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...f they are in a well-organized vertical market, such as insurance agencies, their underwriters may offer free custom software that has been designed to meet their exact client-management needs. Build vs. Buy But, for businesses that can consider investing in creating their own custom-designed software, the question of build vs. buy is a one that must be answered carefully. Many companies have fallen into the trap of thinking that they can create their own software in-house and keep to a schedule. I’ve seen many, many more in-house programming projects fail miserably than I have seen succeed. The usual reason is that the project is managed by someone without any software project management experience. This isn’t the type of work that I do very often; however, I’ve managed a hundred or so software projects since the late 1980s. One rule of thumb: get the specifications right the first time. The corollary to this is: there’s never enough detail in the specifications (and the corollary to the corollary: the customer will always change his mind a dozen times after the project’s underway, forcing everyone to go back to the drawing vendor, increases its profit and market penetration as once the suite has been purchased, it’s less likely that a single competing application will be purchased, if the desired functionality has already been met by one of programs included in the suite. Software Acquisition When mid and large-size businesses are considering what new services, functionality, or efficiencies could be gained by changing software applications, the question of build vs. buy is frequently asked. Should we build (program) our own custom software application or should we buy an off-the-shelf product? Or, should be buy an off-the-shelf product and customize it? If any building (programming) or customization is required (either or a newly-created program or a customized commercial program), the next question must be: shall we customize it in-house or should we outsource the work? These are tough questions to answer. Small businesses actually have a much simpler route. Because of the potentially high programming costs that are incurred with building and customizing, small businesses usually purchase off-the-shelf applications and use them as is. Or,...