Question & Answer: What are the benefits and challenges if you use in-house resources to manage accreditation versus…

Expert Answer

Internal consultant is an internal resource of an organization who is appointed for the managing accreditation process of organization. They share keen interest in improvement and changes in the processes those are in conformance with the accreditation body standards.

Benefits of Internal Constant:

• Being with the organization for long time, internal consultants are well versed with the organizational culture. This helps to reduce the time which is required for initial survey of organization by the external consultant.
• Internal consultants best understands the organization’s current policies, procedures, practice, etc. makes them best estimator for knowing the current status of organization with respect to accreditation standards.
• They have in-depth knowledge about the activities which makes them sensitive towards areas in which changes have to be made and impact of such changes on performance and accreditation outcomes.
• Being internal resource, organization doesn’t have to pay internal consultants extra for managing accreditation process.

Challenges with Internal Consultant:

• Being internal resource, internal constant may miss the approach of viewing organization form “Fresh Set of Eyes” as compared to external consultant. There is risk that the internal consultant might be used to the things going on and will be biased on any changes required.
• As the external consultant focus is on providing expertise for managing accreditation, they have border view and expertise in the given field. Whereas, the internal consultant will have limited knowledge or exposure for the accreditation process, which may affect the effectiveness on the accreditation performance.