A few short years ago the trend was for organisations to have entire marketing departments to deliver everything in-house; from managing PR and organising events, through to design, desktop publishing - even printing! The notion of outsourcing seemed hard to comprehend amongst fears they would lose control, flexibility, cost management and competitive advantage.

A survey published this week in 'Marketing Week' clearly shows it's much more the norm today. Very few organisations - large corporates included - perceive that having the full mix of marketing skills in-house is either a cost-effective or headcount-advantageous strategy, nor does it easily embrace latest innovations in the market.

We all know that new employees bring fresh ideas, a new perspective, and clear objectivity that adds real value to an organisation. But exposure to other ways of doing things, new ideas, and different thinking becomes increasingly hard to come by as time elapses, and so thinking becomes more internally focused and inspiration more elusive.

That's why I believe the same evolution must happen with 'marketing brainpower' as we've already seen with marketing operations - organisations must learn to embrace 'outsiders' for the breadth of experience, knowledge and freshness they can bring to the party.

Perceived loss of control may still challenge companies as they embrace a different way of doing things...but until recently, wasn't 'social media as a business tool' an alien concept too?