With the world of business going through rapid change on a global scale, technical know-how has emerged as the key driver behind competitive advantage. However, in order to ensure that company cultures are tailored for sustainable success, HR professionals must be best positioned to build organization cultures for competitive advantage and people centricity. Africa, in particular as the world’s second-largest continent and home to over a billion people, needs to use technological solutions to improve the quality of life in the communities in which organizations operate. It is my firm belief that the global HR competencies and best practices identified throughout Global HR Competencies: Mastering Competitive Value from the Outside In will provide an invaluable resource to HR leaders in crafting sustainable organizations in a world of fast-moving technological change and innovation.

Tencent has grown tremendously in recent years in both size and complexity. As the leader of Human Resource function, one of my key challenges is to make sure my Human Resource team is well equipped to cope with these growth and transformation challenges. This book provides a pragmatic guide regarding the competencies that HR professionals must master to excel in today’s business world.

This book results from the largest global effort to identify the competencies that currently allow HR professionals to create value for their organizations, considering the specific characteristics of the regions in which they operate. Given the importance of such understanding in today’s business context, this book should be read by any HR professional who has a true interest in the standards of excellence of the HR function in each region, and by senior line managers who aim to collaborate with their HR departments to develop a people-based competitive advantage.

Global HR Competencies: Mastering Competitive Value form the Outside In is an excellent research-based account of how contemporary HR practices are helping corporations across the world excel and globalize. Wayne Brockbank and Dave Ulrich’s book is a must read for CEOs and HR professionals alike.

Dave Ulrich and his colleagues at RBL and at the University of Michigan have captured, in their usual prescient manner, the HR challenges and opportunities companies face as they seek to expand their businesses across the developed, developing, and emerging marketplace spectrum. This is a ‘must read’ for any leader who is responsible for managing global businesses. The financial crisis of 2008 underscored the fact that the world is now, for better or
Worse, tightly connected and interrelated. Global HR Competencies sheds light on the importance of HR practices that are adaptable and designed to create value based on keen insights at the local level. For the HR practitioner, this book will illuminate and expand the notion of geographic diversity and the essentials of getting and staying in touch with local norms and trends.

We are highly aware of the importance of having highly competent HR professionals and a high-performing HR department in creating value for our business. We have always been good at managing our finances, but we are now equally good at managing our human resources. How do we know? Because our people are really executing the strategy and we are enjoying unprecedented growth. How did we do that? By making sure our HR team walks in the direction set in this book by the indisputable thought leaders in the field. Thank you for the comprehensive research and this invaluable book.

It is a privilege to do HR in an organization where the CEO sees the HR as his copilot. Our CEO knows that if he manages the people side of the equation as well as the finance side, we will be invincible. We are making sure that we arm our HR people with the latest knowledge and practices in the field, so we are the winners at all times. This book you are holding is an important party of our ammunition.

The definitive work on HR competencies, provides useful ideas and tools that can help HR professionals develop their career and make their organization effective.

At last, an articulate and well-defined global standard for what makes an effective HR professional. This is a seminal, groundbreaking publication, thoroughly researched and based on the live realities facing organizations around the world. Dave Ulrich is the most respected expert on the HR profession. He and his global colleagues have produced a compelling publication that will challenge HR professionals to once again raise their games. Our rapidly evolving world demands excellence and enhanced performance. In a world of increasing economic, social, and political volatility, this book defines the HR competencies that drive sustainable business success across the world. The insights from Global HR Competencies are invaluable and challenge us from the ‘outside-in’. Essential reading for all HR professionals.

This book scientifically and systematically highlights the HR competencies needed in the future to create sustainable organizations of excellence. It provides a new and critical ‘outside-in’ perspective, so relevant in today’s context. The bled of research and case studies coupled with thought leadership of Dave, Wayne, and their global colleagues provides invaluable universal and regional insights for management practitioners. I am also delighted to see the role played by National HRD network, India in getting the Indian perspective and, indeed, as a matter of pride, that the book gets released when NHRD is celebrating its twenty-fifth year.

The book brings important research to life with the injection of regional context and local knowledge, turning the findings into lessons for the profession globally.

I live by a simple leadership philosophy: the business is ours to manage. The future is ours to create. The most important aspect of our business is not grades, processing plants and headgears. It is people: People are the Business. Our Business is People. Dave Ulrich and his co-authors understand this key concept in the most profound sense. They bring this perspective to bear in this important book about HR practices from around the world.

Global HR Competencies is a book that defines the HR competencies that will greatly assist any Saudi company achieve its strategic goals and objectives through full utilization of its human resources.

The HR mantra for leaders is to pursue life-long learning. This book is a must read as it describes the evolving role of HR. It surprisingly identifies the Technology Proponent as a critical area in which HR professionals may add substantial value. This is clearly one area for future learning and growth.

The insights and ideas of Dave Ulrich and his colleagues continue to challenge HR leaders to build competencies and drive HR practices that maximize business impact in a fast-paced, global marketplace. This latest study is a ‘must read’ for any HR professional working to build an organization capable of achieving sustainable business success in today’s dynamic environment.

This is a rallying cry to business and HR leaders to live the ‘outside-in’. It is also a series of smart lessons on how to do it. It is rooted in what is happening in our ever faster changing world. Through extensive global research and many insightful examples, it shows where HR can play and must play to contribute real value to the enterprise. Consistently provocative, the updated competencies are excellently crafted to challenge HR on where it spends its time and what capabilities it develops.

This research fundamentally challenges the traditional internal focus of HR. In an environment where continuous and unpredictable change has become the norm, the internal line-of-sight becomes problematic. Only those HR leaders who are able to incorporate a robust external market perspective into their HR programs will ensure fundamental competitive advantage to their organizations and greater business success for their customers and shareholders.

Global HR Competencies will become one of those books that is a defining point of a discipline. It opens the door to a new world for all HR professionals, making it the best road map ever written to help identify and implement HR practices and professional skills that have high impact on business. This book will help HR professionals to contribute to an area of business where great help is needed.

The domain of Human Resources is continuously evolving as a competent advantage in the global arena. This book sets the scene for perfect alignment that will help HR management in articulating company growth strategy with the needed organization capabilities. The beauty of the research given in this book is that global competencies that it defines provide HR professionals the futuristic mindset so that they compete globally despite the local socio-graphic changes in today’s volatile business environment.

It was once said that where you stand on an issue depends on where you sit. But no matter where you sit, either in growth markets or developed markets, Global HR Competencies: Mastering Competitive Value form the Outside In is an invaluable guide to boosting the understanding of the nuanced role the HR function plays in different markets. Another highly informative book by Ulrich, Brockbank, Younger, and company!

This book builds on the strong body of research undertaken over many years by the University of Michigan Business School and The RBL Group to examine the linkage between HR competencies and their impact on business performance within the broader global societal trends. Moving the short-term tactical contribution of HR to operational enterprise performance is a welcomed focus. The opportunity to position HR as the interpreter of global external societal dynamics as it relates to shaping human relationships at work is an exciting and important direction for the HR field.

This book by Wayne, Dave, and their global colleagues is a great step forward in transforming HR into the strategic business partner it needs to be. It provides clear guidance to HR professionals on what competencies – as individuals and as a function – they need to cultivate in order to meet and exceed the rising expectations that business has of HR. Their work is a terrific asset to the HR profession!

Global HR Competencies reveals how Human Resource functions in successful organizations can play a highly strategic role. This important book inspires HR professionals to understand what competitive values they should pour their hearts into. By embracing these six competencies, HR professionals will move their careers and their companies forward to high levels of performance.

HR practice in a global context is a topic that all HR practitioners must master given the world is now at every organization’s doorstep. This book helps HR practitioners to not only understand global HR competencies and best practices but to appreciate the similarities and differences in these competencies and practices across global regions.

I recommend this book to all leaders who desire to understand what they should expect form their HR function to create intangible value. No need to say it is a must read for HR professionals who want to learn what they need to know, be, and do to meet the rising expectations from HR. The competencies here are universal. We will make sure our HR people in Turkey and in all our businesses abroad have them, thus creating competitive advantage for us wherever we are.

Developing high value-adding HR strategies is a hot topic among HR and business executives. This book illustrates the strategic capabilities and professional competencies that HR professionals should have. This is an invaluable resource, especially for HR management and companies involved in business transformation.

As TCL strives to become a global firm, we face tremendous challenges in developing our leaders and enhancing organization capabilities to execute new strategic initiatives. Global HR Competencies provides a definite roadmap to upgrade the competencies of our HR professionals who play vital roles in the transformation of TCL. My greatest appreciation to the authors for providing both the gold standard in global HR competencies as well as a compelling overview of how these competencies apply to China. Outstanding!

This is a rallying cry to business and HR leaders to live the ‘outside-in’ and it’s also a series of smart lessons on how to do it. It’s rooted in what’s happening in our ever faster changing world and through extensive global research and many brief but insightful stories, it shows where HR can play and must play to contribute real value to the enterprise. Consistently provocative, the updated competencies are excellently crafted to challenge HR on where it spends its time and what capabilities it develops, ‘connecting people through technology’ to achieve business success an example of an increasingly important area.

With the world of business going through rapid change on a global scale, technical know-how has emerged as the key driver behind competitive advantage. However, in order to ensure that company cultures are tailored for sustainable success, HR professionals must be best positioned to build organization cultures for competitive advantage and people centricity. Africa, in particular as the world’s second-largest continent and home to over a billion people, needs to use technological solutions to improve the quality of life in the communities in which organizations operate. It is my firm belief that the global HR competencies and best practices identified throughout Global HR Competencies: Mastering Competitive Value from the Outside In will provide an invaluable resource to HR leaders in crafting sustainable organizations in a world of fast-moving technological change and innovation.

Tencent has grown tremendously in recent years in both size and complexity. As the leader of Human Resource function, one of my key challenges is to make sure my Human Resource team is well equipped to cope with these growth and transformation challenges. This book provides a pragmatic guide regarding the competencies that HR professionals must master to excel in today’s business world.