Looking forward to the start of the new year? While it may take longer than any of us would like to put the turbulence of 2020 behind us, business leaders across industries are gearing up to make the most of 2021 by refocusing on growth, transformational change, and capturing competitive market share as the global economy roars back to life.
In this time of volatility, independent consultants, executives, project managers, and experts are a critical piece of human capital for the world’s leading companies—offering a fast, flexible, and low-risk source of expert strategic thinking, hands-on execution, and in-demand skills to complete critical work. Below we’ve compiled some of the must-read pieces we published on the BTG Business Resource Center this year.
Read on for in-depth research on the independent talent landscape, advice to help you make the most of your talent engagements and the shift to remote work, and expert insights and best practices around the most important initiatives that leading companies are tackling right now.
2021 High-End Independent Talent Report
How are companies using high-end independent talent to address their top challenges and opportunities in 2021? Read the 2021 High-End Independent Talent Report to find out how leaders across 12 industries and 12 business functions are using flexible resourcing to build competitive advantage, capture market share, and blaze paths to renewed growth.
2020 Skills Index
In our third annual Skills Index, based on BTG’s proprietary data, we examined how trends in the high-end independent talent marketplace have rapidly shifted over the past year and within the months in which the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe. See how leading companies rely on independent talent to fill expanding skill gaps, manage through uncertainty, move nimbly in recovery, and prepare for the post-pandemic future of work.
Independent Talent Trends In The Time Of COVID-19
The global pandemic is transforming the traditional workforce—and expediting adoption of a rapidly growing independent talent market. Here’s a look at the state of the independent workforce in the time of COVID-19 and the emerging trends that are upending the way organizations hire, engage, and collaborate with independent workers.
How On-Demand Talent Helps Logitech Do More with Less
As the head of Global Indirect Procurement at Logitech, David Latten is responsible for sourcing the software and services that help power the company’s work, including high-end independent professionals like those in the BTG marketplace. Hear David discuss how on-demand talent help Logitech complete critical work, bring expertise in-house, and do more with less.
Exploring the Frontier of Open Innovation at NASA
As the Deputy Director of NASA’S Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation, Steve Rader facilitates and promotes the use of crowdsourcing and collaborative innovation platforms to solve critical problems both within the agency and across the U.S. government. Listen to his thoughts on why gig economy solutions are powerful tools for innovation and problem-solving.
Inside Microsoft’s Freelance Services Program
Microsoft is one company that’s far ahead of the curve in realizing the power of the gig economy as a tool to get work done. As the leader of the tech giant’s Freelance Services Program, Nihat Sengul sets the program’s strategy and works to ensure its successful adoption and execution. Hear his advice on how leading enterprises can follow Microsoft’s example to successfully embed the use of on-demand talent and freelancers across the organization.
Unicorn Talent: Sometimes a Project Match Is Pure Magic
A unicorn talent is a recruiter’s dream—a perfect-fit applicant with fantastically relevant work experience, a treasure chest brimming with applicable skills, a quest for knowledge, and a vision to improve the whole company. See how BTG helps leading companies find unique thinkers and doers with in-demand skills and niche domain expertise.
On-Demand Resourcing for Today’s Business Challenges and Uncertainty
In this turbulent time, many companies face a seemingly contradictory challenge: on one hand, they have invoked headcount and budgetary freezes to ride out the storm. On the other, they desperately need unique skills and expertise and a faster way to tackle previously uncharted opportunities and atypical business demands. Here are three ways leading companies are using on-demand talent to tackle their most pressing problems amid the current volatility.
Life Science Lens: On-Demand Talent for Resilience and Agility
On-demand talent is a critical resource for life science and pharma companies as they innovate to keep pace with market changes, respond to emerging health threats, and adapt to a remote environment. See top in-demand skills, key life science capabilities, and remote work trends for independents in this infographic.
The BTG Guide to Projectizing
In this time of unprecedented uncertainty and economic volatility, not keeping up is not an option. Neither is stocking your team with a full suite of skills you need now or might need in the future. So how do you approach business challenges when you don’t or can’t have all the right resources? When the skills you need can change before you’ve produced a single deliverable? Find out how to projectize work so you can inject skills and expertise right when you need them.
On-Demand Talent for Critical Remote Work
Business leaders increasingly rely on on-demand talent as a flexible way to get critical work done. And for good reason—independent talent are particularly well suited for today’s remote environment. See top remote projects, traits to look for in a remote consultant, and more in this infographic.
Guide to Remote Hiring: From Interviews to Onboarding
The shift to widespread remote work presented a particular challenge for companies in terms of hiring and onboarding new candidates and consultants at a distance. BTG has more than a decade of experience remotely onboarding senior business talent for consulting projects and interim roles with the world’s top companies. See our best practices for remote hiring, from interviews to onboarding and all stops in between.
The BTG Guide to Remote Work
For the past decade, the popularity of remote work has steadily grown, yet widespread acceptance remained elusive prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. And then suddenly, companies were faced with the need to expand their remote work programs to protect not just the health and safety of their employees, but also the continuity of their business operations. To help organizations and employees adapt, BTG developed this in-depth guide with best practices from remote work veterans on everything from managing virtual teams and getting the most out of video calls to maintaining work-life balance and optimizing your space.
The BTG Guide to Strategy in Uncertain Times
These are the most difficult business conditions most leaders have witnessed. Check out this guide for expert advice on strategic planning and execution, focusing priorities, making fast decisions, and adapting strategy as part of a crisis response.
Adapting Your Business Strategy to the Pandemic
Although we’re past the initial shock, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are still being felt in communities and companies around the globe. Hear how business leaders can adapt business strategies to four distinct phases of the pandemic response and recovery from innovation expert and entrepreneur Steve Wunker.
The BTG Guide to Digital Transformation
Digital and process changes to automate operations, facilitate customer interactions, leverage data, or enable a remote workforce require more than just plugging in new technologies. These large-scale, multifaceted business transformations require strategy and planning across teams, culture changes, and implementation of new ways to work. Check out this in-depth guide to digital transformation for expert advice on how to implement successful transformations.
Building and Advancing Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives
Diversity and inclusion is one of the most important, if not the most important, issue that corporate leaders are facing today. Hear advice from noted Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion expert Todd Corley on how companies can implement transformational change that improves the well-being of all people.
Digital Transformation Best Practices: A BTG Expert Roundtable
Companies across industries are working hard to conduct business in a new (and much more virtual) reality—to create frictionless online customer experiences, streamline supply chains, enable remote workforces, and leverage data. Help ensure the success of your next digital transformation initiative by following these best practices from our independent digital transformation experts.
Pharmaceutical Detailing in a Digital World
The COVID-19 pandemic has sidelined the field reps that pharma and biopharma sales organizations typically rely on to conduct in-person pharmaceutical detailing and promotion with healthcare providers. Listen to this podcast with independent healthcare marketing strategist Martine Taylor for advice on how life science companies can use eDetailing to pull through the immediate crisis and rethink long-term physician-engagement strategies.
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