The Enabling Role of Information Technology in the Global War for Talent: Accenture’s Industrialized Approach Erik Beulen Department of Information Systems and Management, Tilburg University, 5000 LE Tilburg, the Netherlands. E-mail: erik.beulen@uvt.nl ABSTRACT The globalization of information technology (IT), in which developing countries play a major role, has caused a “war for talent.” To meet challenging growth targets, service providers find that recruitment and retention are of key importance. For developing countries globalization offers the opportunity for economic development. The central question of this paper is how IT can be used to support service providers in these fields. Specifically, this paper focuses on Accenture’s human resources management (HRM) processes and the suite of applications implemented to support them. Accenture’s industrialized approach makes effective and efficient HRM processes possible. The conclusion is that the HRM applications now working in parallel will ultimately converge into a fully integrated application suite. As a result, the exchange of employees between the company’s branches would be still better supported, as would the collaboration between those employees. C  2008Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Keywords: Accenture; human resources management; information technology; offshore outsourc- ing; recruiting; retention 1. INTRODUCTION The general trend towards globalization is causing pressure on the global labor market. The emerging economies, which are large, have to be integrated into the global market (World Bank, 2007). Service provisioning, too, is globalizing. And the demand for information technology (IT) services, after decades of growth, is still increasing while outsourcing is growing even faster: Gartner and NASSCOM estimate a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 7% up until and including 2010 (Hale & Potter, 2006; NASSCOM, 2007). Interactive Data Corporation (IDC) expected worldwide end users to spend $1.2 trillion on IT in 2006, increasing their IT spending at a CAGR of 6% to reach $1.5 trillion in 2010 (International Data Corporation, 2006). The increasing global demand for IT services has resulted in a “war for talent.” The BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India, and China—are of major and growing importance in the provisioning of IT services (Saxena, 2007). Other Asian, Eastern European, and South Piet Ribbers and Koen Milis were the accepting Guest Editors for this article. Information Technology for Development, Vol. 14 (3) 213–224 (2008) C  2008Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/itdj.20103 213