When to Build vs When to Buy: A Framework for Nigerian Organisations

Why It Matters More Than Most Organisations Realise

The build vs buy decision appears to be a technology decision. It is actually a business decision — one that determines what the organisation will control, what it will depend on others for, what its technology costs will look like in three years, and what its competitive position will be relative to organisations that made the opposite choice.

Made well, it is a source of competitive advantage. Made badly, it is a source of cost, complexity, and strategic constraint that can persist for a decade.

The Build Case

Build when the capability in question is genuinely differentiating — when the way your organisation does this thing is part of what makes your business valuable, and when replicating that differentiation in a vendor's off-the-shelf product is not possible. Build when the cost of ongoing customisation of a bought product exceeds the cost of building and maintaining a custom solution. Build when the vendor market for the capability does not produce adequate options.

The build case is more frequently valid in Nigerian markets than in more mature technology markets, because the vendor ecosystem for Nigeria-specific requirements is less developed. There are categories where the right product simply does not exist off the shelf for the Nigerian context.

The Buy Case

Buy when the capability is a commodity — something that every organisation of your type needs in roughly the same way, and where a vendor has already solved the hard problems. Buy when the vendor's ongoing investment in the product — in security, in compliance, in feature development — would be difficult to replicate internally. Buy when speed to capability matters more than perfect fit. Most Nigerian organisations should be buying more than they are building. The discipline to resist the temptation to build custom solutions for commodity problems is one of the most valuable disciplines a technology leadership team can develop.