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In the boardroom bunkers and in the cubicle-filled trenches, the early skirmishes of the next war are being fought. For the moment, most of the action is guerrilla warfare - brief raids in which the companies under attack are often unaware that they've been hit. Ultimately, though, the war will be global, and for businesses, the stakes will be success and perhaps even survival.

According to a yearlong study conducted by a team from McKinsey & Co. - a study involving 77 companies and almost 6,000 managers and executives - the most important corporate resource over the next 20 years will be talent: smart, sophisticated businesspeople who are technologically literate, globally astute, and operationally agile. And even as the demand for talent goes up, the supply of it will be going down.

The McKinsey team is blunt about what will result from these trends: Its report is titled "The War for Talent." The search for the best and the brightest will become a constant, costly battle, a fight with no final victory. Not only will companies have to devise more imaginative hiring practices; they will also have to work harder to keep their best people.

In the new economy, competition is global, capital is abundant, ideas are developed quickly and cheaply, and people are willing to change jobs often. In that kind of environment, says Ed Michaels, a McKinsey director who helped manage the study, "all that matters is talent. Talent wins."

To see what the coming conflict looks like from the war room, Fast Company interviewed Michaels in his Atlanta office.

Your study says that talent is the most important factor in a company's success. Why?

Over the past decade, talent has become more important than capital, strategy, or R&D. Think about the sources of competitive advantage that companies have. Capital is accessible today for good ideas and good projects. Strategies are transparent: Even if you've got a smart strategy, others can simply copy it. And the half-life of technology is growing shorter all the time.

For many companies, that means that people are the prime source of competitive advantage. Talented people, in the right kind of culture, have better ideas, execute those ideas better - and even develop other people better. As Larry Bossidy, the CEO of AlliedSignal told us, "At the end of the day, we bet on people, not strategies."

Why is that a good idea? The world is changing so fast, it's difficult to see around corners. Things don't always work. And when they don't work, what you can fall back on is talent.

Why do you call the current environment a "war for talent"?

A lot of it has to do with demographics. In 15 years, there will be 15% fewer Americans in the 35- to 45-year-old range than there are now. At the same time, the U.S. economy is likely to grow at a rate of 3% to 4% per year. So over that period, the demand for bright, talented 35- to 45-year-olds will increase by, say, 25%, and the supply will be going down by 15%. That sets the stage for a talent war .

You developed case studies for 20 companies. What trends did you spot that signal the beginning of a war for talent?

In order to keep the pipeline full of talented people, almost all of the companies we studied are starting to take nontraditional approaches to recruiting. They're also finding it harder to keep the great people they already have.