In-housing is the practice where businesses build internal teams and expertise rather than outsource to agencies. The concept offers businesses multiple benefits, but there are perils and drawbacks to consider.

How does in-housing work?

The concept is straightforward. Expertise is built within an organisation to deliver work that typically is outsourced to an agency. To succeed, a business will replicate the best agency teams to deliver a higher output of work.

What are the benefits of in-housing?

There are several benefits with in-housing a digital team. Three primary benefits are 'Brand connection', 'Cost' and 'Intellectual property'. #1 Brand connection: Having an in-house team means the team are more likely to be culturally invested in your brand and your success. #2 Cost: Having an in-house team may have cost benefits. In-house teams typically have the edge over agency teams simply because they have more time to work through the activity. #3 Intellectual property: For some businesses, IP is a core reason for building a team that is dedicated to success.

What are the negatives of in-housing?

Building an in-house team has several drawbacks. Three major ones include 'Technology costs', 'Staffing' and 'Perspective'. #1: Technology costs: Agencies typically have access to a rich source of industry-leading tools to help drive strategy and work output. Every piece of technology can be prohibitively expensive. If a business cannot afford the technology, it will likely be not easy to perform all activity. #2 Staffing: In-housing, a team, has challenges. Agency teams are made up of several discipline experts. Not all disciplines always require full-time attention; it may be there are team members that do not have enough work to keep them motivated and fulfilled. #3 Perspective: Objectivity and perspective are two elements internal teams are at risk of losing. Working with outside consultants is an excellent method of maintaining standards within a team.

Building digital teams with our in-housing expertise

We provide a fresh approach to helping our clients achieve digital success.

Explore how we support our clients to grow, improve and enhance their digital teams. We'll help you answer questions such as whether to rely on digital agencies or bring everything in-house? Or what sorts of activities should be in-housed? Or how do we manage digital and people performance?

Our recruitment expert, Emma says

We’ve helped many businesses to build in-house capability and know exactly what it takes to get the best out of your internal operations. From recruitment of staff through to auditing and optimisation of ongoing operations, our services have been designed to help you maintain control as you drive for improvements in performance.
Emma Couling, Head of Recruitment

Read our guide to in-housing and creating a digital centre of excellence

Download our FREE white paper, a must-read for businesses looking to in-house digital services and build a first-class digital team.

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Seven ways we help businesses build digital teams

Building a business case for digital team growth

As part of building your capability, we will help you pull the business case elements together – from a cost/benefit analysis and requirements gathering to transition planning and onboarding.

Optimising digital team operations

Our specialists will perform an audit to determine your digital capabilities. We will spend time with you to understand your digital operation and uncover operational opportunities and risks. If you want to bring your digital activity in-house, but haven't done so already, our team will help you quantify and qualify the scale of resources that you'll need.

Support with digital talent recruitment

Creating attractive roles that match candidate and business needs can be tricky. Our recruitment team will help you define the roles, find and interview talent before selecting and placing them as quickly and smoothly as possible. We can assist with onboarding and ongoing training to plug any skill gaps.

Understanding your digital team strengths

A transition plan is essential for building an in-house team, and efficient resource allocation is critical to digital success. We'll help you understand your team's capabilities and formulate an improvement plan to help you hit your objectives. Our ongoing consultancy and support services can help with strategic planning, interim cover for staff absence, team development and management, reporting and analysis and more.

Interim support for digital teams

Whether you are transitioning in-house or experiencing a resource shortfall, we can step in and manage your digital activity for you until you’re ready to take back control.

Support with strategic planning and objectives

Strategic thinking and planning can really open up digital opportunities. Our involvement can help your team focus on management actions while doing some heavy lifting with the planning.

Digital team motivation

In-house digital teams are more at risk of isolation and stagnation. They don’t always have as much access to external ideas and innovation as agency staff. But that shouldn’t mean that they miss out. At Fresh Egg, we recognise that sometimes the best support we can give you is to listen and advise. Giving your teams access to experienced peers keeps them focused, current in their knowledge and inspires confidence.

Talk to us about training your digital team

In-housing FAQs

In-housing is the practice where businesses build internal teams and expertise rather than outsource to agencies. The concept offers businesses multiple benefits, but there are perils and drawbacks to consider.
There are several benefits with in-housing a digital team. Three primary benefits are 'Brand connection', 'Cost' and 'Intellectual property'.
- #1 Brand connection: Having an in-house team means the team are more likely to be culturally invested in your brand and your success.
- #2 Cost: Having an in-house team may have cost benefits. In-house teams typically have the edge over agency teams simply because they have more time to work through the activity.
- #3 Intellectual property: For some businesses, IP is a core reason for building a team that is dedicated to success.
Building an in-house team has several drawbacks. Three major ones include 'Technology costs', 'Staffing' and 'Perspective'.
- #1: Technology costs: Agencies typically have access to a rich source of industry-leading tools to help drive strategy and work output. Every piece of technology can be prohibitively expensive. If a business cannot afford the technology, it will likely be not easy to perform all activity
- #2 Staffing: In-housing, a team, has challenges. Agency teams are made up of several discipline experts. Not all disciplines always require full-time attention; it may be there are team members that do not have enough work to keep them motivated and fulfilled
- #3 Perspective: Objectivity and perspective are two elements internal teams are at risk of losing. Working with outside consultants is an excellent method of maintaining standards within a team.

Our recruitment experts will help you build a brilliant digital team

Find and grow your in-house team with Fresh Egg.

From short-term contracts to long-term hires, we know the digital marketing environment inside out and have over 20 years’ experience recruiting and retaining the very best in digital talent.

Recruit top talent now

What our clients say about our in-housing and recruitment services

“Fresh Egg has been working with us to identify areas of development for our in-house digital marketing team. The focus has been to work collaboratively with multiple stakeholders across disciplines to develop an understanding of core requirements to support continued significant growth.“

Mike Collins, managing director at Tropical Sky

“Recruiting into digital roles can often be difficult, time consuming and hard to navigate. We recently had a requirement to find a candidate to join our marketing team with a remit to drive our paid search activity. Fresh Egg provided support from helping to scope the required roles through to assisting with interviews to allow us to assess the technical compentency of candidates. The recent successful work to help build out our own in-house digital capability has been vital.“

Chris Howroyd, director at SH:24

Read about our work with both Tropical Sky and SH:24

Talk to us for support with building a digital team

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