially entrepreneurial talent.
Felipe Monteiro, INSEAD Affiliate Professor of Strategy, Academic Director, and co-editor of the report, says “Entrepreneurship appears to be a decisive talent to succeed; all types of organisations have to attract and enhance entrepreneurial talent, in an era where ecosystems around the globe are drastically reshaped by digital transformation.”
The top-ranked city this year is Washington, DC, followed by Copenhagen, Oslo, Vienna, and Zurich. Washington’s position can be attributed to its strong performance across four of the five pillars measured in the research, specifically in the “Be Global”, “Attract”, “Grow” and “Enable” pillars. Its steady economy, dynamic population, outstanding infrastructure and connectivity, highly-skilled workforce and world-class education are all characteristics which contribute to making the city such a talent hub.
The 2019 GTCI report, published today by INSEAD, the Business School for the World, in partnership with the Adecco Group and Tata Communications, is a comprehensive annual benchmarking measuring how countries and cities grow, attract and retain talent, providing a unique resource for decision makers to understand the global talent competitiveness picture and develop strategies for boosting their competitiveness.