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<ul><li>Capgemini is looking to expand its senior talent in India for technology operations. </li><li>According to industry watchdog, the hirings in tech in India will double in 2019. </li><li>Overall, the company has made nearly 11,000 promotions for its employees in last nine months.</li></ul>Eyeing global markets, Capgemini is set to strengthen its senior talent pool by hiring from India. The French IT major Capgemini told ET that its senior team <a href="https://m.economictimes.com/tech/ites/capgemini-to-strengthen-global-senior-talent-pool-from-india/articleshow/68177381.cms?utm_source=ETTopNews&amp;utm_medium=HP&amp;utm_campaign=TN&amp;utm_content=23">expansion</a> is one of its three key priorities as of now, adding that the plan is to nourish a startup culture across its 100,000 employees from India. The company is <a href="https://www.peoplematters.in/news/hiring/capgemini-taps-into-indias-senior-talent-pool-20972">reportedly</a> planning to hire over 10,000 fresh graduates via campus placements this year. On a larger scale, it also aims to get nearly 25,000 employees onboard in India — including the senior positions. It will look for senior officials with exposure in the technology and startup sectors. Recently, it added Nisheeth Srivastava as Chief technology and innovation officer. In fact, last year, to boost the senior level players, the IT major also initiated quarterly appraisals for its employees in India. The quarterly promotion cycles had been a trend for freshers in the company before it decided to extend it to senior hires, Ashwin Yardi, CEO, Capgemini India <a href="https://wap.business-standard.com/article/companies/capgemini-india-starts-appraisals-across-job-roles-promotes-11-000-119022200030_1.html">reportedly said</a>. Overall, the company has made nearly 11,000 promotions for its employees, he added. In the recent Global Business Summit in Delhi, Paul Hermalin, Chairman Capgemini said that digital — including cloud-based services — <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/expert-view/india-has-the-most-impressive-reservoir-of-talents-on-the-planet-paul-hermelin-capgemini/articleshow/68114111.cms">account for 45%</a> of the company’s revenue adding that the number will reach to 50% soon, ET reported. According to analysts, the company has hired quality talent from India such as Aruna Jayanthi, Srinivas Kandula among others for senior positions across the globe. For instance, Kandula will be heading the Global Human Resource Initiatives for the company. In addition to Capgemini, many technology companies have geared up for hiring talent in the technology sector with artificial intelligence, robotics and analytics as the emerging roles. Tech hirings are expected to <a href="https://m.economictimes.com/jobs/hiring-for-tech-talent-to-double-in-2019/articleshow/67134612.cms">double</a> this year to meet growing demands. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/executive-recruitment-in-india-set-to-rise/articleshow/68073404.cms">Amid job crisis, India’s C-suite hiring set to grow significantly this year, say recruitment experts</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/wipro-campus-placements-to-double/articleshow/67719782.cms">Indian IT major Wipro is on a hiring spree, plans to double campus offers and hike pay</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/accenture-bcg-dominate-campus-placements-at-business-schools-in-india/articleshow/68045145.cms">Consulting firms Accenture, BCG dominate campus placements at India’s B-schools this year</a>

French IT major Capgemini wants to hire senior talent team from India for global markets, boost campus placements

Technology services major <keyword id="10863" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Capgemini" source="Orion">Capgemini</keyword> on Monday said it has acquired <keyword id="13946781" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Chappuis-Halder" source="Orion">Chappuis Halder</keyword> &amp; Cie (Chappuis Halder), a global strategy and management consulting firm, for an undisclosed sum. Headquartered in Luxembourg in Europe, Chappuis Halder is a nearly 150-people consulting firm, with main offices in North America, Europe, and South-East Asia, with reputation for its financial services leading expertise. With Chappuis Halder's specific industry focus, the acquisition will help Capgemini strengthen its capabilities to advise banking, wealth management and insurance clients in North America, Europe and South-East Asia, the company said in a statement. "Chappuis Halder's addition will contribute further to our in-depth expertise of Financial Services, a key condition to be able to advise and help our clients in the industry with their business transformation," said Anirban Bose, CEO of Capgemini's Financial Services Strategic Business Unit. The transaction is expected to be completed within the coming months. The acquisition will also help Capgemini's in-demand specialist consulting services in environment, social and governance (ESG) and climate risk strategy. "We are looking forward to being part of the Capgemini Group and to bringing our capabilities in helping clients in the financial services sector," said Stephane Eyraud, CEO and Founder of Chappuis Halder. Capgemini is a diverse organisation with more than 340,000 team members in more than 50 countries. The Group reported global revenues of 18 billion euros in 2021. SEE ALSO <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/environment/news/what-happens-to-the-human-body-when-the-temperature-reaches-50-degree-celsius/articleshow/91589906.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">What happens to the human body when the temperature reaches 50 degree celsius?</a> <a class="tout-title-link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/tech-mahindra-tata-motors-maruti-suzuki-ambuja-cements-among-stocks-to-watch-out-for-on-may-16/slidelist/91585968.cms">Tech Mahindra, Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Ambuja Cements among stocks to watch out for on May 16</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/investment/news/the-terra-luna-crypto-crash-has-sparked-the-debate-on-true-decentralisation/articleshow/91586055.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">The Terra LUNA crypto crash has sparked the debate on ‘true’ decentralisation</a>

Technology services major Capgemini buys Chappuis Halder to boost financial services business

<ul><li>Global technology multinational <keyword id="10863" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="CapGemini">Capgemini</keyword> today partnered with <keyword id="1017386" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Coursera">Coursera</keyword>, an online learning platform to train its employees across verticals. </li><li>These include over 4,000 courses ranging from data science to personal development and business. </li><li>Nearly 25,000 Capgemini employees have signed up on Coursera’s enterprise platform — and they have completed more than 22,000 courses. </li><li>Reskilling employees in the digital space is critical to the IT major as these technologies, including cloud services comprise over 50% of the IT major. </li></ul>Global technology multinational Capgemini today partnered with Coursera, an online learning platform to train its employees across verticals in digital skills and other emerging technologies. These include courses ranging from data science to personal development and business. The partnership, which is aimed at developing skills including professional services, technology consulting, cloud adoption and sales productivity, will give access to over 4,000 courses to the IT employees at Capgemini. These courses have been added to Capgemini’s internal digital learning hub — NEXT — for upskilling employees globally. “We’re delighted to partner with Coursera as we launch NEXT, our new all-employee digital learning hub. This will further support the upskilling needs of all our team members as they design and deliver solutions to help our clients navigate through ever-changing business and people environments,” said <keyword id="9379023" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="stephan-paolini">Stephan Paolini</keyword>, Group Chief Talent &amp; Learning Officer at Capgemini. This comes after nearly 25,000 Capgemini employees enrolled in Coursera for the business module — and they have completed more than 22,000 courses. As work from home becomes the new normal, the company feels that upskilling the employees is the way to enhance employee engagement and adaptability for new business imperatives. “Access to top-quality learning content is more relevant than ever as markets and clients adapt to new challenges emerging from the COVID-19 crisis and its long-term implications on businesses and ways of working,” Capgemini said. Reskilling employees digitally critical for Capgemini Reskilling employees in digital space is critical to the IT major as these technologies, including cloud services comprise over 50% of the group’s activities, with growth exceeding 20% at constant exchange rates. “We have 1,800 certified consultants, while our nearest competitor in India is 500. The focus is on continued skilling. On average, we are reskilling 60,000-plus employees,” Capgemini India CEO Ashwin Yardi earlier <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/careers/news/capgemini-and-cognizant-plan-to-hire-35000-freshers-in-india/articleshow/74173093.cms">said</a>. With technologies like AI and machine learning taking center stage, most of the IT companies are having to change the ‘job roles’ of their employees too. Capgemini said that it reskilled over 51,000 of its employees in 2019, in emerging technologies like cloud, devOps, and big data. This is yet another initiative taken by the company to reskill its employees to keep up with the pace of digitisation. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/elections/news/tamil-nadu-witnesses-political-drama-inspired-by-a-manipur-court-verdict-even-as-senior-opposition-leader-anbazhagan-succumbs-to-covid-19/articleshow/76299032.cms">Tamil Nadu witnesses political drama inspired by a Manipur court verdict⁠— even as senior opposition leader Anbazhagan succumbs to COVID-19</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/microsoft-brings-its-venture-fund-m12-to-india-its-fifth-office-in-the-world-is-now-in-bengaluru/articleshow/76297385.cms">Microsoft brings its venture fund M12 to India – its fifth office in the world is now in Bengaluru</a>

Capgemini partners with Coursera to reskill employees in digital technologies — and 25,000 IT employees have already enrolled

<ul><li>IIT Delhi breaks its 10 years’ placement record, fetching over 1,000 placements during the current placement season. </li><li>Domains including electrical, chemical, civil and mechanical engineering bagged most offers in the technology sector. </li><li>The institute saw a 15% increase in the number of companies visiting the campus.</li></ul>With more Indian corporates looking to hire from top tier colleges, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi has seen the <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/iit-delhi-placements-surpass-10-year-record/articleshow/68293058.cms">highest</a> number of placements in a decade. And the top-most core subjects — bagging over 32% of offers — included electrical, chemical, civil and mechanical engineering followed by information technology. IT graduates secured 20% of the total offers rolled out by the employers. While analytics, management, finance, consulting and research fields secure the highest and most placements from India’s B-schools, the category bagged rest of the offers during the current placement season at IIT. However, the IIT did not disclose the salary packages offered by employers, saying that may be "devaluing national placements over international placements as well as core jobs over finance and consulting jobs." Eyeing the global demand for skills in technology sectors and analytics, IT majors including Capgemini and Wipro have been stepping up hiring a large chunk of talent from Indian engineering campuses. Capgemini has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/capgemini-eyes-campus-placements-senior-hiring-in-india/articleshow/68177928.cms">reportedly</a> been planning to hire over 10,000 fresh graduates via campus placements, extending quarterly promotions to freshers. While the homegrown IT multinational Wipro is prioritising digital expertise at <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/wipro-campus-placements-to-double/articleshow/67719782.cms">campus hirings </a>with a plan to double fresh hirings. Given high demand for AI skills, IITs are also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/iits-launch-courses-in-artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning/articleshow/67850336.cms">rolling out</a> certificate courses and degrees in AI along with machine learning, starting next academic session. The rise in automation and related skills has led to increased demand in the Artificial Intelligence. Hence, to bridge the gap, IIT has also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/iits-launch-courses-in-artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning/articleshow/67850336.cms">introduced</a> B.Tech in Artificial Intelligence along with other certification courses in machine learning, starting next academic session. Overall, as the IIT Delhi institute witnessed an upsurge of 15% in the number of companies visiting for campus placements, it scored over 1,000 offers from Indian as well as overseas employers. This included pre-placement offers allowing students to intern before going onboard with a company. The Delhi campus of Indian Institute of Technology has also been ranked among the top 100 institutions in the Global University Employability Ranking for the year 2018. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/capgemini-eyes-campus-placements-senior-hiring-in-india/articleshow/68177928.cms">French IT major Capgemini wants to hire senior talent team from India for global markets, boost campus placements</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/campus-placements-at-iim-mdi-tiss-iift-see-salary-packages-above-2-million/articleshow/67898696.cms">India’s B-schools are seeing higher salary packages for graduates — and it’s not just IIMs</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/ai-cloud-computing-machine-learning-cyber-security-among-top-skills-for-higher-salary-increment-in-2019/articleshow/68281010.cms">These 5 sectors are the only ones projected to see double digit salary hikes this year</a>

These core subjects are the biggest winners in IIT-Delhi's record campus placement season

<ul><li>Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the scope to make mistakes and take corrective measures is very limited. Consumer behaviour is constantly changing in tandem with the macro economic factors. </li><li><keyword id="9667881" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="sarika-naik">Sarika Naik</keyword>, Chief Marketing Officer &amp; Chairperson, Diversity – India, <keyword id="10863" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="CapGemini">Capgemini</keyword> tells us what changes are expected in the marketing landscape as consumers' expectations evolve and how Capgemini is helping marketers in navigating the challenges that the market forces continue to pose. </li><li>She highlighted how most organisations had already invested in <keyword id="294572" type="TECHNOLOGY" weightage="20" keywordseo="machine-learning">Machine Learning</keyword> and AI tools before COVID-19 broke out, however, now there is a need to ensure that these tools work more efficiently.</li></ul>Marketers have been closely observing how the pandemic-induced lockdown has turned the market upside down and altered the way consumers are communicating, sleeping, working, consuming content or making any purchase calls. ‘What next?’ is a question that has been on their minds for a while now and is commonly discussed in group meetings. However, very few brands have been successful in closely listening to their consumers, making notes, evolving with the changing behaviour and finally tweaking their marketing strategies accordingly. To help marketers navigate the complexities engulfing upon them, Capgemini launched an AI and Machine Learning tool called COVID-19 Impact Assessment. It presents all possible market scenarios to help planners make a decision, contextual sentiment analysis through Natural Language Processing, and creates predictive models. We reached out to Sarika Naik, Chief Marketing Officer &amp; Chairperson, Diversity – India, Capgemini who told us what changes are expected in the marketing landscape as consumers' expectations evolve. She highlighted how most organisations had already invested in Machine Learning and AI tools before COVID-19 broke out, however, now there is a need to ensure that these tools work more efficiently. Excerpts: Q. The Covid-19 lockdown pushed brands and organizations to make use of technologies that while being already available, hadn't been used effectively till now. Do you think the way organizations worked till now will see a complete overhaul in the post-COVID-19 world? Even before Covid-19, most organizations would already have CRM, opportunity tracker, tools for social listening and a lot of disparate systems and tools in place either for customer outreach, to position their campaigns or assess the lifecycle of a client journey. However, these were not necessarily all tied together. In the new world, there are two patterns emerging in this regard. The first one is the need to make sure all the tools are used and leveraged more effectively. The second one is to cross-pollinate the data, one from the other. For instance, social listening tools were used only for social media listening typically for reputation management. Now there is a need for deeper analysis of areas that customers are talking about, themes, sector needs and innovation in those sectors. Further, it’s important to loop in this analysis with CRM and tie it back to how you will position it to your clients and identify the campaigns for customers. In line with this at Capgemini, we have developed a solution called COVID-19 Impact Assessment, an <keyword id="107950" type="TECHNOLOGY" weightage="20" keywordseo="artificial-intelligence">Artificial Intelligence</keyword> and Machine Learning based solution which does contextual sentiment analysis by leveraging Natural Language Processing and creating predictive models. It studies the business impact of the customer by analysing global and local news, social media and the recent economic and geographical developments of the country’s customers are present in. This works on a simulation model where business leaders can model multiple scenarios and help them to take decisions and be prepared for challenges ahead of time. Currently, there is a deluge of digital content in the form of webinars, roundtables, panel discussions etc. Physical interactions, meet and greet and touch and feel is no longer possible. Therefore, to get the right message across, it is important to ensure that the content shared or spoken is bite size, sharp and focused. To summarize, most organizations already had the tools. However, now there is a need to ensure that these tools work more efficiently. It has become important to look at the data more seriously, triangulate the data among various other tools that we had and really assess how the customer piece comes out sharper. Organizations that did not invest in tools or did not have a robust customer journey mapping <keyword id="9541880" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="martech-tools">Martech tools</keyword>, will be disadvantaged and will need to scale up very quickly because in these times being unaware of the customers’ needs, their behaviour in terms of what they are reading, seeing or asking will be a deal breaker. Those organizations who have refrained from investing in Martech tools will have the option to either perish or quickly ramp up in order to survive. Q. In the last few years, marketers have shifted focus on customer experience rather than product and innovation. Will this continue to be a brand's area of focus even once the lockdown is lifted? Customers are looking for partners who will support them in their growth journey and add value in different stages of their growth path. They are not looking for partners who will not be able to scale up or see them through in the long journey. For quite some years, clients have become extremely prudent in choosing who they work with and they are looking at a complete holistic experience with their partners. It’s not about one product, one engagement, one launch, one relation, customers look at the piece in its entirety and the overall value partners bring. Now more than ever before due to Covid-19, the option to make mistakes and take corrective measures is very limited. Getting it right at the first attempt has become crucial. Therefore, customers are looking for partners who will not only swim with them but also pull them further on the growth and revenue path. Clients who have ambitious growth plans are only looking at partners who will support them in the whole experience. In the past non-value-added services were often outsourced to smaller sections for cost reasons. However currently, they would either do away with it or integrate that service with an existing large partner who can provide it. At Capgemini, we serve some of the largest clients across the globe. Our focus has always been to look at the entire customer experience rather than one deal or one offering. From our initial days we have always looked at the overall client journey and therefore we enjoy some of the best and longest relationships with our clients. Furthermore, we see these clients coming back to us - to partner with them to restart their business and ramp it up again during these unprecedented times. Q. The current situation has shown us the limitations of a few mediums like OOH and Experiential. Do you anticipate more brands to take a digital-first and digital-only approach in the post-Covid world? I strongly believe that crisis leads to innovation and creativity. The human mind is such that when one door closes you are always looking at another way to achieve the outcome. What is important to note is more than the medium itself, how customers consume that medium will play a predominant role. For example, if the customer’s clients get saturated with an overload of digital engagements, they may choose to step away from it. There could be a completely new way to engage with clients. This new engagement could be through phone calls or targeted customized messages. Therefore, while physical experiences and channels will take some time to come back to their previous state, it would be wrong to think that everything will go digital. As human beings, we like some amount of touch and need to engage and that is what makes us human. While digital mediums will assume an important place, but it is not to say that physical channels will be completely wiped off. Q. How do you think this situation will change the way brands market themselves? I believe, the core principles of brand building will remain the same, which entails what you communicate, how you communicate, and your actions must all align and be true to the brand. Now more than ever brands will take more of a citizen conscious role. Brands that respect their environment, care for employees and take care of the communities that they live in and demonstrate that in action alongside words will really stand out. Actions will speak louder than words now more than ever. Capgemini’s recent CRI research on consumer sentiment during Covid-19 revealed that organisations that embody a sense of purpose and strong sustainability credentials will see greater consumer engagement. In these critical times of crisis, consumers look to organizations to step up and showcase a sense of responsibility towards the society and community. More than half of the consumers surveyed expected organizations to showcase their sense of purpose and give back to society, both during the crisis and beyond. At Capgemini, we are conscious of the communities we live in. When we communicate about the relief work, we as an organization have done with our employees and stakeholders, it only cements the association with the brand of being a truly global, innovative and environment conscious organization. Q. If you were to give a few marketing tips to brands to help them get their marketing strategies right in the times of crises, what would they be? The core principles of building a brand have not changed. Being honest, sincere and true to who you are and what you do still stands true. For instance, in times like these delivering an unfavourable piece of news in a transparent and honest manner is what will set you apart from the rest. Speed and agility are also going to be important during these times. Often brands wait months to launch a solution or a product in a big way. However, in these times waiting for a big bang launch of a campaign may not work. A better approach would be to pilot and then quickly scale up. Therefore, speed and agility will be better served compared to a big launch events. At Capgemini, we have launched multiple offers which are helping clients restart their business. However, instead of doing big country wide launches, we went to different geographies and took a sector-wise approach to deliver the offers. There was no fan fare launch, we simply took it to our clients and once the pilot was working, we scaled it to other geographies. Marketing during these times calls for a well-thought-out approach that will need to be closely observed and adjusted to respond to rapid changes. Q. Apart from this, are there any personal learnings that you would like to share? What you do during a crisis separates actors from true leaders. As the father of management, Peter Drucker said ‘the greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic’. The biggest learning is, pandemic or no pandemic, there will always be innovative ways to meet the ever evolving and changing needs of customers. It’s a question of matching and mapping them with speed and comprehensiveness and building a strong partnership. Due to the pandemic, some of the core principles of engagement have changed. Some of these rules of engagement like seeing a customer do a handshake in a deal or showcasing the whole solution to the customer so they have the confidence to support you or customers cutting back on IT spends and innovation cease to exist. These are myths that are busted. Rather it is important to serve the right solution to the customer at the right time. When you can’t meet or see your colleagues every day and there are no informal channels of communication, trust assumes a new criticality than ever before. Trust not only with your own team members but trust with your leadership, trust with your organization and trust with your clients. The concept of trust becomes more important in times of crisis. Personally, this has helped me reinvent myself and my whole team and the way they look at their roles. These unprecedented times has helped all of us unlearn a lot of things and use creativity to perform tasks differently, but with the same goal that we had set initially. Human’s ability to adapt to changing situations is phenomenal, it’s just that one needs to see the larger vision and keep the bigger picture in mind.

Organisations that didn’t invest in MarTech tools will perish:  Capgemini’s Sarika Naik

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="28120" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Linkedin">LinkedIn</keyword> will allow individual teams to decide how and when they want to <keyword id="11374156" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="return-to-the-office">return to the office</keyword>. </li><li>The company told Insider exclusively that wants to step away from a 'one-size-fits-all policy.' </li><li>The company is not currently mandating that employees in the office must be double-vaccinated.</li></ul>LinkedIn is giving its employees and team <keyword id="76793" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="managers">managers</keyword> greater freedom to decide how they want to return to the office, if at all.The company outlined a fresh hybrid-working plan and says it intends to "step away from a one-size-fits-all policy."<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210228161830/https://news.linkedin.com/2020/october/global-flexible-work-policy-2020">In October, LinkedIn announced</a> that it aimed to reopen offices from September and that it anticipated staff would work in the office 50% of the time.In an update Thursday, the company now says it won't mandate either a specific return date or amount of time in the office.Instead, it will let individual teams decide their own hybrid-working <keyword id="6363690" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Strategy">strategy</keyword>, with managers taking a call based on discussions with colleagues."We haven't ironed out every different scenario, but we're asking employees to think about what works for them, where they do their best work, and how does your team work best," Teuila Hanson, LinkedIn's chief people officer, told Insider. "This is with the understanding that our employees are truly coming from a place of what works best for them."That could in theory see some teams favor all five days a week in the office, whereas some may never come in at all.Data indicates staff will opt for the middle ground. In an internal poll, 87% of LinkedIn's 16,000 global workers said that they would still like to come into the office at least some of the time. Hanson said the company still plans to invest in its physical office space."It's going to be hard, it's going to require our managers to talk to us and to engage in dialogue as leaders and as an organization," said Hanson.Many of LinkedIn's offices have not fully reopened, with individual workplaces set to open on a location-by-location basis based on local guidance.LinkedIn's policy is broadly in line with its parent firm Microsoft, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-headquarters-opening-to-more-employees-march-29-2021-3">which announced employees will be allowed to work from where they feel most comfortable</a>. Even Microsoft anticipates that if COVID-19 recedes, the majority of its workers would spend less than 50% of their time working remotely.Hanson said LinkedIn would adhere to Microsoft's <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2021/03/22/the-philosophy-and-practice-of-our-hybrid-workplace/">six-stage framework</a> for reopening offices.US technology firms have differed on the return to work. Apple and Google have told employees they should expect to work two to three days in the office. Others, such as Twitter, are allowing employees to be fully remote if they wish.LinkedIn is not currently mandating that employees in the office must be double-vaccinated.<h2>LinkedIn has gone for a trust-based approach to the office </h2>LinkedIn is leaning into the idea that companies should trust employees to know where they work best.This will be an important factor in a smooth return to work, said Claudia Crummenerl, global practice lead and managing director for workforce and organization at Capgemini Invent. "The trend you can see is there's a desire to be more flexible and to have choice. Even if people will go to the office three or four days a week, it's their choice. It's not somebody forcing them to do something."Companies mandating days in the office risk alienating employees who now desire greater flexibility. Apple battling its staff is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-hybrid-work-battle-employees-trend-2021-7">indicative of the chasm that could emerge between employees and organizations</a>. When handling these conversations, managers need to make extra effort to find out what individuals actually want, added Gartner UK research director Alexia Cambon. "A whole other reason for wanting to bring people back into an office is because [managers think] 'I can go back to managing the way I used to, which was to rely on what I could see.'"

LinkedIn will allow individual teams to decide if they ever want to return to the office

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div><keyword id="117076" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Burberry">Burberry</keyword> Instagram</div>When it comes to adapting mobile and <keyword id="50691" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Digital">digital</keyword> technology, there's a tendency to want to do it slowly, to dip a toe in the water before committing, and change one part of a business at a time.
That's especially true for small businesses who may be trying out many of these technologies in a business context for the first time.
According to a report <a href="http://www.capgemini-consulting.com/transform/digitalresearch/">from Capgemini Consulting and MIT,</a> companies that commit to digital and mobile in all of their functions <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/digitally-mature-companies-outperform-novices-2012-11">significantly outperform slow adopters.</a> 
The best path for small businesses isn't to experiment with mobile. It's to use it to transform the way they work. 
One great example of that lesson is Burberry, traditionally a well respected, but somewhat old-school British brand. As recently as 2006 they were significantly underperforming at a <a href="http://www.nl.capgemini.com/m/nl/tl/Burberry___s_Digital_Transformation.pdf">1 to 2 percent growth rate</a> while the whole sector of luxury <keyword id="6354851" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Retail">retail</keyword> was growing at 12 to 13 percent a year. Now, they're succeeding and are at the forefront of using digital and mobile technology to improve the customer experience in and out of the store. 
It's not enough to just equip a sales force with tablets; it's about changing the whole company. Burberry decided to do this so it could aggressively target the millennial consumer, whose native language is digital and mobile, <a href="http://www.nl.capgemini.com/m/nl/tl/Burberry___s_Digital_Transformation.pdf">rather than</a> "ladies who lunch." 
The company <a href="http://www.nl.capgemini.com/m/nl/tl/Burberry___s_Digital_Transformation.pdf">has an entire department</a> devoted to mobile, one devoted to social media, and another devoted to analytics. They work tirelessly to integrate all three from the sales floor to the back office. 
That's exactly what small businesses need to do. Giving tablets to a sales force might make things more convenient for them. But being able to use all of the data they produce to make better business decisions boosts an entire company. In the past, the ability to get and analyze that sort of data was limited to big businesses with big IT departments. Now, those <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-executive-on-small-business-lending-2013-1">cost barriers are starting to go away</a>. 
Capgemeni Consulting Global Practice Manager Didier Bonnet gave us a great example of the difference between a tentative and fully committed mobile strategy for smaller businesses. They looked at two insurance companies of similar size. One simply gave tablets to its sales people. The second company rigorously used data and connected those devices to data and decision making in the front office. The difference in the results was huge, Bonnet told us: 
"The first company was able to raise their productivity by a couple of percentage points. The other one raised not only productivity tremendously, but also the sales levels because they automated entirely, they used the power of their technology to change the entire process.
The best way I can express it is it was the difference between sticking a technology in an existing process, substitution if you will, versus really transforming the process with the power of what the technology can do. And the gains were an order of magnitude different."
Burberry's a great example of how to make that transition in an innovative way. They use mobile not only to augment but to completely transform the customer experience. The first step was making the full global collection available on iPads, regardless of what's available in the store. Shoppers can also <a href="http://readwrite.com/2012/09/14/digitally-integrated-burberry-flagship-store-opens-in-london">buy items on the spot</a> via a mobile device. 
But the company goes well beyond that, as CEO Angela Ahrendts <a href="http://www.nl.capgemini.com/m/nl/tl/Burberry___s_Digital_Transformation.pdfhttp://www.nl.capgemini.com/m/nl/tl/Burberry___s_Digital_Transformation.pdf">told Capgemini:</a> 
"It also enables us to share the energy and excitement of key brand moments with our customers around the world. For example, by inviting them to watch our runway shows live in stores and enabling them to shop the collection on iPads immediately afterwards, for delivery in 6-8 weeks."
This visual capability allows Burberry to transition smoothly from the fashion show to a consumer experience, illustrating mobile's unique attributes. Further, the mobile experience integrates social media tools so shoppers can share their purchases and unique experiences with a larger community. Since Burberry has more Facebook and Twitter followers than any other luxury brand it's a particularly powerful tool. 
The impact on the front end is easy to see for small businesses, but a digital and mobile transformation can affect everything, as Burberry shows. The fashion business is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-manufacturing-2012-12">usually fraught with forecasting</a> and a bad prediction can mean companies have to offer discount items in outlets. When customers order through Facebook and mobile devices weeks ahead of time from lines that just premiered the company can manufacture much more efficiently.
The company's IT department also collects data and feeds it back onto the sales floor so associates can tailor offerings to the customer's past purchases and preferences on their iPad
If a sales associate sees a problem at the store, they can <a href="http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/05/burberry-angela-ahrendts/">use an internal social network</a> to immediately let people at headquarters know on that same iPad. For example, the sales team used the tool to tell designers that larger men were unhappy with the fit of a certain suit, which allowed the company to adjust. 
Mobile works best, for businesses of every size, when its not just used flashy tool to show a customer how up to date a company is, but to truly improve every part of a business.

Going Mobile Has To Be A Transformation, Not An Experiment

As the Olympic Games draw to a close, the spotlight not only shines on the athletes competing for glory but also on the transformative role <keyword id="19901571" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="technology" source="keywords">technology</keyword> has played in shaping modern <keyword id="20010841" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sports" source="keywords">sports</keyword> and <keyword id="22746553" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="training-methodologies" source="keywords">training methodologies</keyword>. Over the past few years, <keyword id="20142309" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="innovations" source="keywords">innovations</keyword> such as <keyword id="20624226" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="wearable-devices" source="keywords">wearable devices</keyword>, <keyword id="22746554" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="performance-analytics" source="keywords">performance analytics</keyword>, and <keyword id="19948295" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="virtual-reality" source="keywords">virtual reality</keyword> have revolutionised how athletes prepare for competition, enhancing their training regimens and optimising performance. The intersection of sports and technology is dramatically altering the landscape. From advanced sensors that track physiological metrics to smart equipment that provide real-time feedback, technology has become an integral part of an athlete's toolkit. "Technology fits like a glove in the macro fabric of the modern-day ecosystem of sports performance analysis. It empowers young athletes and coaches by democratising access to pro-level analysis and tools, which helps nurture grassroots talent and instill a sense of competitiveness by providing insights that were traditionally available only to top-tier athletes," said Sudeep Kulkarni, founder and CEO, Game Theory. The sports industry is increasingly leveraging the power of <keyword id="19904566" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="artificial-intelligence" source="keywords">artificial intelligence</keyword> (<keyword id="19899640" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="AI" source="keywords">AI</keyword>) to transform the way performance is analysed and outcomes are predicted, he said. Athletes can practice against virtual opponents and mimic game circumstances using augmented reality (AR), which aids in developing rapid decision-making under pressure. Stupa Sports Analytics, a sports technology firm based out of Gurugram, recently provided analytics support to the Indian table tennis team at a preparatory camp for the Paris Olympics, which included performance analytics, rally analysis, and AI insights for both players and coaches. "The data helped in articulating strategies to play against the world's best players. Prominent players like Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai, Manav Thakker, Manika Batra, Archana Kamath, and Sreeja Akula benefited from these insights, enhancing their preparation and performance," said Megha Gambhir, CEO and co-founder, Stupa Sports Analytics. Augmented Reality (AR) is also enhancing the spectator experience. AR solutions allow fans to access additional information about players and stats during live events. A report from the Capgemini Research Institute revealed that nearly 70 per cent of respondents surveyed (10,000) said that emerging technologies have enhanced their overall viewing experience, both inside and outside the stadium. Emerging technologies are undeniably the future of sports, and at the forefront of this golden era are tech startups. The integration of technology in sports through startups is reshaping how athletes train, compete, and engage with fans. These startups are driving innovation and setting new standards in the sports industry. Founder and general partner at Centre Court Capital, a gaming and sports tech VC, Mustafa Ghouse said sports tech startups are increasingly becoming target sectors for venture capital due to the vast potential for innovation and growth in the sector. "In India, the interest is becoming more pronounced, particularly in niche areas of sports technology. In the last three years, India saw investments of USD 1.2 billion in sports tech. India is also the 3rd largest funded country in sports tech after the US between 2018 through 2022 followed by China," he said. Indian sports tech startups are starting to attract attention from global investors alongside domestic investors, Ghouse added. "The increasing allocation of media rights and the surge in digital consumption of sports content are driving demand for advanced tech requirements. This, coupled with the proliferation of smart devices and internet connectivity, sets a fertile ground for sports tech startups to flourish and draw substantial investment," he said.

Tech innovations, AI changing the game for modern sports, training methodologies

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div><ul><li>Creative agency R/GA is growing its consulting offering.</li><li>The agency believes the diversity of its teams and a creative risk-taking mindset give it an edge over management consultants like McKinsey and Accenture.</li><li>R/GA's&#xa0;business consulting practice is on track for 50% growth in 2017.</li></ul>While consulting companies and IT firms are making inroads into the marketing sector, <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> agencies are increasingly building out their own consulting offerings.Interpublic Group (IPG) is one of the advertising holding companies looking to shift to a consulting model. Its digital agency R/GA has been active in&#xa0;consulting for four years and now IPG CEO Michael Roth now <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/interpublic-wants-to-become-a-business-transformation-consultancy-2017-2">wants the rest of his group to follow suit</a>.Saneel Radia, the global head of the R/GA's consulting practice, told Business Insider the culture, flexibility, and risk-taking in creative agencies give his company&#xa0;an edge on consulting firms.Radia credits R/GA's early jump&#xa0;into consulting to the agency's founder Bob Greenberg. Radia said he joined the agency in February 2016 after a conversation with Greenberg, where they agreed that consulting was broken and it needed to be fixed.Consulting&#xa0;companies and IT firms made a lot of noise in 2016 by acquiring agencies and adding creative marketing services to their offering: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-accenture-acquired-karmarama-2016-11">Accenture Interactive acquired British creative shop Karmarama</a>, <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/press-releases/deloitte-digital-announces-acquisition-of-award-winning-advertising-agency-heat.html">Deloitte bought up creative agency Heat,</a> <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/02/ibm-buys-germanys-aperto-to-build-out-its-digital-agency-business/">IBM acquired two smaller creative agencies in Germany</a>&#xa0;and another <a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/49304.wss">in the United States</a>, and <a href="https://www.capgemini.com/news/capgemini-acquires-innovation-and-design-consultancy-fahrenheit-212-to-drive-north-america">Capgemini bought the design agency Fahrenheit 212</a>.As these large firms increasingly encroach on the traditional ad agency business, Radia explained R/GA is out to redefine consulting."Management consultants are too similar to their clients and too similar to each other," Radia said. "We're playing offense, we want to disrupt management consultants."The approach has been successful so far. Radia said the consulting practice saw 50% growth in 2016 and is&#xa0;on pace to see the same performance&#xa0;in 2017. The practice works with clients already on R/GA's roster as well as going after its own clients.One of R/GA's early consulting projects was with Nike on retail innovation:While R/GA has employees dedicated to business consulting, the practice also pools talent from across the agency to create teams on a project-by-project basis. At any one time, up to 150 people in the agency could be working on a consulting project.R/GA's business model is a break from what clients have come to expect from&#xa0;traditional consultants, which charge clients for their time. Radia explained R/GA won't just advise on strategy, but it will also build products, campaigns, and infrastructure."[Management consultants]&#xa0;have MBAs and wear blazers to work," Radia said. "You wouldn't be able to spot the people working on consulting at R/GA.""Our internal mantra is 'consultants that make'. You see real results," Radia said.<h2>"Traditional consulting is a black box"</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>The agency has attracted consultants from big firms, like Andrew Lam-Po-Tang, whom Radia calls a "unicorn" because of his unusual career path, first as a graphic designer and then as a management consultant for Boston Consulting Group - like a unicorn, a rare find.In the agency's new London office in Shoreditch, Lam-Po-Tang told Business Insider he met with R/GA chief creative officer Nick Law in 2015 before he joined that year, who explained to him what the agency was doing to go into consulting."I presented him over a couple lunches the main arguments as to why it was really hard. The main reason is culture clash. Traditional management consulting used to be very much about mitigating risk and doing lots and lots of analysis, to help managers be ever more certain the choices they were making about where to play and how to compete were the correct ones," he said.Lam-Po-Tang believes creative places, like his agency, stand a better chance of incorporating consulting-minded people than consultants bringing in creatives. He said creative agencies have&#xa0;a stronger culture and more diverse teams, which allows them to take more risks than management consultants."As a class, ad agencies are populated with people who know they have to make stuff up for a living. That's what creatives do. By definition that is taking a risk. That's taking a personal risk and a professional risk," he said."Large organizations are mostly structured around risk mitigation. They are not structured around taking risks. So they have a systems problem, a process problem, and fundamentally they have a cultural problem," he said.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Any consulting work begins with trying to understand the client's problem. Unlike usual agency work, there's no brief. Lam-Po-Tang admits R/GA's approach is&#xa0;a little more messy and chaotic than the consulting work clients will have come to experience. When Lam-Po-Tang explains to a client what R/GA will do, he makes it clear they can't expect to get the same quantity of analysis they would get from a management consultant."We intend to go to the two or three things you need to get moving on straight away because that's where the main goal is. And if that means I leave off 80% of the longtail analysis, that's smart," he said. "For us, we need to share with the client a high degree of confidence that this market, this segment, this proposition will be commercially successful and significant. A solution that affects 2% of revenue, that's not our ambition."R/GA parent company IPG isn't the only advertising group focusing on business transformation. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-publicissapient-maurice-levys-foundation-for-the-future-2017-2">Publicis Groupe has highlighted its Sapient division</a> and the digital transformation business as its foundation for the future. <a href="http://www.adweek.com/agencies/ad-agencies-are-building-out-their-own-consultancies-to-better-compete-for-digital-dollars/">Dentsu's 360i has a 50-person consultancy practice, as Adweek reported.</a> Meanwhile, WPP's CEO Sir Martin Sorrell recently brushed off concerns that consulting firms present a threat to its business, saying on the company's earnings call earlier this month: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/wpp-ceo-sir-martin-sorrell-amazon-keeps-me-up-worrying-at-night-2017-3">"I don't think it's that significant."</a><div><div class="vimeo-embed-container"></div></div> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-weapons-deadly-evolution-power-military-video-animation-2017-3">This animation shows how terrifyingly powerful nuclear weapons have become</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="d2N2I1YTE6mrZP5zQWFl4VQ6rRPYHDEW" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

Ad agency R/GA wants to 'disrupt management consultants'

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Bobby Yip/Reuters</div></div></div><ul><li>Ad companies are increasingly responding to the threat from consulting firms by acquiring consultancies, creating new divisions or reorganizing internally.</li><li>Omnicom acquired Dallas-based consulting firm Credera recently, while Grey launched a new global enterprise practice called Grey Consulting just last week. </li><li>Others, like R/GA and 360i have too made inroads into various types of consulting services.</li></ul>Ad agencies are starting to fight back.Giant consulting firms like Accenture and Deloitte have been increasingly encroaching on agencies turf. In fact, several have been <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-you-would-never-see-the-worlds-largest-digital-ad-agency-making-ads-for-olive-garden-according-to-its-head-2018-3">buying their way into advertising through creative acquisitions</a>.Now agencies are starting to respond by going down the same route.A growing number of large traditional ad agencies are looking to lay claim to an ability to offer consulting services - promising not just to make ads and buy media, but help improve their clients' business.They are doing so by acquiring smaller consultancies, creating new divisions, dialing up their data offerings or reorganizing internally.<h2>Agencies are promising clients one-stop shopping</h2>Omnicom, for instance, announced that it was acquiring Dallas-based consulting firm Credera last week. The next day, the ad firm Grey launched a new global enterprise practice called Grey Consulting by tapping into 150 existing technologists and creative and strategic planners to create a new global enterprise network.WPP's Kantar, on the other hand, <a href="https://www.adweek.com/agencies/wpps-kantar-is-ready-to-take-on-consulting-firms-infringing-on-agency-territory/">streamlined its consulting services</a>, bringing together four of its existing brands under a single entity earlier this year."Agencies are...not taking this [threat] lying down," said Jay Pattisall, principal analyst at Forrester focusing on ad agencies with a research report detailing this trend coming out later this month. <h2>Agencies are rethinking the scope of their work beyond traditional <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword></h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">ReutersA military personnel participates in the Velayat-90 war game on Sea of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran December 28, 2011</div></div></div>From clients cutting back on fees to taking more work in-house, ad holding companies are facing strong headwinds. With the current <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-are-cutting-out-ad-agencies-and-going-in-house-2017-6">advertising agency model under pressure,</a> agencies have been forced to rethink their scope of their services.One way of riding out the current upheaval is by acquiring companies with capabilities that complement existing capabilities they already have and offer. This theoretically enables agencies to connect data, analytics, research and their creative offerings in new ways. Omnicom, for example, acquired Credera to augment its existing creative and data capabilities by adding management and IT consulting capabilities in the mix. The aim was to have as many capabilities that help clients navigate complex technology choices better in-house, without having to outsource the process, the company said."We're very much trying to reinforce and support something we are already doing, and increase the value of a service we're already providing," Luke Taylor, chief executive of Omnicom's precision-marketing group, told Business Insider. "It helps us fill in some of the gaps to drive precision marketing scale for our clients."Another approach to establishing a consulting practice is to simply restructure internally, as Kantar did - so that different entities within the company could work together in a more integrated manner."We had those assets available for clients for a number of years," said Wayne Levings, Kantar Consulting's president. "It was about bringing them together in a way that made them even more relevant for the marketplace, and allowed us to more effectively scale and invest in this area."<h2>And clients are demanding a more diverse range of services too</h2>A lot of the change is being driven by clients themselves. Maerketers are asking for help and thinking that goes beyond communications more than ever, says Leo Rayman, CEO of Grey Consulting, so it makes sense to give them a more concentrated offering. That is why Grey Consulting was created, to combine business and brand design, innovation and digital transformation to accelerate growth for clients. The rationale is that the more agencies can enhance their existing capabilities, the more entrenched they can be in other aspects of the client's businesses."It allows us to codify the know-how we have, weaponise our creativity by marrying it with even more commercial strategy and allows us to move upstream, providing answers to the kinds of questions clients ask long before they get to defining the creative brief," he said.<h2>Plus the consultancy threat means that they must adapt</h2>Of course, consulting giants like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-you-would-never-see-the-worlds-largest-digital-ad-agency-making-ads-for-olive-garden-according-to-its-head-2018-3">Accenture</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/deloitte-cmo-says-old-ad-model-is-not-what-marketers-need-2017-10">Deloitte</a> encroaching on agencies' turf is big factor, whether agencies admit it or not. 73% of marketers said that they were open to using consultancies for digital marketing work, according to a recent Forrester study."I think often agencies seem to think they're disrupting consultancies, but most are in fact having to respond to the very real fact that management consultants are moving downstream into their business," said Saneel Radia, R/GA's global head of consulting.Consulting firms claim that their expertise in tech and business strategy as well as data and logistics helps them meet the needs of modern CEOs and CMOs far better than ad agencies can, which isn't entirely exaggerated, according to Radia. "Those organizations are quite good at understanding how to measure ROI, reduce cost, streamline process and leverage automation," he said. "So of course [them] moving down into marketing is a pressure any advertising agency is feeling today."<h2>Marketing and consulting are colliding</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Michael Seto/Business Insider360i president Abbey Klaassen</div></div></div>To be sure, consulting isn't an entirely new arena for ad agencies. A number of agencies, including R/GA and 360i have had consulting divisions for years. French advertising giant Publicis acquiring the consulting giant Sapient in 2015 at a deal valued at $3.7 billion.And last year, Publicis teamed with tech consultancy Capgemini to help McDonald's with its digital transformation."Marketing services and management consulting collided years ago," said R/GA's Radia. "The idea that anything is one type of company's turf or the other is likely outdated."But the pace of change has indeed accelerated more recently. Brands are seeking partners that help them drive more drive efficiency as well as simplify efforts in an increasingly complex digital ecosystem, and both agencies and consultancies are stepping up.Traditional consultants may bring myriad analytical frameworks to the table, but agencies are convinced that they'll be able to tackle them head-on. According to 360i president Abbey Klaassen, consulting firms lack hands-on experience in execution and creativity."Part of the reason we've been successful in our consulting practice is because we're not just process makers; as a creative and media agency, we're also process users," she said. "Being able to understand all the intricacies of a client relationship and how they come together - search, social, creative, media, leading inter-agency teams - makes us more effective as a consulting partner."<h2>Both agencies and consultancies must evolve their business models to meet changing client demands</h2>Analysts aren't so sure that agencies can suddenly match consulting firms. It is one thing to have a consulting unit, and another to attract and retain talent and even sell those services effectively, said Brian Wieser, senior analyst at Pivotal. "That's one of the biggest challenges for agencies," he said. "You can do the work if you can sell through at a higher level than the CMO, and most agencies don't have those connections." Agencies also need to focus on integrating their consulting practices within their broader cultural frameworks, said Forrester's Patissall."Cultural integration is the hardest, Publicis is still working through the branding and positioning of Sapient and where it fits," he said. "What they're trying to do is build additional structures; the next step is appointing leaders to bring them together globally."Either way, what's certain is that both agencies and consultancies are and must evolve their business models to meet changing client demands. "We're squarely in the era of disruption, many incumbents are investing in their own transformation," said R/GA's Radia. "It's competitive, and the companies that serve as able hybrids will prosper most." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cigna-ceo-express-scripts-merger-and-problem-with-healthcare-2018-7">The CEO of one of the largest health insurers in the US explains the problem with healthcare in America</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Huge consulting firms are coming after the ad agency business&#160;- here's how agencies are fighting back

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div> A LOT of room in an office is a sign either of a blossoming company or a shrivelling one. Happily for Frank Han, the empty space at Kenandy, a cloud-computing company in Redwood City, a few miles south of San Francisco, indicates the former. 
As manager of "talent acquisition", he is busy filling it. Since he joined Kenandy last October, Mr Han has recruited 32 of the nearly 80 staff. At some point when hiring half of them, he used LinkedIn.
LinkedIn, based a bit farther south in Mountain View, had its origins in 2002 as a "network of people", says Allen Blue, one of its founders. "We had in mind a tool for ourselves," he explains, "and we were entrepreneurs." People starting a business may have a little money, but no office, no team and no big institutions behind them. "So much of what entrepreneurs need is about interrelationships."
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>Since then LinkedIn has spread far beyond Silicon Valley. It is an online contact book, curriculum vitae and publishing platform for anyone wanting to make their way in the world of work. Its membership has almost trebled in the past three years, to 313m (see chart 1); two-thirds of them live outside America.
Most are professionals, mainly graduates, neither at the apex of the corporate pyramid nor at its base. "It's a presence in your life that wasn't there a few years ago," says a member who works for a firm of accountants. "You can't walk into a room without everyone having looked everyone else up on LinkedIn."
Most members pay nothing to list details of their education and career, to be told about jobs, to "endorse" each other's skills, to read recommended articles-and to be annoyed with endless requests from people wanting to "connect" with them. Some pay a premium subscription for a customised profile, a bigger photograph, and the right to send 25 e-mails a month to other members (even if they are not connections already). Premium subscriptions bring in one-fifth of LinkedIn's revenue, which amounted to $534m in the second quarter, 47% more than a year before. (It reported a small net loss, largely because of a charge for share-based compensation.)
Yet LinkedIn is more than just a means for aspiring professionals to make friends and influence people. It has changed the market for their labour-how they find jobs and how employers find them. By bringing so many professionals into one digital place, it has become a honeypot for folk like Mr Han. One corporate recruiter after another calls it a "game-changer".
But LinkedIn's ambitions do not end there. They are limited only by the size of the world's labour market. Its chief executive, Jeff Weiner, envisions what he calls a vast "economic graph", connecting people seeking or starting work or wanting more from their careers. That implies an eventual membership of 3 billion-Mr Weiner's estimate of the global labour force. In other words, LinkedIn wants to change not only the business of recruiting, but also the operation of labour markets and, with that, the efficiency of economies.
<h2>The 60% solution</h2>
Recruiters are LinkedIn's main source of revenue. They pay for licences to trawl for likely job candidates and to e-mail them about vacancies, as well as for placing advertisements on the site. This business-called "talent solutions"-accounts for about three-fifths of sales. It allows recruiters to be more precise about the groups to search in order to find people to hire-people who attended certain universities, say. Rajesh Ahuja, the senior recruiter in Europe and Asia at Infosys, an Indian software company, focused a recent effort to hire 200 MBA students on graduates of several hundred colleges.
LinkedIn's main benefit to recruiters has been to make it easier to identify people who are not looking for a new job, but who might move if the right offer came along. These "passive" jobseekers, says Dan Shapero, head of sales in the firm's talent-solutions business, make up perhaps 60% of the membership (active jobseekers make up 25%; those who will not budge for any money make up the rest).
LinkedIn has made it easier for companies to identify such people themselves, rather than rely on recruitment agencies. In that sense, it represents a challenge to the agencies. Mr Ahuja says that two years ago he used external agencies to fill 70% of open positions in Europe. Now their share is 16%. Steven Baert, head of human resources at Novartis, a pharmaceuticals firm, says he hired "at least 250 people through LinkedIn last year when we might have used executive search in the past."
The agencies have not been put out of business, but they have to do more than just compile a list of names, which in-house recruiters can now do for themselves. Agencies will still be used in the later stages of hiring-working out who is likely to fit in, for instance. Since LinkedIn greatly increases the number of potential candidates, there also is more sifting to be done. Some recruiters say they are spending as much on agencies as they used to.
For the top jobs, LinkedIn is still too public. Denizens of the executive suites often expect a discreet tap on the shoulder from a bespoke headhunting firm. That is why Korn/Ferry, one of the biggest headhunting firms, reported record revenues and profits last year. Even so, LinkedIn is working its way up the greasy pole. Hubert Giraud, head of human resources at Capgemini, a French consulting firm, reports that last year he used it in the hiring of 33 managers in India. "I don't have to pay headhunters hefty money even to reach out to senior people," says Mr Ahuja.
Even outside the executive suite, LinkedIn is not ubiquitous. A French rival, Viadeo, is bigger in France and China (see "Viadeo: Nipping at LinkedIn's heels")-although LinkedIn launched a site in simplified Chinese in February. In Germany recruiters are more likely to use Xing.
LinkedIn makes planning ahead easier: firms know whom to approach before they start a recruitment drive. "When we're expanding, we've already identified them," says Mr Baert. It improves certain kinds of specialist recruitment because, when trawling for scarce skills, it is better to fish in a bigger pool. Glenn Cook, director of global staffing at Boeing, says LinkedIn is a good source of specialised aircraft mechanics. "You wouldn't necessarily think these folks would be on LinkedIn, but they are." He reckons it is easier to fill posts that used to be vacant for "six or eight months".
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>It is true that LinkedIn makes it easier to lose people as well as to find them, because they are on permanent display to competitors and headhunters. But companies see this glass as half full, not half empty-and, anyway, their employees have joined in large numbers whether they like it or not (see chart 2).
Mr Giraud says that when he ran Capgemini's business-process outsourcing unit he encouraged all his 15,000 staff to join. "I thought it would be fantastic to have a nice profile...to make sure our business partners had a clear view of who we were."
LinkedIn also helps recruiters scour their own companies for talent: firms are often poor at spotting what is right under their noses. Marie-Bernard Delom, who has the task of identifying high-fliers at Orange, a French telecoms company, is using LinkedIn for that reason. She has commissioned software that combines LinkedIn profiles with internal data.
Companies can also see how they measure up against others trying to hire the same people. They can do so using LinkedIn in combination with other sites such as Glassdoor, where people anonymously rate the places where they work or have been interviewed. Mr Shapero calls this a "sales and marketing process", in which companies treat their reputations as employers like brands.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>They can track how many staff have quit to join the competition, as well as how many are coming the other way. LinkedIn members can "follow" companies they do not work for, another loose indicator of potential interest in a job: both Novartis and Infosys boast 500,000. American tech giants have many more (see chart 3).
As LinkedIn attracts more members in more countries and industries, its data will become richer. Put another way, the lines in Mr Weiner's graph will become more numerous-and more useful.
He thinks that if you trace the connections between workers, companies and colleges, and if you map people's jobs, qualifications and skills and plot these against employers' demands, you will end up with a step-change improvement in information about labour markets: big data for the world of work.
<h2>The world's labour exchange</h2>
And that, in principle, should help labour markets work more smoothly, potentially reducing Europe's youth unemployment rate, for example; or matching some of America's 20m underemployed with its 4.7m vacancies; or helping the millions of Chinese expected to migrate from the countryside to cities to find work.
Such hopes are remarkably ambitious. They amount to a gargantuan exercise in eradicating the mismatch between the skills people have and those employers want, or between the places jobs are on offer and those where people live.
As Mr Blue concedes, "there are real barriers that we haven't even begun to face yet." LinkedIn is only starting to reach beyond professionals, for example. Eventually it may have even to think, as Amazon, Facebook and Google are doing, about providing internet access in remote parts of the world; but that is far ahead.
Still, LinkedIn is starting to do more than just find and fill professional jobs. Undergraduates can see how many of their predecessors have ended up in given companies or professions, to help them plot their own paths. (Those who graduated years ago can do the same for their classmates, and laugh or weep accordingly.)
Some companies have begun to use LinkedIn's data to help them decide where to open new offices and factories. By looking at the skills on offer-at least among the network's members-and demand for them in different parts of the United States, LinkedIn's data scientists can identify "hidden gems" where there are plenty of potentially suitable employees but little competition for their services.
Perhaps most significant, LinkedIn has started to feel its way beyond professionals. Since early June the number of jobs on its site has jumped from 350,000 to about 1m. As well as openings for software engineers at IBM can be found jobs as delivery drivers for Pizza Hut or on the tills at Home Depot-which until now no one would have expected to find there. This is because LinkedIn has added jobs from employers' websites or human-resources databases to its existing paid advertisements.
Unlike paid ads, the new ones are seen only by members who are actively seeking jobs. The idea is being tested only in America so far. But if delivery drivers and checkout clerks start to look for and find jobs on the site, LinkedIn will have taken a step towards becoming a much broader job shop.
It is hard to know what its eventual effect might be. Even if Mr Weiner's grand vision were realised, it could not cure global unemployment on its own, though richer data ought to make a difference. In explaining high unemployment rates in Western economies, many economists would put more weight on weak aggregate demand than on a mismatch of location or skills.
It is even difficult to quantify the impact of LinkedIn on labour markets so far. In theory, making it easier for people to find better jobs could affect the rate of job turnover within firms: recruiters say they have noticed little impact, and that other factors (such as the economic cycle)-seem to matter more. But no one really knows.
As LinkedIn's data pool deepens, its value to researchers as well as its members and corporate customers will increase. Pian Shu, an economist at Harvard Business School, points out that you could compare the career paths of those who graduate in recessions with those who graduate in booms: do the former, as you might suppose, fare worse?
Aiding academic research is not LinkedIn's priority. But its interest to economists is a sign of how pervasive it has become. "I'm on there until midnight a lot," says Mr Han, of his quest to find the right people for Kenandy. "I'm hooked."
Click <a href="https://subscriptions.economist.com/nwcd">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist

LinkedIn Has Already Shaken Up The Way Professionals Are Hired - And It's Just Getting Started

Dealbook Conference<ul class="summary-list"><li>Over the past month, as the coronavirus spread throughout the globe, some activist investors increased their stakes in public companies on the cheap.</li><li>The activity prompted law firms, including influential activism defense firm Wachtell Lipton, to issue memos, calling out what they perceived to be "aggressive" behavior. </li><li>Now, a longstanding debate surfaces yet again about the role of the activist, a name that at least some in the profession wish to change, given its connotation of pushing for change at a company for profit. </li><li>Business Insider documented the spat between these investors and attorneys who are paid to defend their targets. Reach out to us with any tips or comments about the latest activism activity. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Click here for more BI Prime stories.</a></li></ul>On the last day of March, two partners at the law firm of Wachtell Lipton polished off a memo to their clients, lawyers, and Wall Street at large, and touched a nerve in the tight-knit community of activist investors and their advisors. The memo, titled "Activists Will Show Their True Colors in COVID-19 Pandemic," struck at the heart of a long-running tension between investors who mount stakes in public companies, sometimes to overhaul management, and the people who defend the boards of directors of the businesses they target.This time around, the defense side was zeroing in on whether activist investors were taking advantage of the depressed market by aggressively pushing forward campaigns while businesses were at their most vulnerable, during the spread of the novel coronavirus. The disease, which scaled up in late February, now has killed more than 80,000 people worldwide and wrought chaos at shuttered hotels, airlines, and amusement parks, some of which have had to seek emergency loans to keep themselves afloat as government officials order U.S. citizens to stay indoors.While that's meant consumers have kept money in their wallets the past month, the same cannot be said for activist investors."A number of activist investors continue to over-reach in their private (and public) demands of companies and are seizing the opportunity from reduced valuations to increase their positions in existing targets and build new positions," wrote Wachtell partners David Katz and Sabastian Niles.Disclosures to the US Securities and Exchange Commission of building more than 5 percent stake in companies - otherwise known as 13D filings - accumulated in March as stock markets plunged, and many activists are fundraising to have additional firepower, they wrote. Meanwhile, some activists are continuing to make "aggressive buyback demands" and "ill-advised attempts to remove key board members and board leaders with the experience and judgment to help the company navigate the current crisis," the firm wrote.Comments like those, of course, may make companies want to hire Wachtell as a top activism defense firm, making it far from an unbiased observer. The firm, founded in 1965, has made its name - and hefty fees - for defending companies against hostile takeovers and has cultivated a warchest of legal and strategic maneuvers that boards of directors can use to protect themselves from being unseated in activist campaigns.The comments show how the defense side is gearing up and leaning on painting some activists as opportunists amid a crisis. So far, it appears that companies are listening.A review of 13D filings and sources familiar with them turned up multiple instances of activists mounting stakes in public companies - so much that they have triggered management to enact poison pills, a defense strategy designed to protect against a hostile takeover.These companies include natural gas pipeline operator Williams Companies, budget airline Spirit, oil and gas exploration and production company Occidental Petroleum, and Chefs' Warehouse, which sells upscale food to restaurants. Although Wachtell gave some activist investors credit, saying that they gave management "breathing space" during the emergency, that was not the main takeaway for activists and their advisers who read the memo and spoke with Business Insider in the subsequent days.Some of them grumbled privately about how the law firm was trying to market their services to prospective clients and that the depressed market didn't mean activists should be laying down their weapons - to the contrary, it meant companies needed good management more than ever and activists should be fighting for it.Others were not so private with their response."It's reprehensible, yet unsurprising, that Wachtell is twisting this crisis and unprecedentedly difficult economic environment into an opportunity to bash activist investors," said Andrew Freedman, an attorney who has represented activists in some of their biggest campaigns, including Starboard Value's stake in Papa John's and AECOM, as well as Elliott Management's stake in eBay.<h2>No 'get out of jail free' card</h2>Freedman said activists understand as well as anyone what public companies are facing in this pandemic and are, by and large, acting thoughtfully and considerately in their board engagements."Wachtell would like people to believe that this coronavirus crisis should be a 'get out of jail free' card for boards and management teams that were performing terribly well before this pandemic came along," he said. He also said that there have been a bevy of settlement pacts reached over the past month, showing that activists are willing to work through issues behind the scenes."The situations that have not settled are more reflective of boards behaving badly by refusing to embrace the changes that are required and where they are being advised that activists should just walk away," he said. "Why should investors trust a board and management team that failed to perform on a 'clear day' to manage through this crisis where the stakes are even higher?"Business Insider reached out to Katz and Niles, who did not offer a response to Freedman's comments. We'll update this article if they do. <h2>'Like any investor'</h2>The activists, for their part, are not apologizing for buying what they deem as a valuable security at a low price."We're price sensitive like any investor," said Ted White, managing director of Legion Partners, the firm that increased its holdings in Chefs' Warehouse. Legion had previously been invested with the company and still likes the long-term growth potential, White said. The drop in global markets made the stock "ridiculously cheap," White explained, as Chefs' Warehouse's stock fell from nearly $40 a share at the start of the year, to a low of under $4 on March 18. The stock has since risen to more than $8 a share."As bad as all this is, it has reduced valuations in the marketplace."Others feel the same way - that opportunity is opportunity and investors are simply doing what they do best: creating value for shareholders and making money of their own along the way. At tea-and-coffee distributor Farmer Brothers, the same day hedge fund Trigran Investments filed its increased stake, March 30, the company announced it had "eliminated" positions across the business and furloughed half of its employees."The Company is working to evaluate any relief available through the CARES Act, including through industry associations, as well as any other efforts to support the food industry as a pillar of critical infrastructure," the firm said in a release. There's no indication that Trigran pressed for the layoffs or furloughs. Trigran bought in after a sharp selloff - the company's stock price began the year trading at more than $14 a share, but has since fallen to roughly $7 a share.Trigran and Farmer Brothers did not respond to requests for comment.<h2>Lawyer takes aim at Icahn</h2>Wachtell isn't alone in its rhetoric and, while its own memo did not name names, another firm called out billionaire Carl Icahn."While there are a few socially responsible activists, there are many activists who don't see a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions, they see an opportunity to generate profits," Kai Liekefett, a Sidley Austin lawyer who defended AT&amp;T in Elliott Management's activism campaign last year.Liekefett pointed Business Insider to a memo from Sidley Austin that highlighted Icahn's CVR Energy acquiring almost 15 percent of Delek US Holdings in mid-March, which quadrupled his stake.The Sidley memo said that "most activists" are abandoning their campaigns for the 2020 season, as many funds "are struggling to survive after suffering millions or billions of losses," but that some, like Icahn, were not.The memo recommended that boards of public companies should, at a minimum, make sure they have an "up-to-date poison pill on the shelf and consider whether to adopt one.""These activists exploit the low stock prices and high trading volumes in order to covertly and rapidly accumulate large stakes in target companies," he said."They count on boards and management teams being distracted by the crisis. And they attempt to force quick settlements knowing that companies strongly prefer not to be distracted by proxy contests in these times."When reached for comment about the memo, Icahn's general counsel Jesse Lynn noted that Sidley Austin is representing Delek."It's interesting that Sidley Austin has decided to become so sanctimonious about the pandemic since they are the ones profiting from the crisis by charging egregious fees, at the expense of Delek shareholders, by scaring the board and management into believing that the company should need protection from accountability to its own shareholders," Lynn told Business Insider.Lynn also pointed out that Delek has a poison pill agreement that doesn't let Icahn take a stake higher than 15%, and the company's next annual meeting is more than a year away."But most importantly, CVR started buying the stock well before the pandemic, at a much higher price, and simply averaged down, thereby helping Delek shareholders by holding up the price of the stock."<h2>No going back to 'normal'</h2>In recent weeks, Icahn settled with Occidental Petroleum, and Elliott Management has made nice with Twitter and French conglomerate Capgemini.Starboard Value, the activist fund led by Jeffrey Smith, settled with Box recently, but has ramped up pressure on eBay to change its board and oust the current CEO.Wei Jiang, a professor who teaches activism at Columbia Business School, said that businesses should not expect to go "back to normal" if normal means "the protocols of the past, even after the pandemic is over.""Certain elements of business operations will fundamentally change as people get more comfortable with business and life online, and (hopefully) change their life habits as they take a probabilistic view about recurring pandemics," she said."These are both challenges and opportunities to most businesses. Shareholders have the right to demand that firms adopt such a forward-looking view, beyond dealing with the crisis."Some activists, though, say they want their businesses to focus, in the short-term, on getting through the pandemic. According to White, the Legion managing director, his firm isn't looking to change much with Chefs' Warehouse, "where there's a lot of things we like." "This is a time to hunker down, take care of your employees and your customers," he said.The investor has yet to speak with management, he said. Contact us: Please feel free to reach out to Casey Sullivan, at csullivan@businessinsider or on Signal at 1-646-376-6017, and Bradley Saacks, at bsaacks@businessinsider.com or on Signal at 1-919-816-5537, for news on corporate activism. <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/federal-reserve-zero-percent-rate-dow-dropped-2020-3">Why the Dow plummeted after the Federal Reserve set interest rates at 0%</a></h3>

Activist defense attorneys are blasting investors for scooping up shares during the coronavirus crisis, setting off a war of words involving top law firms and Wall Street titans like Carl Icahn

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