Thinking to Build or Buy? Consider This First

Introduction

The cloud and SaaS revolutions have enabled companies to evaluate, select, procure and deploy software at unprecedented speed with fewer dependencies on IT than ever before. Over 25,000 SaaS solutions exist today across all verticals, with specialized tools for almost any and every business need you can imagine.

These vendors have invested meaningful time, energy and capital to build their solution and to continue innovating on it on an ongoing basis. Yet, some companies, namely enterprise financial institutions, telcos, and insurance firms with large internal IT teams will still, at times, decide to build their own proprietary software in-house. Traditionally, in the pre-SaaS and Cloud days, the preferred approach has been to build custom applications in-house due to concerns that a third-party solution won’t meet their specialized needs or connect with existing systems.

While IT teams are perfectly capable of building tailored software, it’s often an expensive and unnecessary distraction from the more meaningful work that is related to running the business. Additionally, IT teams often struggle to continuously upgrade their architecture, integrate new technologies, and capture user data from sources while balancing to stay ahead of digital innovation and the growing customer expectations.

Companies that have a strong culture of innovation and easy access to IT resources have a better chance of successfully developing technology in-house. But arguably, the vast majority of companies have many competing priorities and are unable to sustain a level of continuous innovation. Developing technology in-house is unlikely to bring the ROI needed to stay competitive with companies that are harnessing out-of-the-box SaaS solutions. The in-house technology is destined to age poorly in comparison.

The trend is certainly tipping in favor of buying technology. With global IT spending projected to total $4.5 trillion in 2022, an increase of 5.5% from 2021, it appears that many companies are finding it more convenient to buy commercial software rather than build it themselves.

Nonetheless, many companies are still weighing their capacity to develop technology in-house. This report highlights the technical and business considerations a business must take into account before deciding to fully develop and deploy an in-house Digital Completion platform, as well as the advantages of partnering with an experienced provider with a proprietary solution.

Key Technical Requirements For Building a Digital Completion Cloud

Companies seeking to build a Digital Completion solution in-house will need certain technical pillars in place in order to build an enterprise grade product. Below are the fundamental components of the Digital Completion Cloud, which are a result of years of R&D work and know-how. For further discussion, engage with a sales engineer.

1. Workflows

For all the elements of a Digital Completion Cloud to work together seamlessly, it’s important to have a no-code workflow engine. To allow for quick adjustments based on changing business and regulatory requirements, there should be drag-and-drop element attributes so adjustments can be made without depending on IT resources.

It’s not enough to simply plan for a tool to extract, sort, or reconcile data. Instead, companies must have a holistic understanding on how automation will integrate into their existing workflows and operational platform. Not having this component in place can create serious limitations in the solution’s flexibility and ability to adapt to dynamic use-cases.

2. Scalability

A growing organization needs to have seamless scale-in and scale-out to ensure real-time communication between two endpoints. It can take several years for an organization to build the necessary infrastructure. The organization will also need to continuously develop the platform as features evolve and new ones need to be supported.

3. Security

Data needs to be labeled and every label should have its own policy on where that data can be visualized, used, and edited. This also includes complying with regional data protection laws, such as GDPR and CCPA. Not only must the software itself be compliant, but the company must work exclusively with third-party vendors that themselves abide by the highest security standards. Botching this stage can result in multi-million dollar fines and the loss of customer trust over data privacy violations.

4. Integrations

Prebuilt, configurable plug-and-play integrations to allow interoperability with key business applications. Integrations must be built from scratch with custom code. These integrations can be fragile and the cost of the human resource expense to support and maintain the integrations is high.

5. Compliance

To meet the highest industry standards, companies must test, approve, and continually better the technology. In addition, regulations are often modified, with new amendments being introduced that require updating the software and procedures of handling customer information. Receiving compliance certification from the eSign Act, HIPAA, ADA and others invollves considerable overheard, and there are often yearly fees to maintain them.

6. Cloud-Agnostic

Cloud-agnostic software is often desired thanks to its greater flexibility and no vendor lock-in. But developing a cloud-agnostic solution from scratch is often expensive and time-consuming due to the greater complexity involved. As a result, the platform will take longer to launch, prolonging the time to ROI.

7. HTML-Based

Developing a real-time Digital Completion platform means it should be based on HTML — with no plugins or installation required.

Companies building in-house must maintain an advanced security and maintenance posture. Advancements in coding are a must to meet new opportunities, as stale code jeopardizes both stability and security. All development environments need to consider the update rhythm necessary to keep code stable, quality, and secure — while prioritizing these relative to other organizational commitments.

Key Organizational Requirements for Building a Digital Completion Cloud

Developing new digital initiatives is always challenging from an organizational perspective. It’s important for businesses to accurately assess their capacity to manage such projects given budgetary, time, and talent constraints. These are a few of the organizational requirements to build a successful platform in-house.

1. Access to Specialized Talent

Companies need to maintain dedicated teams to maintain different environments and providers (e.g., Salesforce, UIPath, Zapier). If these teams are responsible for other in-house platforms as well, it can be a tricky balancing act.

Companies should also consider the potential impact of pulling resources away from activities that drive the company’s main mission. For some companies, building a platform intended for digital interactions fully aligns with their core business. But for many others, it would be a distraction from.

2. Time Frame to Develop

Tier-1 consulting companies (Accenture, BCG, etal) have observed that corporations tend to underestimate the time required to deliver digital projects by a factor of three, and under budget by a factor of two. This means that projects often are delivered much later than planned and at twice the original budget.

3. Bandwidth for Continuous Innovation

Staying innovative is essential to staying future-proof. Of course, this is easier said than done. By virtue of the fact that the in-house Digital Completion Cloud is not the company’s only software or objective, it’s challenging to stay at the cutting-edge as there will always be competing initiatives for time, budget and resources.. There are just too many competing priorities, distractions, and brushfires to put out. Even the most innovative companies will struggle to reach the highest levels of innovation amid everything else going on. A third-party vendor has the luxury to remain fully focussed on its solution while keeping its finger on the pulse of technology innovations and upgrading its software accordingly

4. Organizational Commitment

The department leading the in-house Digital Completion Cloud initiative will need buy-in from organizational heads as well as frontline employees. The whole business division is more likely to embrace the new technology if evidence is shown — whether through case studies or industry KPIs — that the new piece of technology will help teams come closer to their goals. The problem is that developing software from scratch means there’s no proof of impact. This increases the organization’s perception of risk.

5. Regular Risk and Compliance Assessments

Organizations in highly regulated industries will be required to conduct regular risk assessments of their in-house technology. Teams will need to research best practices and the latest regulatory changes. And then organizations may have to compete for resources internally to put changes into the system to stay in compliance.

6. Domain Expertise in Secure Mobile Interactions

Chances are, an organization doesn’t already have talent that has deep domain expertise in building secure mobile interactions. This means that existing teams will need to develop these skills, reducing the likelihood of a successful product deployment. The alternative for companies who still want to build the software in house is hiring personnel especially for the job. This may not be cost-effective, especially if their specialized skills aren’t required for other projects after the product rolls out.

7. Deployment and Optimization

In-house platforms are usually plagued by delays, unlike ready-made software that’s good to go as soon as it’s paid for and integrated into the system. Even once the in-house product is deployed, continuous optimization may be compromised by competing organizational initiatives. Developing new features and functionality is likely to take a backseat when unforeseen organizational issues inevitably arise.

The Advantages of Buying a Digital Completion Cloud

As seen, the Total Cost of Ownership of a Digital Completion Cloud is significant — both technically and organizationally. After realistically assessing the requirements involved, many businesses prefer to leverage a ready-made solution.

In addition to eliminating the need to fulfill complex technical and organizational requirements, here are other reasons peer leaders have cited for buying a Digital Completion Cloud:

1. Multiple Capabilities to Solve Multiple Challenges

Having one, unified platform that can manage different types of frontend interactions (from eSignatures to payments to ID verification and more) removes the need to develop and simultaneously manage separate in-house solutions. With a unified platform, businesses can adopt the features they need to solve today’s challenges — and down the line, adopt additional features to meet tomorrow’s challenges. When they do, all capabilities will be integrated and available for use.

2. Reach Customers Wherever They Are

Organizations value the ability to deploy a customer-facing solution across different channels — including the call center, website, chat, IVR, or in person. This allows for faster rollouts and optimization across touchpoints. It also eliminates the need to find suboptimal solutions for each new touchpoint. The Lightico Digital Completion Cloud is proven to integrate easily across touchpoints and drive immediate value.

3. Promote Flexibility and Agility Workflows

With the Digital Completion Cloud, company admins can use drag-and-drop workflows to instantly update business rules, all without IT involvement. This allows organizations to respond quickly and efficiently to changing business and compliance demands. In contrast, in-house development often builds to a specific, limited requirement that is not amenable to change or intuitive for admins for adjust.

4. Benefit From A Dedicated Team of Experts

Many in-house projects are delivered to an acceptable standard. But competing demands from other initiatives means that continual improvement and innovation is unlikely. On the other hand, partnering with a vendor that specializes in perfecting a single software means benefiting from a product that won’t get rusty over time. Having a dedicated vendor team to support and innovate has proven valuable for businesses that need to stay competitive in a dynamic business and regulatory environment.

“The solution has been remarkable in terms of driving both compliance and business benefits. Following the quick and simple integration, we’ve seen a remarkable uptick in our sales and a step-change in our compliance abilities.”

Paul Greig, Director of Contact Centre Sales, BT

Build or Buy? A Checklist

Ultimately, the decision whether to build vs. buy depends on the unique circumstances of the organization. This checklist can help assess whether your organization would benefit more from buying or building a Digital Completion Cloud.

Does your organization have…

The time and specially dedicated personnel to develop a strong proof of concept?
The technical expertise to develop and deliver the solution according to the specs?
A management team and resources that are committed to managing challenges along the way?
Clear criteria to measure the solution’s success, and ability to optimize based on the findings?
A company culture that allows for the mistakes, overruns and under-deliveries that are inherent to many large projects?
The security expertise to ensure end-user data privacy is up to date?
A culture of innovation that ensures the solution will be continuously developed in response to shifting business and compliance needs?
Deep domain expertise in onboarding, integrating, and activating similar solutions?
Knowledge of industry best practices on new technology adoption and employee training?
Fewer checks suggests that buying Digital Completion software would provide a bigger ROI than developing it in-house.

Conclusion

Build or buy? It’s a perennial question. Building technology in house may be preferable if there is no suitable solution on the market. However, Digital Completion technology is secure, intuitive to use, and easy for each industry to customize for it own purposes.

In today’s business climate, resources are sacred and leading digital transformation is top priority. Investing in a comprehensive, extensible platform can reduce costs and maximize performance more than any homegrown solution ever could. It also guarantees a specialized solution that can be continuously enhanced by a dedicated partner, which in turn supports your IT staff in what they do best rather than distracting them from core business tasks.

For nearly a decade, Lightico been investing $50 million in developing robust frontend capabilities that are secure, compliant, and delightful for customers and employees to engage with. Lightico’s deep domain expertise and total focus on customer-facing innovation cannot easily be replicated by even the most agile organizations.