An age-old question, build or buy? The concept has been around for years and really comes down to whether it makes sense to invest in building something yourself from scratch or buying the solution instead of recreating the wheel. With the age of digital transformation and the growth of APIs and integrations, a new question comes into mind – whether or not to partner. Keep reading for a deep dive of the benefits of each and how to decide what’s best for your company!
Build
Building is great! You get to throw in all your crazy ideas and innovations, you get to hire or utilize the best of the best, and be really proud of what you built! On the other hand, building also means more time, resources, and money that can be utilized elsewhere. It’s important to look at the priorities and long-term goals of the company as you’re planning your strategy. Another important factor for considering building, is ensuring the market saturation and the complexity of what you’re building. Let’s look at an oversimplified example: I need a pencil to take notes, does it make sense for me to build a pencil or some sort of writing utensil? Probably not! However, there are many times where you want to bring your vision to life or you have a need for something the market doesn’t have and building becomes worth it!
Buy
Buying is easy. Buying is one of the best ways to quickly add to your stack or to your customer experience. It allows you to utilize out-of-the-box solutions that are easily able to be utilized as soon as you buy the product. An important caveat with buying is ensuring not only that the product meets the needs of the company and the users, but also that the ROI makes sense within the company’s short-term and long-term goals.
Partner
Partnering! Partnering can be one of the most effective ways of utilizing and integrating directly into your services. Partnering allows you to utilize another company’s expertise and solutions in order to address your pain points and opportunities. There are a number of ways to utilize partnerships, including referrals, partner integrators, consultants, or vendor partners. Ensure when picking a partner, you’re finding one that not only meets all your product needs but a company that shares values with you and is willing to grow with you. Partnership are two-way streets and both you and your chosen partner should be in it together.
How to decide?
Building, buying, or partnering are all great options. It comes down to what makes sense for you and your company, and it is okay for this to change over time.
To Build?
- Do you have the resources?
- Are there no solutions that meet your needs?
- If there are solutions in existence, what is missing from those solutions that building would provide you?
- How much money and time will go into this project short-term (for go live) and maintenance/updates long-term?
- Will the timelines meet the needs of the pain points?
- Are there cross-benefits to building?
To Buy?
- How much will it cost? Now and in the future.
- What is your ROI?
- Is it a product that will be maintained to continue meeting your needs?
- Will you have to buy multiple products to meet your needs?
- How fast can I implement the purchased solution?
- What about security and access implications?
To Partner?
- What are all the value adds? Products, expertise, support, etc.
- Does the partner match your core values?
- What does maintenance/upgrades look like long-term for the partner and how that affects your solution.
- What type of partnership are you looking for?
- Can this partner solve more than one problem for you?
- Consider security and access implications
How can SPLICE help?
SPLICE helps you get the best of all the worlds! SPLICE shines as a vendor partner that not only has out-of-the-box solutions, but also customized builds (within reason)! By utilizing SPLICE, you get the cost savings that you would get by buying or partnering, but also getting the benefit of being able to use SPLICE’s products and solutions, as well as the years of expertise, the dedicated account teams, and the awesome partner teams that you get to know and love! SPLICE loves to grow WITH you and help to ensure you stand out from the rest. Still missing something that other companies don’t have but you’re not ready to build from scratch? SPLICE will be able to help support a custom solution based on your needs.