With enterprise software, the decision to build or buy has many implications.
Introducing a transformative piece of software affects operations, employees, customers, revenue, IT, and other products. In addition, there's a long list of factors influencing the decision like cost, timing, effort to implement, use, differentiation, value, and onboarding. Investigating the endless supply of products, new hardware, and emerging technology can be overwhelming even for the most experienced product leaders. The speed at which technology advances, as well as the high complexity and scarce skillset needed to build or implement products further, complicates the situation. It’s no wonder leaders have a hard time figuring out the best course of action for adding a new product into the ecosystem. The good news is that they don’t have to struggle anymore.
Understand the benefits, dispel the myths, and calculate the investment for buying or building enterprise software.
“Building’s expensive and takes too long.”
“Buying’s fast and easy.”
“Customizing isn’t worth it.”
There are a lot of misconceptions out there. In reality, building, buying, and customizing off-the-shelf products have pros and cons, depending on the desired outcome. All have the potential to add value. Find out what’s fact, what’s fiction + the actionable criteria for determining when to build custom software, buy an off-the-shelf product, or customize an application.