Genpact looks within for fresh digital sales talent

Genpact is focused on building digital sales talent internally as a bidding war brews for talent and is working on building a bench of future leadership, the company’s chief growth officer Ahmed Mazhari told ET.

IT and business process management companies have sparked an arms race for talent, particularly in the US market, where there is a shortage of skills.

"There is a skill shortage and skills are evolving. It isn’t just other companies, even clients are hiring from us. We worked a few years ago on creating our own sales development programme," Mazhari told ET.


Last November, the company created a dedicated platform to skill its sales workforce, called GENOME. The platform includes courses on professional skills, change management and conflict resolution. "The pilots have been with the front line sales staff, who directly deal with the clients and work on engagements."

The company has also developed a leadership development programme, to build a talent pipeline for its next generation of senior leadership. "We have picked people internally and gone out and looked out and picked a handful of people, and we have put them into the business to train them,” Mazhari said. He declined to give details on the exact number of people involved in the ‘Leadership Direct’ programme, saying it was still in the early stages of development. The company has held interactive webinars in the UK and the US to identify outside talent, attendees were told that the leadership programme offered “a unique opportunity to work on critical, high impact projects in high impact roles with direct exposure to senior leaders."