Reference no: EM132722005

The In-house Team

Atkin and Brooks (2015) stated that it is essential that members of the in-house team recognize that they should operate in the same way as would an external service provider and that they will be judged on a similar basis. Given that the organization's senior managers might be looking periodically at the market for service providers, it makes sense for the in-house team to operate in a business-like way so that it can compete fairly if the need arises. Most organizations manage did this, but the weakness is in maintaining consistency over time. One of the biggest threats to the in-house team's success is from complacency, which is easily noticed by end-users.

The in-house team should be considered in terms of its efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The constituent personnel must operate as a team if they are to deliver a value-adding service. In addition, they must be proactive in looking for areas where value can be added. It should not regard service levels as permanent, but as providing the basis for improvement. Its expertise can help assess whether the perceived service levels are the most appropriate. This is particularly relevant in the case of response times when ordering work. If informed discussion can take place as to real needs as opposed to perceived needs, the service, with its corresponding resource levels, can be designed to meet those needs. This value-adding activity can enable the in-house team to differentiate itself from external service providers with intimate knowledge of the organization used to good effect. Even so, such knowledge is no substitute for a service that does not satisfy end-user requirements consistently.

Many support service processes are manpower-intensive and consist of a high volume of low-value activities. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) could therefore be of help to the in-house team by improving communication and producing appropriate management information. Through the use of low-cost ICT tools, the in-house team can measure the performance of service delivery against the service level set and agreed with each identified end-user group. Thereafter, through continual improvement, increases in performance can be compared and reported against benchmarks. This activity should extend to a comparison with external service providers, both to assess the relative competitiveness of insourcing and to gain new insights into achieving best practice.

Question:

Explain the responsibilities of the in-house team of an organization.