Show Us the Mold: IBM’s new Talent and Change Organization is a Transformative Step Forward in Workforce Science and Service Delivery

IBM announced a new Global Business Services (GBS) Talent and Change practice “to help organizations accelerate adoption of analytics to identify, recruit, develop and retain top talent and instill a culture ready to take decisive action.” The offerings include GBS Organizational Change, Employee Experience, Talent Analytics, and HR Cloud. This is the first major announcement since the acquisition of Kenexa where IBM has linked GBS services with its HCM solutions. Like its rivals, HP and Accenture, IBM is integrating its traditional consulting services closely with its technology assets. 

 

The title of the paper, Show us the Mold, tries to play off a Petri dish analogy around cultivating a cure like penicillin for a disengaged workforce that HfS thinks IBM is in a unique position to deliver, with its focus on workforce science and its compelling data mining and analysis capabilities, particularly Watson. But it also speaks to the fact that establishing a new model – a “mold” in that sense – for IBM teams to bring this new capability to market is the first step to delivering on the promise of improving the employee experience in business.