Free tool, 4 minutes
Build it, buy it, connect it, or fix the process first?
- Questions
- 11
- Time
- 4 minutes
- Possible answers
- 5
- Email needed
- No
The questions
The working
How the recommendation works
Every answer adds points to one or more of five routes: fix the process first, configure what you have, connect the systems you have, buy off the shelf or build bespoke. The route with the most points is the recommendation.
Two rules override the scores. If the process differs depending on who does it, the answer is always to fix the process first. Software copies whatever process it is given, including the confusion. And if people re-key between systems that don't talk, connect them before buying another one, or you add one more island.
Ties go to the cheaper route. Fixing the process comes before configuring, configuring before connecting, connecting before buying, and buying before building. Bespoke software has to earn its place.
It is a starting point for a conversation, not a procurement decision. It does not know your contracts, your people or your systems.
Questions
Before you rely on it
You build software. Why would you tell me to buy it?
Because bespoke software is the right answer less often than people think. If a product or a setting in a system you already own does the job, that is cheaper and safer, and I'll say so.
What does configure what you have mean?
Using features you already pay for but haven't switched on: workflows in your CRM, approval rules in your accounting system, connectors between Microsoft 365 apps. It is often the quickest win.
What does connect the systems you have mean?
Joining up systems that already work on their own, so information flows between them instead of being re-keyed, exported or copied. One system becomes the master for each kind of data. It usually costs far less than replacing a system, and removes the errors that re-keying brings.
We're regulated. Does that change the answer?
It pushes towards established, validated platforms with audit trails built in, implemented properly. In pharma, healthcare and financial services, AI is used in the right places inside those systems, not instead of them.
What if the recommendation feels wrong?
Look at the reasoning list. If one answer is driving it and doesn't fit your situation, that is a useful thing to talk through. Book a call and bring the result.
Related reading and next steps
Read next
Build, buy or configure: how to decide
The questions I ask before recommending any new system, and the expensive mistakes they avoid.
Read the articleWhen you're ready
Systems Health Check
Before you buy or build, find out what the systems you already pay for can do: a verdict on each one, the missing links between them and a costed roadmap.
See the health checkMore free tools
Next step
Not sure the answer fits?
Bring your result to a 30-minute call. I'll tell you plainly whether to fix it, connect it, buy it, build it or leave it.