The New Dictionary of Hiring

Opportunity Leakage

/OP-ER-TOO-NUH-TEE LEE-KIJ/

NOUN

Opportunity Leakage is business a company never pursues or wins because it lacks the people needed to deliver it.

MEANING

Companies track revenue won. They're much worse at tracking the bids they never made, customers they never approached and markets they never entered because they couldn't staff the work.

‍

That business is gone before it becomes a lost deal. It doesn't appear on the recruiting dashboard, either. Opportunity Leakage is what happens when a company lacks the people to pursue an opportunity in the first place. The fact that nobody recorded it doesn't mean it cost nothing.

Defined by:
James Ellis,
Employer Brand Labs

Category:

Economics

Related Terms:

→

Talent-Limited Growth

MAKE THE CHANGE

Instead of:

Treating unpursued opportunity as unrelated to talent.

Ask:

What business are we not even attempting because we cannot staff it?

EXAMPLE

A sales team stops pursuing a promising class of customers because delivery can't support them. Those deals never become lost opportunities in the CRM. They simply never happen.

HOW TO USE IT

Ask business leaders what work they're declining, delaying or no longer pursuing because people or skills are unavailable. Connect those missed opportunities to specific capability gaps.

SAY IT TO LEADERSHIP

Our reports show the business we lost after competing for it. What about the business we never pursued because we knew we couldn't staff it?

NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH

Cost of Absence: Opportunity Leakage is business never pursued because the capacity wasn't there; Cost of Absence is the loss while you wait for a specific hire.