Insights ·
Build or buy is the wrong question
The real question is which parts of your operation are a competitive advantage, and which are a commodity. Build the first, buy the second, and integrate both.
Most organisations frame their technology investments as a binary: build it ourselves or buy a product. In practice the answer is almost always both, and the useful work is deciding where the line goes.
A process that every company in your sector runs the same way is a commodity. Buy it, configure it lightly and move on. A process that is the reason customers choose you, or the reason your margins are better than your competitors', deserves a system that fits it exactly.
The mistake we see most often is the reverse: a bespoke payroll system and a shrink-wrapped tool for the process the whole company is built on. Draw the line first; the architecture follows.
