I don't follow soccer closely, but I was captivated by an article I found on FIFA.com about the Dutch club, Ajax.
Titled "Grooming Talent the Ajax Way", the piece describes their famed ability to consistently produce home-grown superstars fit for the world stage. While clubs in the English, Spanish and Italian leagues spend huge sums on importing superstars from all over the planet, teams in the smaller Dutch League have to be smarter with how they spend their recruitment dollars.
So Ajax, the most famous of the Dutch clubs, is clear ab out where it's priorities lie - identifying and grooming their own talent. While they may not be able to afford to buy established superstars, they certainly spare no expense on their own talent identification and development through their "Academy".
In recruitment terms, they follow a philosophy of "build, not buy".
And the investment brings results. According to the article, the club won the UEFA Champions League in 1995 (for those of us that don't know, that involves all of the top clubs of each of the European Leagues) with 9 of the 11 starters having come through their Academy system. In the big money world of European soccer, that's almost unbelievable. Their academy has produced some of the world's all-time greats over the past 30 years.
I love the clarity with which they describe what they do.
"Our aim is to bring 2 players from the academy through to the first team each year." Simple. Clear. Precise. And they do it!
Their guiding principle in recruitment? "T.I.P.S....technique, insight, personality, speed." Even I can follow that!
Where do they look? "We don't travel more than 60km outside Amsterdam. We believe in our own culture." My God -no worldwide network of scouts?
This is an organisation with recruitment and development in its bones. It has a belief that this is where it derives its success. It has clear aims, simple philosophies, and then goes out and does it.
In the business world, the dilemmas are the same. Build or buy?
Very few organisations want to invest in a "build" strategy, and so ultimately join the merry go round of poaching "established" performers from elsewhere.
Their recruitment strategy is, by default, a "buy" strategy. That is very different from a company that proactively pursues a "buy" strategy - that is a perfectly legitimate way to go if you do it with purpose.
Not having a recruitment strategy that can be articulated consigns an organisation to mediocrity.
In the soccer story above, you could contrast Ajax's strategy with that of Manchester United or Chelsea or Arsenal. They clearly have a "buy" strategy, and it works for them. It works for them BECAUSE they are clear about it, in the same way Ajax is clear about it's strategy.
What is your company's philosophy regarding talent?
Do they identify and develop their own, and have established and well regarded business processes for making this happen?
Do they splash out and get the top performers from rivals and pay top dollar for them?
Or do they do neither? Don't consistently build their own, have to look outside to recruit, but end up paying too much for average performers?
That's the curse of not having a strategy - you don't like your results, and it still costs you alot.
#1 Organisations = #1 Recruiters.
You can go about recruitment in any number of ways depending on the strengths and weaknesses of your company. No strategy is inherently better than another, but some strategies will suit particular businesses better than others.
The most important point is that to achieve your potential as an organisation, you must have a recruitment strategy / philosophy.
Once you have one, the whole organisation can be energised to fulfill it.
Hi Alfy, glad you found it amusing! As you rightly pointed out, any good strategy will be a combination of build and buy. As always, I am trying to provoke some thought out there on the subject of what your strategy is, and whether you actually have one. The Ajax story was a great example of a crystal-clear "build" strategy that I thought was perfect for illustrating the point that just having a strategy puts you ahead of most of your competitors. There would be nothing particularly magic in the water in Amsterdam that would make their children pre-disposed to being superstars, and the Netherlands being a small country can't splash out on huge player salaries like other European leagues. Yet Ajax has produced champion teams beating the best of Europe as well as unearthing some of the greatest stars in the world by having a clear recruitment philosophy and doing it with purpose. Anyway, its great to see the depth of thought that you have gone into on the subject - let there be many more like you in the business community.
Posted by: Liam | March 26, 2008 at 10:50 AM
As a Latin American who grew up in the UK and is therefore football obsessed, this made entertaining reading, thanks Liam!
There are obviously more shades of grey in this than simply build or buy, and i understand you have implified it to make a point, but i do think it's worht pointing out that it's this very complexity which prevents afar too many companies from giving this due consideration. Build or buy is a different question by location, by department and even by quarter... different internal and external pressures, be they financial, opportunity or workforce related, actually dictate what might be the required strategy, and these change constantly. None of the businesses (football clubs) you describe have a single strategem, and the most consistently successful clubs have combined build AND buy. It's a question of getting the right balance for today and understanding the required balance for tomorrow and getting there quickly enough. still not as much fun as working with multimillionaire football celebrities, but a constant challenge to keep us occupied!
Posted by: Alfy | March 26, 2008 at 08:58 AM