Roland Berger Survey: High-Performing Companies Differentiate Through Data-Driven, Customized Talent Development and Flexible Operations

Roland Berger Japan, one of Europe’s leading management consulting firms, conducted its fourth awareness survey of 200 CxOs and corporate planning executives at listed Japanese companies, focusing on talent development and utilization for building competitive organizations. The survey found that both high-performing and underperforming companies implement basic initiatives such as skills inventories, company-wide training, and systematic talent pool management. The difference lies in whether companies go one step further by using data and AI, assessing skills demand across the organization, customizing development to individual needs, and involving managers actively in the talent development process. High-performing companies reported these practices at more than three times the rate of underperforming companies. The results also show that employee ease of working is not a cost but a driver of performance. High-performing companies place greater emphasis on meeting employee needs related to work styles, meaning and purpose at work, and workplace environments and infrastructure. The largest gap appears in work-style-related needs, suggesting that enabling each employee to work more easily is a core source of performance and competitive advantage. Roland Berger emphasizes that the key is not the existence of systems but how they are operated. High-performing companies implemented an average of 3.7 initiatives, compared with 3.2 among underperforming companies, but the most notable difference was flexible individual support. Examples include flexible work locations and optimizing assignments, roles, and responsibilities according to each employee’s circumstances, allowing employees to actually feel changes in how they work. Seiichi Tamura, Senior Partner and head of Roland Berger’s corporate transformation team, said that people are corporate assets, and that merely designing and introducing systems is only soulless “work processing.” What matters is operating those systems in line with employees’ realities, and management should use whether employees feel change as a KPI. Shusaku Nomoto, an alumnus of Roland Berger and transformation advisor, added that work-life balance and work-style systems are meaningless if they are only put in place; proactive operation that reflects daily changes, family circumstances, individual situations, and department conditions is essential. He also stressed that talent development should not be delegated entirely to related departments, and that frontline managers must be deeply involved. The survey was conducted online by Roland Berger in January 2026. Respondents were 200 CxOs, executives, directors, and corporate planning general managers or department heads at listed companies across Japan.