Today, while cutting up some vegetables that I picked from our backyard garden, I found myself thinking about how our family prides in eating food that is home grown as it is considered healthy and how some savings are made on the expense line for such foods.

In the work place, there is also opportunity for home grown initiatives and solutions which would probably give actors a sense of pride assirance and saving, similar to that experienced with home grown food.

I have, on many occasions advocated that organizations should have established structures and policies for the promotion of homegrown capacity building and knowledge transfer/sharing. This would begin with identifying competent actors and developing performance metrics with an aspect of in house training and solution development. Over the years, concepts around in house professional services have evolved and professionals in the organization are increasingly expected to add more value to the organisation than before. It is now hardly enough for a professional to have no other skills apart from those akin to their profession. For example, as a member of the C-Suite, one is expected to be T-shaped, have leadership skills, succession planning and implementation skills, capacity and team building skills and so on.

Considering that in house actors have intimate information about the organization, they are able to develop solutions that speak to issues that are peculiar to the organization. Because they are part of a multi disciplinary team of professionals, actors can be supported with different aspects by colleagues.

By my submissions, I am in no way suggesting that organizations should not outsource services because outsourcing may actually save the organization time and resources and introduce efficiencies to the organization’s operations. My point however is that if an organization prioritizes its in house capacities, the quality of their choice to outsource would be higher because there is a solid in house understanding of its inadequacies and needs. This way, the organization will be able to streamline its requirement from a third party supplier, thereby optimizing the benefit from such services.

Let’s share!