Buy or Build?

Computerworld - Joyce L. Young is adding three new manager positions to her 50-person IT group. She wants to fill the new slots by March. It's a tight schedule, but Young has a plan: Promote from within.
"I know I have to go outside for certain technical expertise I don't have inside, but I really try to look internally if I can," says Young, the Chicago-based CIO at CP Kelco, a J.M. Huber Corp. company.
As the list of required skills for technology and management jobs grows, CIOs like Young must decide whether to "build" or "buy" managers. Each strategy comes with its own benefits and drawbacks, so CIOs should weigh time requirements, organizational needs and even retention plans when deciding which way to go.
"There's no black-and-white answer. It's very situational," says Robert Rosen, president of Share Inc., a Chicago-based nonprofit organization of IBM users.
Leading CIOs, recruiters and employment experts agree that whether to build or buy shouldn't be viewed as an either-or question. In fact, they say, the best solution for any organization is one that includes both tactics.
"It's a mixed strategy," says Bruce J. Goodman, CIO at Humana Inc. in Louisville, Ky. "You want a team that has a lot of A players. And you have to identify and recruit A players wherever they are."
Goodman says companies that build management skills in-house are building loyalty and capitalizing on institutional knowledge, too.
He remembers one IT staffer who showed aptitude for leading others. Goodman put him in charge of the company's help desk, where, after some additional training, he proved his ability to run a team and get things done. "If we hadn't done that," Goodman says, "he might not have stayed around."
Statistics support that assertion. "There's a lot of bang for the buck growing them from within," says Beverly Kaye, founder and CEO of Career Systems International Inc. in Scranton, Pa., and co-author of Love 'Em or Lose 'Em: Getting Good People to Stay, Third Edition (Berrett-Koehler, 2005).

Kaye's recent survey of more than 1,000 IT workers at all levels found that exciting work and challenges, along with career growth, learning and development, are among the top factors that keep workers with their current employers.
Barbara Kunkel, CIO at Rochester, N.Y.-based law firm Nixon Peabody LLP, says building skills among existing workers has helped her create loyal staff members who feel passionate about their work.
"People become proud of what they do. You can't buy that. And you can't get it overnight," she says. "And