Off the shelf or build your own: how to actually decide.

If a product exists that does eighty per cent of what you need, and the missing twenty per cent is preference rather than principle, buy the product and change your process. It will be cheaper, faster, and somebody else will maintain it forever.

That advice costs us work and it is still the right advice. A supplier who has never talked a client out of building something has not been paying attention.

The expensive mistake is buying a product and then spending two years customising it until it is a bespoke system with none of the ownership benefits and all of the constraints. Configuration is fine. Heavy customisation of somebody else's platform is the worst of both worlds and it is where a lot of money quietly disappears.

If you find yourself paying a specialist consultant to bend a product into a shape it resists, you have already made the build decision without admitting it.

How do I compare the real cost of buying versus building?

Take the licence cost for your expected headcount over three years, add the cost of any manual work the product will not remove, then compare that to a build price plus hosting and support over the same period. Include the cost of the process changes buying forces on you.

Can we start with a product and build later?

Yes, and it is often the sensible order. Buy to learn what you actually need, then build the part that turned out to matter. Just avoid heavy customisation of the product in the meantime.

What if no product fits our industry at all?

That is common in specialised sectors and it is the clearest case for building. It is also the case where a supplier who understands your industry saves you the most, because the requirements are not obvious from outside.