PERF RMANCE 04 - The Performance Portal - Ernst & Young

Connection as competitive
advantage
If you polled 100 enterprise CEOs tomorrow, the overwhelming
majority of these leaders would surely agree with the idea that
“our people are our most valuable resource.” While people
are truly an essential asset worthy of the huge organizational
commitments to talent and recruiting seen in many leading
enterprises, the full realization of this value largely depends
upon the strength and diversity of connections that people
have with each other.
Even in the best of times, forging these connections is not easy.
Many enterprises have aggressively globalized operations to build
top-line growth and build or maintain market share around the world;
simultaneously, many of these same firms have had to cut headcount
aggressively in order to deal with capital constraints and bottom-line
pressures brought on by the global financial crisis. The convergence
of these two trends has left gaping holes in once-robust internal
networks of colleagues — and these gaps have very real consequences
in the form of missed market opportunities, deficiencies in
organizational agility and innovation flows, regulatory compliance
risks and operational inefficiencies from duplication of effort.
In such an environment, it is no longer enough to invest in acquiring
and developing talent simply; instead, it is organizations that skillfully
invest in bridging the gaps between their people that will achieve and
maintain high performance and secure competitive advantage.
“ It is organizations that skillfully invest in bridging
the gaps between their people that will achieve and
maintain high performance and secure competitive
advantage.”
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