Monday, September 6, 2010

Buy versus Build

Buy versus Build - always the first question to ask in the planning stage of a project, the answer to which dictates all the activities that follow as well as the nature of the resulting product. There is no cut-and-dried answer, since every situation is different. Buy may intuitively seem to be the most efficient, quickest and cost effective solution, but a good case can be made for Build which also offers efficiency, time and cost benefits.

Some questions to consider when deciding which way to proceed:
  1. can the required functionality be found in purchased software or is a custom solution necessary
  2. how long will it take to find and procure a known product, versus building a new one from scratch
  3. what is the total cost of ownership entailed in building a custom solution
  4. what are the options for Build, in-house or outsource

No comments:

Post a Comment