Change team: build or buy?

When organisations embark on a massive, multi-year ERP rollout, the immediate focus goes to solution architecture, data migration, and system integrators.

Behind closed doors, executive steering committees discuss: Who is actually going to lead the people through this? Do we bring in premium external change management consultants to see us through the storm? Or do we take this moment to build a permanent, internal change capability?

External Expertise vs. Internal Capability

Both internal and external sourcing models present unique structural friction points. Let’s analyse both approaches for digital transformations, and why the classic adage "the only constant is change" might be leading your talent strategy down the wrong path.

The external case: Specialized "Shock Troops"

External consultants bring pattern recognition. A veteran external change lead has likely survived three SAP or Microsoft Dynamics implementations in the last decade. They know exactly where the technical deployment will hit human friction.

The Pro: Speed and objectivity. They aren't entangled in local corporate politics or "how we've always done things in the French office." They can tell the steering committee hard, unfiltered truths about executive sponsorship or local resistance.
The Con: Context attrition. The day the ERP goes live and hypercare ends, the external team packs their laptops and leaves. The deep, hard-earned knowledge of why certain business units struggled to adapt, walks right out the door with them.

The Internal Case: Cultural Insiders

Building an internal change network means investing in people who deeply understand your organizational fabric, its informal power structures, and its regional nuances.

The Pro: Continuity. Long after the system deployment, internal teams stay behind to drive continuous optimization and real value realization.
The Con: Insularity and Fatigue. Internal teams often lack the specific, technical experience of a complex ERP roadmap. Furthermore, the 2025–2026 Organizational Change Management Trends Report points to a critical bottleneck: massive change fatigue. Gartner data highlights that when internal managers are stretched thin across endless transformations, their willingness to support and role-model new behaviors drops sharply. Forcing internal talent to lead an intense ERP rollout without specialized support often results in burnout.

Can one team lead all changes?

We love to say that "the only constant is change" to justify setting up a single, generalized internal Change Management Office (CMO). But recent scientific literature challenges this "one-size-fits-all" approach.

A 2024 study on Developing Organizational Change Capability by Véra-Line Montreuil highlights that Organizational Change Capability (OCC) is actually a multi-temporal, multi-faceted "meta-capability." It is not a single muscle group. Another interesting angle provided in a comprehensive 2025 McKinsey framework breaks transformation down into levels: Execution-level (adopting tools/processes), Mobilization-level (preparing cultural mindsets), and Transformation-level (shifting how the entire business runs cross-border)

An ERP rollout is rarely just a tool upgrade (execution level); it is a massive structural mobilization and transformation.

A generalized internal change team accustomed to smooth, incremental improvements or agile HR adjustments will likely fail when dropped into the aggressive, highly technical, and political crucible of a global ERP rollout. Different types of transformation require entirely different skill profiles.

The balanced approach

For many organizations, the answer isn’t a pure choice between "Build" or "Buy", but a hybrid approach could be a pragmatic choice.

In my work as an external transformation manager, I have been brought into global ERP rollouts at very different lifecycle stages. Sometimes I am at the table on day one to design the overarching strategy, governance frameworks, and change toolkits from scratch. Other times, I arrive mid-way—the internal team is already assigned and initial steps have been taken, but leadership realizes they need external expertise to inject structure, reset the approach, or troubleshoot high-resistance areas.

Both entry points can work perfectly. The truth is, anyone can look up a standard change management methodology (whether it’s Prosci, ADKAR, or Kotter) and try to get started. A seasoned change specialist won't dogmatically force a specific personal template onto your organization; they will adapt to your business context and work professionally with what you already have. Depending on where the project stands, the external role naturally shifts between designing approaches, providing tailored templates, coaching internal change leads, recruiting the right team members, or building and training an internal change network from the ground up.

What actually dictates success is not when the external expert arrives, but whether leadership makes explicit choices about roles, long-term talent evolution, and a structured "weave-in, weave-out" strategy.

To ensure a digital transformation doesn't collapse after the external contracts end, organizations should avoid viewing consultants as simple temporary resource fill-ins. Instead, they must be utilized as capability architects. This approach is backed by the foundational management theory of Absorptive Capacity, introduced by researchers Cohen and Levinthal. Their scientific framework proves that an organization cannot simply "buy" knowledge or read a standardized playbook to acquire a new organizational muscle. True capability cannot be transferred passively; your internal staff must actively work alongside external experts to translate external methodologies into permanent, internal institutional skills.

If internal teams are left isolated in IT silos while consultants do the heavy lifting, the organization's absorptive capacity drops to zero. To build a sustainable internal change network, the transformation journey must be structured as a shared, phased "expedition" as illustrated below, building change capability step-by-step.

To build a sustainable internal capability while leveraging external muscle, steering committees should plan for a fluid, phased transition. You must ask: What will everyone’s job look like a year from now when this high-stakes phase is over? A highly effective co-sourcing lifecycle follows four distinct movements:

Start-Up & architecture: The external expert defines the governance, risk metrics, and change framework, while concurrently recruiting, structuring, and training the internal change team.

Joint execution: The external specialist and internal team work shoulder-to-shoulder on the first country or regional pilot. This is where the heaviest capability absorption happens.

Internal Step-Up: As the rollout expands to subsequent countries, the internal team steps into the driver's seat. The external expert takes a step back, shifting into a strategic advisory and coaching role.

Weave-Out: External coaching is systematically tapered down.

By structuring the collaboration this way, you ensure that when the software goes live and the external support fades out, the deep transformation capability remains firmly anchored within your teams.

Sources:

Montreuil, V. (2024). "Developing organizational change capability: towards a dynamic, multi-faceted and multi-temporal model." Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 423–438.
De Smet, A., Gast, A., Mandersloot, E., and Steele, R. (2026). "A leader's guide to change management in turbulent times." McKinsey & Company / McKinsey Global Institute Insights.
Cohen, W. M., & Levinthal, D. A. (1990). "Absorptive Capacity: A New Perspective on Learning and Innovation." Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(1), 128–152.

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