As head of global operations – contingent workforce for Applied Materials, Aditya Joshi has helped transform how the company hires and manages its contingent workforce, adopting a holistic approach.

Joshi and his team in his two-year tenure have consolidated continent workforce operations from multiple in-country vendor management teams to two global delivery service centers in India and China. This transformation involved extensive work in process standardization, training, documentation and hiring across the globe. The team overcame time zone and language challenges to build a strong global team. Originally planned to take over a year, the transition was completed in just two quarters.

Joshi, who has 20 years of experience in global leadership roles, points to his core team, company leadership and a culture of accepting change as keys to this success. Results have been impressive, enabling the company to scale quickly, deliver cost savings and gain access to a larger supplier base, greater efficiency and faster delivery.

Now that the program is stabilizing, Joshi is looking to the future with plans to expand the program. “Global delivery is the next big trend,” he says. “If you can offer 24/7 delivery, you can optimize delivery costs and enable the organization to be more agile and respond faster to business changes.”