Digital talent as ‘connoisseurs’
Arai:
In Part 1, we talked about how Santen’s IT organization’s structure and its global talent strategy supports the company’s overall globalisation. In Part 2, we would like to hear your view on the digital talent that enables Santen’s digital transformation.
The competition to acquire highly qualified digital talent is fierce everywhere in the world. So-called tech giants are offering astonishingly large amounts of money to attract the best digital talent. What strategy does a business firm need to secure the right people in this domain?
Hara:
When we hear the term ‘digital talent’, we tend to think of people with experience in advanced technologies. You’re definitely correct in that the competition to attract such talent is fierce, but we tend to look for people with different aptitudes from those sought by tech companies.
Santen also needs workers with in-depth knowledge about digital technology and data science, and we need those roles and positions within our company. But we are also a business firm. We are not trying to build a business model that involves securing a great deal of digital talent to develop new digital services and applications in-house and selling them to other companies.
What we need from our digital talent is to act as connoisseurs to identify services and products offered by companies with cutting-edge tech expertise that are suitable for Santen’s operations, and to deploy them within our company. Furthermore, we need people who can suggest how such services and products can be utilised for our innovation and business reforms.
Arai:
As the CIO, what kind of workforce are you looking for?
Hara:
For me, an ideal member of the Digital & IT Division is an advanced user of digital technologies themselves and has unlimited curiosity about new things. They empathise with our company’s vision of the future, apply their curiosity to that vision, and talk passionately about their dreams. They build relationships with various internal and external stakeholders to fulfil their dreams, and carry out their projects by involving their team members, with the company-wide strategy in mind. That would be the ideal employee.
Arai:
As the pace of technological advancement accelerates, with new technology quickly becoming obsolete, the most important thing is to have curiosity about the new and be driven by passion to realise your dream. People who are unable to take the initiative to find a challenge to take on could be left behind.