The build-versus-buy question has a boring answer: it depends on how differentiated the workflow really is.
Build When the Workflow Is Your Edge
If the process is genuinely how you win, your pricing logic, your dispatch algorithm, your risk model, own it. Building costs more and takes longer, and it is worth it precisely because nobody else should have it.
Buy When It Is Someone Else’s Core Product
Document extraction, transcription, standard forecasting: mature vendors do these well at a fraction of the build cost. Buying is not a compromise. It is discipline about where your money earns differentiation.
Start Off-the-Shelf When Speed Beats Fit
Most operational use cases are 80 percent the same across companies in an industry. An off-the-shelf product goes live in weeks, proves its value on your data, and costs a fraction of a build. Before building, ask:
- Is the process actually differentiating, or just familiar?
- Do you have the data, and is it usable?
- Can your team run a model in production, on call, at 2am?
- Is an 80 percent fit today worth more than a 100 percent fit next year?
Answer those four honestly and the decision usually makes itself.