Leaders of organisations in the 21st century recognise that human capital is a source of competitive advantage in the knowledge economy. With the ever increasing globalisation and increased workforce mobility, leaders have to think proactively in order to ensure that they are successful in the "war for talent." Successful Talent Management as a key driver of business performance is justified by an Accenture survey of more than 850 top executives from the US, UK, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Japan and China which puts the inability to attract and retain talent as the second most significant threat to business success - first was competition. Human capital is a key driver behind profitability, customer satisfaction, and innovation. As such, an optimal workforce is often considered to be the bridge between the business goals and performance i.e. it helps in meeting the business objectives by delivering the required performance. Figure 6 depicts four pillars on which the optimal workforce planning and development are based. The entire life cycle of talent management has to be considered in a holistic way with every process feed-forwarding as well as providing feedback to other processes. While the assessment deals with the current capability assessment of the human capital and the organisation in entirety, the acquisition phase is driven from a need-based gap analysis. The needs can be in terms of current capability and skills gaps as well as driven from the future needs of the organisation. The acquired talent then needs to be developed and mentored; the aspects of performance management, career management and succession planning are especially relevant in this regard. Last but not least, alignment has been recognised as the secret success ingredient for successful leaders driving successful organisations. By alignment, it means that the goals and the objectives of the organisation are driven down the echelons effectively i.e. there should be coherence between the individuals' goals, teams' goals and the organisational goals.
