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The Talent Advantage

Developing Your Workforce to Drive Innovation and Business Results

Discover how making talent a core part of your organizational strategy can improve business performance and boost results.

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EAN: 9781398622821

Edition: 1

Published: 03 Sept 2025

Format: 234 x 156

272 pages

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About the book

How can you unlock the full potential of your people to drive business performance?

The Talent Advantage by Stefan Stremersch is a practical, evidence-based guide for HR leaders, managers and departmental heads who want to embed talent development into their organization's strategy. It shows that talent is not an exclusive trait but can be cultivated in every employee through the right methods, mindset and environment.

Drawing on real-world examples from Merck, Michelin and Nefab, this book combines scientific insights with actionable frameworks to help you nurture skills, increase engagement and link development directly to business goals.

You'll learn how to:
- Apply formal, social and on-the-job learning to build capability
- Design incentives and upskilling programs that improve performance
- Assess and raise proficiency levels across teams and functions
- Leverage AI and innovation to accelerate talent development

Packed with templates, tools and proven strategies, The Talent Advantage equips mid and senior-career professionals to design development systems that engage employees, strengthen teams and deliver measurable impact for the organization.

Themes include: talent development strategy, employee engagement, upskilling, AI in HR, evidence-based HR

About the authors

Stefan Stremersch is an author, conference speaker and globally renowned expert on innovation. He is also a Professor of Market Insights and Innovation at Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands) and Ghent University (Belgium). He previously held positions at IESE Business School, Spain and Duke University, USA. He is the Founder of MTI² which is a consultancy and talent agency focused on supporting organizations and their people to use their potential to achieve innovation and commercial success.

Stefan Stremersch

- Chapter - 01: Why Talent is key to business growth;
- Chapter - 02: How to Align Talent with Business Objectives;
- Chapter - 03: Purpose;
- Chapter - 04: Proficiency;
- Chapter - 05: Upskilling and Reskilling;
- Chapter - 06: How to nurture potential rather than recruit;
- Chapter - 07: Accelerating Individual and Team Performance;
- Chapter - 08: Talent-driven Business Innovation ;
- Chapter - 09: How to Increase Productivity through Talent;
- Chapter - 10: Boosting Profitability and Business Results through Talent;

Reviews

Belén Garijo, Chair of the Executive Board and CEO, Merck

What drives us forward is our people: their creativity, resilience, and courage to lead change. The Talent Advantage captures that spirit. It's a clear example of how structured support for talent unlocks lasting impact. This book is a required reading for any CEO passionate about developing their people and business.

Eric T Bradlow, Associate Dean AI & Analytics, Wharton School

In a world where most people mistakenly believe that agentic AI will take over the jobs of humans, in this thought-provoking book Professor Stremersch considers who to invest in, how to build people's skill sets and what will yield the highest human ROI. I see this as a must-read!

Florent Edouard, Global Head of Digital, Sanofi

A rare find: a book that combines academic thought leadership with deep insights from working inside real companies. The result is sharp, credible, and incredibly useful. It speaks both to the head and the hands.

Pascale Wautelet, VP R&D, Avery Dennison

Innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum, it's powered by people. The Talent Advantage offers a practical, experience-driven roadmap to transform ideas into tangible business outcomes. I particularly value its seamless integration of strategic thinking with actionable tools. This book is a valuable resource for any leader dedicated to cultivating innovative talent and empowering teams to thrive, in a fast-paced world of business.

David Nowak, Global Engineering Director, Nefab

In our quest to streamline our innovation process and link it with our goal, we discovered that the journey itself was the real teacher, revealing new strategies for fostering creativity and growth within our company.

Pedro Brandao, Head of Digital Transformation, NOS

I've seen firsthand how Stefan and his team activate talent across entire organizations. This book distils that experience into a practical, must-read guide for every transformation leader.

Per Öhagen, President and CEO, Nefab Group

I am happy to have Nefab's growth journey and focus on innovation and sustainability portrayed in The Talent Advantage. Nefab's continuous work at embedding purpose into everyday decision-making and securing that talent fuels innovation is well aligned with the main messages of this book.

Axel RosenØ, CEO, Founder of Innovation Roundtable

The Talent Advantage distils what it truly takes to build an innovation-ready organization: not through theory, but through actionable frameworks.

Barak Libai, Professor at the Arison School of Business at Reichman University

A fascinating read! Thought-provoking, yet very readable. Stremersch and colleagues have created a highly innovative book that demonstrates how organizational and personal innovation can actually be planned and achieved.

Bart Steukers, CEO, Agoria

The Talent Advantage is a practical and insightful guide for any organization that wants to future-proof its workforce. It combines real business experience with clear, actionable tools , exactly what our industries need to turn potential into performance. A must-read!

Bruno Tindemans, Chief Foresight Officer at Department of Work, Flemish Government

If innovation is a team sport, this book is your playbook.

Daan van Knippenberg, Houston Endowment Professor of Management at Rice University

Stefan Stremersch shares great actionable insights on how to deliver on a core need of modern organizations - creating contexts in which people's potential for creativity and innovation is realized.

Dan Coombes, Vice President Global Commercial HR at Grünenthal Group

This book is a must read for anyone passionate about developing people. It provides an impressive set of tools and templates for building innovation talent. It's so practical and I love the decades of experience that is bundled in this book.

Daniel Heussen, General Manager Business Transformation, Komatsu

A great toolbox for any company wanting to stay ahead through innovation.

Eitan Muller, Research Professor of Marketing, NYU Stern School of Business

This book is a must-read! It will convince you that innovation success isn't about process but about systematically developing your people. It is a deep but practical guide to building talent advantage for sustained growth.

Hans Van der Kooij, Founder, Caesar Group

The Talent Advantage is packed with real-world wisdom, practical tools, and the kind of insights that actually stick. Small warning: if you read this book, you might just end up with more capable people, stronger teams, and a more focused organization.

What drives us forward is our people: their creativity, resilience, and courage to lead change. The Talent Advantage captures that spirit. It's a clear example of how structured support for talent unlocks lasting impact. This book is a required reading for any CEO passionate about developing their people and business.
Belén Garijo, Chair of the Executive Board and CEO, Merck

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