Build, buy, change, or leave it alone?
Four options. The system decides, not the vendor. The right answer depends on what you have, what you need, and what each option costs to build, run, and change later.
When does this come up?
- Before a major technology investment
- A system underperforms, but replacing it looks expensive
- A vendor is proposing a solution
- Leadership is split between building and buying
- A build is underway and the return isn’t clear
Why it’s hard to get right
What should be built, bought, changed or left alone?
The options interact. A buy becomes a change when the vendor can’t fit your requirements. A build becomes leave-it-alone when scoping shows the current system is closer than it looked. And the cost of getting it wrong is well documented.
Source: McKinsey and the University of Oxford, study of more than 5,400 large IT projects (2012).
Organizations often think they know what is wrong. Part of what I do is determine whether they’re actually right.
What I do
Map the current state, define what good actually requires, model the cost and risk of each option, and give you a clear recommendation with the reasoning behind it.
FAQ
How do you decide build versus buy?
Total cost of ownership, not just the price: building it, running it, changing it later, and how dependent it makes you on a vendor.
We’ve already started building. Is it too late?
What’s spent is spent. The question is whether continuing is the right decision from here.
Can you evaluate a vendor’s proposal?
Yes, against what you actually need, not what the vendor is selling.