Mapping Global Talent: Essays and Insights - Heidrick & Struggles

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1 Life Sciences A healthy future? Jeff W Dodson Life Sciences practice jdodson@heidrick.com Heidrick & Struggles Mapping Global Talent: Essays and Insights The life sciences sector, in many ways, is a victim of its own success. The medical and public health advances of the last several decades have translated into healthier people, longer lifespans, reduced infant mortality and an expanding global population. It seems demand for healthcare services and products can only continue to increase globally. The prevalence of ‘lifestyle’ diseases – such as obesity and alcoholism – are already causing increased alarm in the developed world, leading to a greater focus on disease prevention and education in those economies. Meanwhile concern over infectious diseases, particularly Avian Flu and HIV/AIDS, will facilitate greater government cooperation with industry in both the emerging markets and the developed world, increasing the demand for multi-lingual healthcare policy experts with a global perspective in both the public and private sector. The global pharmaceutical business will see continued growth, but at a slower rate, as more low-cost generics become available, government pricing pressures continue, and truly innovative drugs come to market at a slower pace. This steady growth will be sustained by increasing knowledge about DNA and molecular science, which promise more personalized drugs able to target niche markets with greater efficacy. This should deliver greater pricing power to the industry but may require the sale of larger numbers of lower revenue drugs rather than reliance upon the traditional blockbuster model of selling a few key drugs to large segments of the global population. Whether due to costs, restructuring, mergers, a reluctance to hire from outside the industry, the rapid growth of emerging markets or a combination of all five, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have historically failed to invest sufficient resources in building their internal teams. The biotech companies have tended to rely on a pretty hand-to-mouth existence while the more established firms in pharma have often operated as exclusive US/European clubs, increasingly leaning on staffing organizations to fill their talent gaps in the short term, rather than applying long-term succession planning. As the influence of China and India continue to rise over the next five years this trend cannot continue; already there is growing evidence of the gradual move to outsourcing selected functions, an option the industry had previously been slow to accept. When assessing a move to outsourcing, biotech companies will need to ensure they are able to access similar talent pools and resources to those they have in their current locations. Existing biotech clusters
have the competitive advantage of being located close to many highly respected universities – for example the cluster in Northern California which has twelve major research universities and laboratories in the region helping to drive innovation. The proliferation of collaborative working and knowledge sharing tools and technologies should help break down geographic barriers over the next five years, allowing for an increasing level of outsourcing to countries in Asia and Eastern Europe. In cases where medicines need to be developed for large regional markets, it will make sense for companies to locate their facilities closer to the population in question, where the demand is higher and where these companies can access the local skilled talent pool. Multinationals in this sector will invest in global regions where there is a high supply of technical and scientific professionals, such as China, India and Brazil, which rank 1st, 2nd and 5th, respectively, in the demographics category of the Global Talent Index both in 2007 and 2012. To build the scale of talent needed in markets like China and India to better serve large local markets, pharmaceutical multinationals will need to play an active role in recruiting and developing people at junior, middle and senior levels in their organizations. Globally, the life sciences sector will need to keep working hard to attract the most skilled and committed scientists and researchers, in addition to top-quality senior general management executives capable of leading and driving change across complex global organizations. This will necessitate a global talent search; for graduate level personnel this search will be centered mainly on the top universities. For more experienced individuals the hunt will be among the world’s fast-growing biotech firms and university labs. As with other high-growth sectors, not just the recruitment but the retention of talent will be a major headache for the life sciences sector over the next five years. To address this problem, pharmaceutical companies will need to start looking at recruiting outside of their traditional hiring range. For example, companies will need to be more involved at high school and college level to generate interest and educate students on the skills needed for the industry. In addition, these companies will need to begin targeting the 60+ market, which is looking increasingly likely to seek supplemental income after retirement age and may continue to work in the field through reduced work programs. The Global Talent Index’s measurement of the quality of the environment to nurture talent – which puts a strong weighting on the percentage of university students in the sciences, numbers of R&D researchers and meritocratic remuneration – reflects one of the biggest changes ahead for talent trends in the life science sector over the next five years. China, which advances two places on the overall Global Talent Index for 2012, jumps eight places to 14th in this category between 2007 and 2012, its biggest advance among all seven measurements used to make up the GTI. The increase reflects the Chinese government’s determination to improve the quality of life for its population and develop the life sciences sector into one of its global competencies. Another strong performer in this category is South Korea, which advances four places to 10th place in the rank in its ability to nurture talent. Unsurprisingly, the US ranks top in this category, given its long history of innovation in the sector, followed closely by the Netherlands, Canada, Japan and Australia. Developing an awareness of these emerging trends and making the recruitment, development and retention of top talent a strategic imperative is critically important for every life sciences company competing in the global market. Equally important is the establishment of strong partnerships with world class agencies capable of recruiting the best talent in key functions in all established and emerging regions. The most proactive industry players have already made significant investments in talent, and these are the companies that are best positioned for the future. Global Talent Index, developed in co-operation with the Economist Intelligence Unit 1
Page 1 and 2: Mapping Global Talent P A C I F I C
Page 3 and 4: contents Executive summary, 2 Essay
Page 5 and 6: BRIC is IC A key finding revealed b
Page 7 and 8: From a search consultant’s point
Page 9 and 10: The case of Procter & Gamble highli
Page 11 and 12: universities and business schools w
Page 13 and 14: employee turnover, which it attribu
Page 15: “In a recent survey of US and Eur
Page 19 and 20: There will also be significant dema
Page 21 and 22: Appendix A Methodology The Global T
Page 23 and 24: Puerto Rico Venezuela Guyana Surina
Page 25 and 26: Appendix D Overall GTI rankings The
Page 27 and 28: Appendix F Quality of compulsory ed
Page 29 and 30: Appendix H Quality of the environme
Page 31 and 32: Appendix J Stock and flow of foreig
Page 33 and 34: Further reading available on www.he
Page 35 and 36: Nepal Bangladesh Bhutan Bay of Beng

Mapping Global Talent: Essays and Insights - Heidrick & Struggles

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