"Should we build this ourselves or buy something?" is the most expensive question a business answers by instinct. We have watched both directions go wrong: a £40k custom build that an off-the-shelf tool did better, and a tangle of subscriptions that one weekend of code would have replaced.
The answer is rarely obvious, which is why we use a framework. Three scored questions, a weighting step, and one worked example below.
The three questions
Run through these for the process you are evaluating. Score each one from 1 (low) to 5 (high) and note your reasoning.
1. Is this how you compete?
If the process is your edge over competitors, owning it usually pays off. A bespoke pricing engine, a proprietary matching algorithm, a workflow that defines your service: these are build candidates. If the process is plumbing everyone has (payroll, email, basic accounting), buy the plumbing.
Score 5 if the process is a genuine differentiator. Score 1 if any competitor uses the same off-the-shelf tool and it has not held them back.
2. How far do your workflows sit from the market default?
Every off-the-shelf product encodes assumptions about how work should flow. The further your process sits from those assumptions, the more you pay in workarounds, duct tape, and eventual frustration. The question is not whether a tool can do it; it is how much pain you will absorb to make it.
Score 5 if your workflow is genuinely unusual and the market tools require heavy customisation. Score 1 if you could adopt the tool's way of working with minimal disruption.
3. What does standing still cost?
Buying is faster to start; building is often cheaper to live with. The question is which clock is ticking. If you are losing customers or hours right now, the time-to-value of a bought tool may outweigh years of licence fees. If you have runway, a bespoke build pays back over time.
Score 5 if speed to a working solution is urgent. Score 1 if you can afford to build and own.
How to weigh the answers
Add the three scores and read off the quadrant:
| Total | Steer towards |
|---|---|
| 3–6 | Build. The case for ownership is strong on at least two dimensions |
| 7–9 | Hybrid. Buy a platform but own the parts that matter |
| 10–12 | Buy. The market serves you well; stop before the first line of code |
| 13–15 | Buy urgently. The cost of delay outweighs any long-term saving |
A score of 7–9 is the most common outcome, and the most interesting one. It says: use a platform for the commodity parts, but build the layer that makes it yours. That might be a custom integration, a bespoke reporting layer, or a workflow engine that sits on top of a bought foundation.
Why a framework beats a gut call
None of the questions above are novel. That is the point. A repeatable framework turns a decision you might make on instinct into one you can defend to the board, revisit when circumstances change, and apply consistently across every new process that comes up.
The gut-call failure mode is not that people choose badly. It is that they choose for the wrong reason (a vendor demo, a founder's preference, a number someone heard), and then cannot reverse it without embarrassment. Scoring forces the reasoning onto the table.
Worked example: a client intake process
A professional-services firm came to us asking whether to build a custom client intake and onboarding system. They were using a general-purpose form tool stitched to a spreadsheet, and it was costing someone roughly two hours a day in manual work.
We walked through the three questions:
Is this how you compete? Their intake process is genuinely unusual: multi-stage, with conditional document requests that depend on the client's sector and deal size. Competitors use generic forms. Score: 4.
How weird are you? They had looked at two CRM platforms. Both required significant workflow customisation to match their conditional logic, and neither handled their document collection neatly. Score: 4.
What does standing still cost? Two hours a day at a senior coordinator's rate, plus occasional errors that had caused one delayed deal. Urgent, but not critical. Score: 3.
Total: 11. The steer is "buy, but consider a hybrid."
We recommended a mid-market CRM with a thin custom integration for the conditional document logic. The CRM handles the commodity parts (contact records, pipeline stages, email) while a small piece of code they own handles the intake rules. Cost: lower than a full bespoke build, better than the workaround they had, and the custom layer is small enough to maintain.
The bigger point
The frame the client ultimately cares about is not "build vs buy" in the abstract. It is: which option gives us reliable, owned capability at a cost we can sustain? A properly run evaluation answers that question before a contract is signed or a line of code is written.
If you are facing a decision like this, we are happy to run through the framework with you.
