Tips for Making a Build vs. Buy Decision Through the course of this series of articles, you’ve seen how important it is to make an informed decision when choosing whether to build a software solution from scratch, buy a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solution, or go with a hybrid approach of buying and customizing a…
DetailsBuild vs. Buy vs. Hybrid: Decision Criteria If you’ve read this far in this series, you know the significant advantages and disadvantages of the three approaches to implementing a digital solution, that is, Building custom software Buying commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software The hybrid approach of buying COTS software and customizing it Is there a simple…
DetailsThe Best of Both Worlds: Pros and Cons of Hybrid Build–Buy What if “build vs. buy” wasn’t an either–or proposition? Is there another path that realizes the benefits of each approach while minimizing the risks of both? Indeed, there is. We call it the hybrid approach. There are two main ways to implement it: Buy…
DetailsPros 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…
DetailsPros 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…
DetailsBuild 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…
DetailsThe 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…
DetailsIT Modernization: Pitfalls to Avoid With over 50 years of collective experience, lessons learned, and general wisdom, you would think that major IT projects wouldn’t fail at such an alarming rate–66% or more. But here we are, well into the 21st century, and the global success rate for major IT projects is still miserable. …
DetailsEyes On the Prize: Best Practices for IT Modernization IT leaders at large and small companies and in all industries are modernizing their IT environments. Modernization projects can include network infrastructure, computing and storage hardware, applications, databases, websites, or a combination. Why are so many businesses going to the trouble and expense to modernize? Every…
DetailsWhy do customers stop doing business with you? Most of them won’t tell you. They leave silently, without a trace. For every scathing negative Yelp review from a dissatisfied customer, dozens more simply ghost you. Although it’s difficult or impossible to determine why specific customers take their business elsewhere, it’s not hard to figure out…
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