March 31, 2020 On-Demand Talent: How Topcoder’s Partners Leverage Crowd Intelligence

From strategic planning to rapid execution, on-demand talent is changing the way businesses approach skill-based tasks and hiring. In today’s tight talent market, where employees are leaving the workforce to engage in new challenges and high-performers with technical skills are a rare commodity, on-demand talent has proven a remarkable remedy for skills gaps at organizations, including Topcoder’s leading partners.

How Topcoder’s Leading Partners Are Using the Crowd

At Topcoder Open 2019 (TCO19), Topcoder partners gathered for a panel discussion focused on how on-demand talent and crowdsourcing are helping move ideas and projects forward faster and more efficiently. The panel included Ryan Lewis, General Manager for SpaceNet; Preston Bice, Product Manager for DXC Tech; and Vasudha Raman, Director and Regional Business Head for the Consumer Business Unit at Wipro.

Executing Solutions With On-Demand Talent

Wipro is one of India’s largest IT companies and acquired Topcoder in 2016 as part of the acquisition of Appirio. While Topcoder continues to deliver on the same core mission it had when the doors opened in 2003, Wipro has taken inspiration from Topcoder and leveraged on-demand talent as a critical delivery mechanism throughout its business architecture.

Wipro currently uses crowdsourcing in three ways.

Internal skills development: Wipro operates an internal talent platform called Top Gear. On Top Gear, employees can learn new skills by flexing their muscles on a variety of internal projects. These projects give employees the ability to learn on-the-job by tackling real challenges. While many companies know crowdsourcing as an external project execution vehicle, Wipro has internalized some of that value to help build skills in today’s skill-dampened workforce.

Internal project execution: Top Gear also gives Wipro the ability to handle large projects in novel ways. When projects come into Wipro with unique requirements that are best served by on-demand talent models. Wipro utilizes Top Gear to handle those projects by leveraging their internal talent pool.

Challenges: The biggest use of on-demand talent at Wipro is the Topcoder challenge platform. Wipro runs enterprise-grade challenges on the platform regularly with spectacular results.

How SpaceNet Builds Solutions Through On-Demand Talent

SpaceNet is tackling satellite imagery challenges and developing algorithms in a relatively new field of study. When SpaceNet first opened its doors, Ryan Lewis says almost no one was working on the same satellite imagery challenges they were. A key concern for SpaceNet was to not only develop their capabilities but to foster a meaningful relationship with coders who could learn and evolve an emerging industry.

With Topcoder, SpaceNet has executed challenges with exceptional results and created deep layers of interest in their overall project mission.

DXC Tech Taps Talent to Create New Capabilities

Like Wipro, DXC uses on-demand talent as an internal and external delivery mechanism. But their primary use of Topcoder is to develop new, go-to-market capabilities. Preston Bice and DXC see on-demand talent as a new delivery model that defines the still-emerging open talent economy.

3 Trends for On-Demand Talent in 2020

Vasudha Raman from Wipro touched on some of the biggest trends for businesses in 2020.

1. The explosion of API-based technology: As the tech world turns towards what Deloitte calls “The API Economy,” brands are struggling to find the talent and resources to recode their tech. Vasudha sees on-demand talent as the perfect solution to this explosion due to its deep talent pool and rapid implementation capabilities.

2. A younger, more skill-fluid talent pool: The youngest Topcoder competitor was only 8 years old. The on-demand talent space is a new, disruptive working model that attracts young, talent-rich people looking for a different working environment.

3. Rapid delivery: As Agile and DevOps explode into the project management and software delivery space, open talent models will become the delivery model with the fastest turnaround times.

Want to Learn More?

Topcoder is thrilled to see the advances made possible by our community and the platform. Learn more about our partners or start your own project at topcoder.com


Alexa Baray


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