Build or Buy Dilemma

Organizations are regularly confronted with questions about building or buy new software.

Developing a specific solution in-house seems to be the best way to address a business challenge. Who knows the idiosyncrasies of your business as well as you and your team? You could build the software according to your unique specifications, control the look and feel of the software, ensure compatibility with other platforms you already use today...

The tricky part of all this, however, is being able to predict whether the effort, time, and costs of professionals tasked with creating, implementing, and maintaining it will not be greater than working with a relevant vendor who can implement a proven and mature solution, deliver the technology to users faster, and provide more comprehensive support throughout the software's lifecycle.

What to consider when making a decision??

As with any good dilemma, there is no easy answer. Knowing the full context is the best way to decide which path to take.

The following are the most important factors to consider:

Resources

In-house software development will take up a lot of your team's time and energy. Not just the technology!

To ensure a fully functional solution, you will need to collaborate with the technology team and all departments affected by the processes to be automated, gather requirements, discuss and plan the solution.

It's important to remember that regardless of your industry and sector, there is a growing need for digital transformation in all businesses. So either a dedicated team will be hired for this internal development, or this activity will compete with other priority activities and new business needs.

This naturally leads to a massive demand for technical and digital talent.

However, global demand is greater than the number of qualified professionals, resulting in a shortage of skilled labor. Attracting and retaining technology professionals is a major challenge and must be considered in decision making.

Also, would your team's time be better spent moving the business forward, focusing on other priorities, or working on developing their own version of an already available off-the-shelf solution?

Specialization

Your team will almost always know more about your business than any outside provider.

They may be highly competent, but when it comes to building software of a certain type, your internal team may not be up to date with the latest functionality, insights, or experience to develop a solution that leverages the most appropriate architecture, effective model, and best practices.

A specialized company with constant focus that lives and breathes a particular software may be your best option.

They can do it faster and better than you because they have experience and because they are always looking to apply the best technology and practices to ensure that the software product remains current and commercially competitive.

Support and evolutions

Imagine you have decided to build your new software. After the programming time ( months, maybe!) your software will be working.

And once it's in production, quality assurance is solely in the hands of your team, which is responsible for keeping it running and finding and fixing bugs.

And with all the dynamics of the business, the original needs and definitions will change and new needs will emerge over time, requiring continuous development.

If, on the other hand, you choose a market solution, the vendor already has a structured quality process having its errors found and corrected in a mature and stable solution that is used by many companies. In addition, the tool's constant evolution process will allow you to benefit from the planned evolutions and improvements requested by other customers.

Of course, it is also important to understand if the off-the-shelf solutions are flexible enough to be configured for your business. The ideal solution models your company's processes based on your unique business rules. Specialized solution providers are responsible for developing the best configuration, implementation and maintenance processes.

Intellectual property

?An exclusive intellectual property, truly new resources, or very specific requirements that address specific business needs for which there is no market solution are undoubtedly scenarios where the best option is to build software.?

In these cases, since there is no option that optimizes costs, time and resources used, ways must be found to take into account all the aspects necessary for the quality, sustainability and evolution of the software product.

?Longevity

When working with solution providers, it is important to analyze what this relationship will look like in the long term. It is important that the solutions not only meet your current needs, but also have the ability to easily adapt to future needs.

Choosing software partners that engage in continuous innovation processes and keep up to date with the best technologies and best practices will allow organizations to maintain their competitive advantage, flexibility and speed of action.

Conclusion

The focus of companies is generally not on the development of software solutions.

Of course, every business scenario is different, so it's important to evaluate all the issues listed (plus any additional ones that make sense for your scenario), but with the exception of special cases, an enterprise solution can be faster and more cost-effective. This allows you to move forward with solving your problem or business need without spending countless hours hiring your best professionals to design and build a solution.

In this way, the choice of the teams' focus determines the success or failure of the strategy and guarantees the prioritization of issues directly related to the business, as well as the increase of productivity and competitiveness.

Should not IT projects focus more and more on creating new revenue generation opportunities rather than simply enabling and maintaining new tools?