Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Human Resources Management

Gaining Competitive Advantage through Human Resources Management

An Overview

Executive Roundtable Series March 1, 2005

Gaining Competitive Advantage through Human Resource Management

Thought Leadership Summit on Digital Strategies

An executive roundtable series co-founded by the Center for Digital Strategies at the Tuck School of Business and Cisco Systems, Inc. The Thought Leadership Summit on Digital Strategies recently convened for the ninth in its series of roundtables. This discussion focused on approaches to leveraging human resources strategies, capabilities and systems for competitive advantage in global organizations. The sessions included business leaders and academics from Cargill, Cisco, Eastman Chemical, Eaton, Emory University, Hasbro, IBM, Sysco, and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. The summit was moderated by John Gallant, editorial director and president of Network World.

Key Insights Discussed in this Article: • The human resources (HR) function is at an inflection point: It must reshape itself to deliver the strategic value that today’s business environment demands and refocus its energies to become a change catalyst and leader...........................................................................................2, 9 HR is in a position to shape corporate culture, spread best practices, and drive enterprise-wide consistency of important shared values and messages. HR and IT must jointly leverage technology and their unique cross-enterprise views to enable companies to become increasingly flexible and adaptable, drive enterprise-wide transparency, and provide ‘high-touch’ experiences where and when they are really needed....................5, 10 Information technology is enabling “digitization” of routine transactional processes and event management, at the same time providing all levels of the enterprise more data about its human capital than ever before. Talent management and development is a high leverage opportunity...