Pros and Cons of a COTS Solution Applying a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software solution to your business problems is attractive for many reasons, not the least of which is the short implementation cycle compared with custom-built software. No matter your business problem, chances are good that some software vendor somewhere in the world has a…
Pros and Cons of Building Your Software Building custom software to address your unique business problems has the significant advantage of giving you, at least in theory, the exact solution you need—nothing more, nothing less. The major downside: It requires a significant investment in time, money, and resources to pull it off. And there’s a…
Build vs. Buy: 9 Questions to Ask The quest for digital solutions to modern business problems inevitably leads to a fundamental choice: Do you build a solution from the ground up or buy a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) system? The choice is rarely, if ever, straightforward. The first step is to gather some facts. To that…
The Build vs. Buy Dilemma In many aspects of life, you are given a fundamental choice: to make something or pay someone else to do it. Do you build a new coffee table for the living room, or buy one? Make a casserole for the company potluck, or buy one at the grocery store? Make…