Hiring teams of talent

In 2004, hiring teams of talent has spread from its traditional home of the finance industry to a host of other areas. Merger and acquisition teams, legal teams, research teams, IT teams and groups of chemists have all been ˜bought' en masse. In another move, companies have been acquiring smaller start-ups and specialist operations simply for the people working inside them (it is cheaper to buy the company than hire a headhunter to take them out one by one).

Hiring teams of talent is set to be big business in the future, so we all need to do a quick audit of our businesses and see if there are any teams on the danger list. If you don't know where you are vulnerable you can get a very big surprise one Monday morning when half your IT department doesn't show for work. As the economy ramps up and companies start casting their eyes around, things will get very exciting very quickly. During the course of writing this book I had a conversation with a senior executive in one of the world's leading IT outsourcing firms. He explained to me that in Europe alone in the next three years , there were upwards of 100 major new IT projects with a value of at least & pound ;500 million, and these projects would require up to 100,000 new people to staff them. Where are they coming from? Your organisation!