Total Talent Visibility for Category Growth

The Skills Gap Hiding Inside Every Move Into a New Adjacent Category

Skills change faster than most workforce plans admit. Nearly 40% of the skills used in a typical job will change by 2030. In fact, 63% of employers already name the skills gap as their biggest barrier to change. That is according to the World Economic Forum. For a STEM or specialty ingredients business pushing into a new adjacent category, this shift lands hardest. The specialist talent for a new product line rarely sits in one place. Instead, it sits across permanent staff, contract workers and outside firms. In short, most businesses cannot see all three groups at once, let alone plan around them.

Two systems that never talk to each other

Permanent workforce data usually lives in one system. Contract and statement of work data usually lives in another. Nobody built either system to talk to the other. Staffing Industry Analysts found that the median business uses non-employed workers for 16% of its workforce. For the heaviest users, that figure is close to 50%. Yet the same research found a poor overall view of that workforce. So, ask a simple question: who actually works on the new product line right now. Often, nobody can answer quickly, and fewer still can answer with real numbers attached. Meanwhile, most leaders assume someone, somewhere, keeps a master list. Often, nobody actually does.

What this looks like inside a new category

Picture a flavour or fragrance business moving into a new category, such as skincare or an AI-driven scent tool. The new line needs cosmetic chemists, regulatory specialists, and perhaps a data scientist trained on scent profiles. A category like this might need fifteen to twenty specialist people in year one. Meanwhile, five of them might sit on the permanent payroll. Six might be contractors brought in for a single project. The rest might sit inside two separate outside firms, each paid through its own contract. That is already three or four places a business has to look just to answer one basic question. Multiply that across every new category a group is testing at once, and the picture turns murky fast. Nobody owns the full list. As a result, the business can end up paying two different suppliers for the same skill. Often, nobody notices until the invoices land side by side.

The second cost hiding in the same blind spot

There is a second cost hiding in the same blind spot. The World Economic Forum found that most of the global workforce will need some reskilling by 2030. In fact, a real share of them are unlikely to get it in time. In practice, without one shared view, a business cannot tell which specialist people are most at risk of leaving. That risk exists whether they are employed directly or hired through a contract. It also lands at exactly the wrong time, just as the new category needs full coverage. That is a hard problem to solve if nobody can even see the full list of people involved. A fragrance chemist with the right allergen and safety knowledge is not interchangeable with a generalist. Neither is a flavourist trained in natural extraction. So, losing one of them quietly, without anyone noticing the risk in advance, can set a whole category launch back by months.

One view across every engagement type

A total talent view solves this before it becomes expensive. First, it means mapping every skill the new category needs against every channel supplying it. That channel might be a permanent hire, a contractor, or an outside firm working on a fixed contract. Second, it means one system, or at least one shared view, that both HR and procurement can see. Third, it means checking that view before approving a new category. Do not wait until the budget is already spent three times over.

Once that view exists, expansion into a new category gets safer, not slower. Leaders can see exactly which specialist skills already exist somewhere in the business, under any type of contract. That happens before anyone approves more spend on hiring. Meanwhile, HR and procurement stop working from two different numbers when someone asks a simple cost question. That alone removes a surprising amount of friction from every future expansion decision.

Skills Alliance Enterprise helps STEM and life sciences manufacturers build one view of talent across every type of contract. In short, this means clearer coverage of every specialist skill a new category needs. It also means one shared number that HR, procurement and the board can all trust. None of this requires a bigger team. It requires one shared list, updated regularly, that HR, procurement and category leads can all check before they commit budget. Once that list exists, a new category stops being a guessing game. Instead, it becomes a straightforward staffing decision, backed by numbers everyone already trusts.

Get in touch to talk through how total talent visibility could support your next move into an adjacent category. The sooner that view exists, the fewer surprises show up in the invoices.

By Dave Watson, VP Talent Solutions, Skills Alliance Enterprise