Build Vs. Buy – Enterprise Dilemma
Tags: build vs. buy, enterprise application, enterprise software, pre-built components, technology IP, time-to-market
Though this has been a much debated topic for the last decade or so, it still remains a challenge for the enterprises. They don’t get to decide whether to buy or to build as each has its own pros and cons. In this post, I have covered this dilemma and try to offer an alternate option as well.
When should I buy software?
- Software offers a good fit for majority of your requirements
- Software can be customized to meet the remaining requirements; else the remaining requirements can be modified for the software
- License cost of the software is not very high and offers fairly decent ROI
- Maintenance contract costs don’t run very high year-on-year
- If you want the software implemented yesterday
These justify the option of buying the software.
When should I build software?
- Software license cost is very high and doesn’t justify the investments
- Maintenance costs are 2x times the license costs over a five year period
- Software doesn’t offer the needed customization for your requirements
- You have access to good quality resources at lower contract rates or you have an outsourcing partner who can do the development good at lower costs
This is when you building the software are justified. Many a times, enterprises work out the investments in both these models and the immediacy of the need before taking a call on whether to build or buy the software.
Alternate to build or buy
This model will be ideal if you find a partner who has the best of both worlds – have strong technology IP in the form of frameworks, components and plumbing layer that allows faster development and at the same time, have a team with expertise to build the software satisfying all the requirements.
This is the value that Ivesia offers its enterprise customers where we build the software with good resources using pre-built frameworks that expedites time-to-market of the software.