How Roche is turning competitive intelligence into a business capability

For a global organization like Roche, understanding its own workforce is only part of the picture.

Internal data can show what skills exist across the organization, where talent is moving and where workforce gaps may be emerging. But making decisions about what to do next requires context from outside the organization too: how available critical talent is in the market, where demand is increasing, how competitors are building their workforces and how skills are evolving.

For Lisa Rose, Principal Insights Partner of People Analytics at Roche, bringing those two perspectives together is central to how competitive intelligence can support better workforce decisions.

Roche's ambition goes beyond using external intelligence as another source of HR data. Lisa's vision is for competitive intelligence to become part of strategies, executive reporting and decision-making across the organization, providing an external lens on everything from talent and skills to location strategy and future business priorities.

And that ambition has evolved considerably from where the journey began.

From recruiting intelligence to a broader business capability

Roche's use of competitive intelligence initially grew from talent acquisition. The starting point was relatively straightforward: understanding where critical talent sits and where the organization should focus its recruiting efforts.

But the team quickly began seeing opportunities to use the same intelligence to inform much broader decisions.

Take location strategy. Knowing that the talent Roche needs exists in Boston, for example, isn't enough. External labor-market intelligence can show how much demand exists for that talent, how intense competition is and whether another market might give the organization better access to the same capabilities.

Lisa describes exactly this evolution: rather than simply identifying where competitors employ particular talent, Roche began examining market demand and considering whether hiring should be redirected toward markets where the competitive environment was more favorable.

And the implications go beyond where to recruit.

If external data shows that a capability Roche needs is scarce, highly competitive or simply unavailable at the required level, hiring harder isn't necessarily the answer. That intelligence can instead inform an internal capability decision: if the market can't supply what the business needs, what should Roche build or develop within its existing workforce?

Lisa explicitly connects external market conditions with decisions about the internal programs Roche may need to build when the required talent isn't available externally.

This is where competitive intelligence starts becoming something bigger than a recruiting tool. TalentNeuron can provide visibility into external talent supply and demand, skills, locations, competitors and market conditions; Roche can use that external context alongside its understanding of its own workforce to decide how best to respond.

Trust starts with the data

Having access to external data is one thing; being able to trust the intelligence behind it is another. For Roche, a science-led organization, the credibility of the underlying data was fundamental from the beginning.

When external intelligence is being used to inform decisions about talent, skills or location, stakeholders want to understand the evidence: Where does the data come from? How frequently is it updated? What methodology sits behind the insight?

That shaped how Roche approached competitive intelligence. As Lisa explains, there is no single “magic CI button”. The team evaluated different sources and providers, looking closely at the quality and freshness of the data, where it came from, and the expertise behind it.

That foundation matters because external intelligence has to stand up to scrutiny if it is going to move beyond interesting market context and become something leaders can confidently use in workforce and business decisions.

Getting to the question that really matters

As Roche’s competitive intelligence capability matured, the value wasn’t simply in being able to answer more workforce questions. It was also in challenging the assumptions behind them.

Lisa gives the example of a stakeholder coming to the team concerned that “everyone is leaving for a particular competitor”. The data might show that overall attrition to that company isn’t unusually high. But when the team looks more closely, a different pattern might emerge: perhaps it is high performers who are leaving at a disproportionate rate.

That changes the conversation. What initially looked like a broad competitor or attrition problem becomes a much more specific question about critical talent, retention and where the business may be losing capabilities that matter most.

This is where combining internal workforce data with external market and competitive intelligence becomes particularly valuable. It gives organizations the context to test what they think is happening, identify what is actually significant, and focus attention on the workforce issues with the greatest business impact.

From reactive reporting to proactive intelligence

The next step is bringing competitive intelligence into the conversation early enough to influence what happens next.

This marks an important shift in how competitive intelligence can support the business. Rather than only looking backwards to explain workforce trends or respond to an immediate question, external signals can help identify changes that may have implications for talent and capabilities before those implications are fully visible internally.

For Roche, that means connecting what is happening outside the organization, from competitor activity to shifts in the talent market, with what it already knows about its own workforce. Those signals can then become an early input into decisions about where capabilities may be needed, where talent risks could emerge and where the business may need to act.

The same approach can be applied to future business priorities. If Roche is preparing to move into a new therapeutic area, competitive intelligence can help build an early picture of where relevant expertise sits, how competitors have approached similar moves and what capabilities may be needed to support the strategy.  

In that sense, competitive intelligence becomes part of preparing for the business decision, rather than something consulted after it has already been made.

The bigger lesson: external context changes the workforce conversation

Roche’s experience demonstrates something deceptively simple: internal workforce data can tell an organization what is happening inside the business. External intelligence puts that information in the context of the market around it.

Together, they create a much more complete picture. A question about talent availability can become a decision about where to hire or whether to build skills internally. An attrition concern can reveal a more specific risk around critical talent. And changes in the competitive landscape can provide an early signal of capabilities the business may need in the future.

That is ultimately where competitive intelligence becomes most valuable: not as another source of workforce data, but as context that helps leaders interpret what they are seeing, challenge assumptions and bring workforce considerations into business decisions earlier.

For Roche, the ambition is to make that intelligence part of how decisions are made across the organization, moving it beyond individual talent questions and embedding external context into workforce and business strategy more broadly.