Writing on Strategy.
1 piece in the Strategy cluster. Field notes, not thought leadership. back to all insights.
What this cluster covers
Build or buy is rarely decided on the merits. It gets decided by whoever holds the budget, and by a demo that answers the question asked rather than the one that matters. The article here works out where that goes wrong in real operations: businesses with processes, field teams and existing data, not a greenfield. The trap works both ways. Buying brings a system built around somebody else's operation; building brings a maintenance obligation nobody budgeted for. Both are survivable. What is not survivable is choosing without knowing which of the two you picked. Written for operators at the point where budget gets committed, and for anyone who has to defend that choice afterwards.