Buy or Build: What are the benefits?

A brief summary of just some of the benefits:

Almost an immediate return on your investment - An established vendor has already gone through several cycles of design, testing, and implementation on a much larger scale. This means the return on your investment begins almost immediately upon delivery. Whether your build project is small or large, the build option almost always involves delays, with high failure rates and much higher lifetime costs.

Better support - One need only review the many complaints of software users regarding support services to know that providing good support is not a simple task. An established vendor will have a proven track record of supporting their application, with support systems and support teams with the experience to quickly respond and solve any problems.

Eliminate unexpected development costs - With an estimated 70 % of development costs occurring after installation, custom applications are continuously plagued with unexpected costs. An established vendor can provide a fixed and substantially lower overall cost than any custom application.

More experience - An established vendor has collected time saving, practical ideas from thousands of case management professionals over many years. This provides a level of experience in the application, and in the ongoing improvements, that would be impossible to duplicate for even the largest organizations or development teams.

Protection from obsolescence - To remain competitive, an established vendor must continue to incorporate the newest technology. With the fast pace of today's technology, the investment in a built application can disappear into obsolescence quickly unless ongoing funding is made available.

Ongoing development - An established vendor continues to seek out additional cost cutting features to add to their software. Plus, this development effort can call on the experience of thousands rather than the handful of local managers that contribute to a custom application. This ongoing effort is national or even worldwide, and results in continued time saving improvements at a fraction of the actual development costs.

NOTE: We are not without a bias in the Buy vs. Build decision. However, we urge you to become informed on this issue by reviewing the objective references provided.

For anyone considering building a case management system, or modifying an existing system that was built from scratch, we strongly recommend you read the article in detail.

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