In-house vs. Vendor Developed Solution
When considering a business solution, it’s important to assess whether it is more viable from a support and cost perspective to internally develop a product rather than purchasing a proven solution from an experienced industry vendor.
Historically, companies used internal expertise to assemble an application that met very specific and limited business requirements. This approach worked initially as the implementation time and resource requirement is considered minimal. The challenge arises when the business requirements evolve, users increase across multiple locations and integration with other corporate systems is required. This demands further technology resources to continue development, testing and on-going support.
In order to focus internal technology resources on core business services, often CIO’s look to expert vendors to implement a business solution. Enterprise package tracking software is similar to financial, human resource, document management and other business process systems in that it is critical to running the business, yet shares enough commonality that a vendor solution will deliver the required functionality.