When to build instead of buy

Most businesses should buy. Accounting, email, payroll, CRM, these are solved problems, and building your own version is an expensive way to end up behind.

The line moves when the process itself is the thing that makes the business work.

If your operation runs a sequence of steps that no vendor models, you have three options: change how you work to match the software, absorb the gap with manual effort, or build. Teams usually pick the second option by accident. It never appears on a budget line, but it is the most expensive of the three.

A practical test:

Does the process differ from your competitors in a way that matters to customers? If yes, that difference is unlikely to be in a product catalogue.

Are people spending significant time moving data between systems? That is a gap, and gaps are cheap to close relative to what they cost.

Would buying force a change in how the work is done, and is that change actually an improvement? Sometimes it is. Say so when it is.

We turn down build work regularly because a product already does the job. That is not a loss. Building where you should have bought is the more expensive mistake.