To help mitigate the looming Talent Crisis, forward-looking organizations are adopting new strategies to cultivate their existing talent. They are turning to Talent Management Solutions to support new practices, such as better communication of goals and performance expectations throughout all levels of the organization, and career and succession planning that encourages talent to look for growth opportunities in house instead of at another organization.

Companies looking for a Talent Management solution need to look carefully and honestly at their own business processes, and visualize how the solution will support the ways in which they actually operate, and the goals they seek to meet. They need to ask such questions as:

• Will the Talent Management solution improve our performance management and development process?
• Can it tie the performance review process to training and development requirements?
• Does the solution help employees grow professionally, and achieve their career goals?

To meet these and many other needs, a Talent Management solution must work as a unified, holistic solution, not as a collection of separate modules. Many of the new talent strategies that are becoming critical-specifically surrounding performance, succession, and learning-involve multiple Talent Management components.