Should you have an internal consultant?

During the past 10 years, quietly, without much fanfare, between 250 and 500 organizations have developed an internal consultant function. Many of these consultants play similar roles to the ones traditionally played by external consultants such as troubleshooting, advising the CEO, analyzing research, and implementing new programs. Because the internal consultants can respond rapidly to organizational needs and are immediately accountable to the CEO, these functions have been successful so far. There are, however, according to this author, who has surveyed 200 internal consultants and personally interviewed many of them, areas where an external consultant still works out better. In the main these are the politically sensitive areas where an internal consultant's credibility can be too easily damaged. The author discusses other aspects of the problems that surround the internal consultant, the controversy about the merits of the outsider versus the insider, and ends his article with some guidelines for developing an in-house function.