When Custom Software Makes Sense

For years, companies were told: “Never build what you can buy.”

It’s still good advice. Until the thing you buy forces your business to operate in a way that makes no sense.

We see organizations with surprisingly important workflows held together by spreadsheets, email, manual data entry and workarounds.

Often because the commercial software available solves only 70% of the problem, and the remaining 30% becomes human labor.

That’s where the build-versus-buy discussion gets interesting.

Custom software makes sense when the workflow itself creates competitive advantage. When the process is unique. When existing systems need to work together in ways they weren’t designed to. When employees are spending significant time compensating for software limitations. Or when a company wants to create a completely new customer experience.

And increasingly, custom doesn’t mean building everything from zero.

A solution might combine existing SaaS products, APIs, AI models, company data, workflow automation and a custom application that ties it all together.

The question is no longer simply: build or buy? More often it’s: what should we buy, what should we connect, and what should we build around the work that makes our business different?