Keep the judgement close; source the capability deliberately

Deciding what to keep in-house requires more than comparing salaries with agency fees; examine knowledge, recurring demand, specialist depth, coordination and the cost of changing course.

A CMO is asked to reduce agency spending. The proposed solution is to hire two people and bring the work in-house. The spreadsheet compares annual fees with salaries and shows an attractive saving.

It leaves out the question of what the agency team actually provides: specialist coverage, temporary capacity, senior review, production systems and the ability to absorb uneven demand. It may also leave out the knowledge the company should never have allowed to sit entirely outside the business.

The sourcing decision needs to separate accountability, expertise and execution capacity before choosing an organisational label.

Identify the decisions the company must own

The business should retain clear accountability for objectives, customer priorities, budget choices and acceptance of results. An external partner can challenge and inform those decisions without becoming the only place where their rationale exists.

Keep a usable record of customer insights, performance definitions, important accounts, creative assets and access rights. The CMO should be able to explain the programme and change suppliers without losing the organisation’s memory.

This does not mean every strategic task must be performed by an employee. It means the company needs an informed owner who can evaluate recommendations and take responsibility for the choice.

If nobody internally can judge the work, a cheaper delivery arrangement may simply make an existing dependency harder to see.

Describe the capability rather than the job title

“Bring content in-house” can mean interviewing experts, researching evidence, writing, editing, design, distribution, analytics and production management. One person may not provide all of those capabilities at the required level.

Map the actual work, its frequency and the quality standard. Identify which tasks require deep business context and which benefit from external specialist experience.

The Sourcing Playbook encourages assessment of delivery models and market capability in public services. The transferable principle is to compare feasible ways of doing the work, rather than assuming outsourcing or insourcing is inherently superior.

For marketing, a mixed model is often a candidate worth evaluating: an internal owner with selected external expertise or flexible production capacity.

Examine the demand pattern

Stable, recurring work can justify dedicated internal capacity. Infrequent specialist work may be difficult to sustain as a full-time role, especially when expertise requires exposure to many situations.

Look at peaks as well as averages. A team sized for ordinary weeks may struggle during launches, while a team sized for launch peaks may be underused for much of the year.

Ask what happens when a key person leaves, is unavailable or needs training. Resilience and management time belong in the comparison, not just the planned output of a fully staffed ideal team.

For external work, examine how the supplier handles turnover and competing client demands. An agency label does not automatically guarantee continuity or depth.

Compare total operating cost

For employees, include recruitment, management, tools, training, leave coverage and the time needed to reach effective performance. For suppliers, include procurement, briefing, coordination, review and the cost of scope changes.

Consider the cost of delay. A theoretically cheaper arrangement may postpone a commercially important programme while the team is assembled or learns the business.

Include transition and exit. Who transfers source files, account access, research records and working methods? Which activities must continue while responsibility moves?

The result does not need false precision. Cost ranges with explicit assumptions can support a better decision than a single neat number that excludes half the operating model.

Protect the ability to challenge the problem

An internal team can become trapped by familiar assumptions; an external partner can become too eager to sell the service it offers. Both need permission to question the brief.

The Design Council’s framework separates understanding the problem from developing a solution. That is a useful test of the proposed working relationship: will the specialist help diagnose the need, or only execute a predetermined answer?

Choose partners and managers who can explain when their preferred method is unsuitable. A capability is more valuable when it improves judgement as well as output.

Test a workable arrangement before reorganising everything

Select one bounded programme and define responsibilities, handoffs, review standards and access. Observe the actual coordination burden and quality of decisions.

For example, an internal product marketer could own audience and evidence while an external specialist develops a complex research asset. The pilot should reveal whether the division of work is clear or whether important decisions repeatedly fall between the roles.

Do not treat a pilot as evidence for every marketing capability. Production, media buying, research and technical optimisation can have different economics and knowledge requirements.

Make continuity part of the answer

Whichever model wins, keep documentation, asset ownership and performance definitions in a form the company can use. Review the arrangement when demand, strategy or team capability changes.

The strongest sourcing decision is not the one that makes the organisation chart look simplest. It is the one that gives the business reliable expertise, informed ownership and enough flexibility to do the work well when circumstances change.