{"id":6802,"date":"2020-03-04T09:15:45","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T09:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ee.yelkdev.site\/?p=6802"},"modified":"2023-09-22T16:03:19","modified_gmt":"2023-09-22T15:03:19","slug":"building-software-isnt-like-making-a-chicken-sandwich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/blog\/our-thinking\/building-software-isnt-like-making-a-chicken-sandwich\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Software Isn\u2019t Like Making a Chicken Sandwich"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a technical architect at Equal Experts, I\u2019m fortunate to work with clients at the start of their decision-making process for new, large-scale IT projects. One of the questions I\u2019m often asked is: \u201cShould we buy, or should we build?\u201d Not surprisingly, I have views, and am always happy to share them.<\/p>\n

Recently, a client gave me a novel take on this subject that I hadn\u2019t considered before. He likened the costs associated with building software to making a chicken sandwich. Specifically, he told me the story of Andy George, who made a documentary series following his mission to make a chicken sandwich from scratch – and I do mean from scratch. He harvested wheat, ground flour, milked a cow, made cheese and butter, boiled sea water to make salt…you get the idea. At the end of his journey, he\u2019d spent $1,500 and 6 months creating a single chicken sandwich, which he could have bought the same day from a local store, for less than $5.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fascinating story (you can watch the videos<\/a> if you have time), but having considered it for a while, I don\u2019t believe it\u2019s a valid comparison.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t need to make our own salt<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing. When we build software, we don\u2019t build it from scratch. We assemble all the base ingredients (common services, third-party libraries, databases, etc.), and then we build the important stuff: the business-specific functionality that makes your software different.<\/p>\n

Returning to the chicken sandwich analogy, building custom software is like buying the ingredients (bread, mayo, chicken, salt, etc.) and then making the sandwich in the way that you want.<\/p>\n

This is the gist of my argument. It\u2019s rarely a question of build or <\/strong>buy; in most cases we build and <\/strong>buy.<\/p>\n

If all you need is a cheeseburger, buy a cheeseburger<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, now I\u2019m on a roll with the food analogies, let\u2019s look at one of my own relating to buying commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software.<\/p>\n

When buying a COTS solution (for example, SAP or Salesforce), my view is that it’s like going to McDonald\u2019s for a cheeseburger. The cheeseburger is fine (there\u2019s nothing wrong with it), but you can\u2019t customise it. At best, you might be able to ask for a different type of bun, or to leave out the sauce, but you can’t ask for Brie instead of cheddar, or to add a fried egg. If something isn\u2019t part of the standard offering, then sorry, but you can\u2019t have it.<\/p>\n

This is perfectly good if all you want is a cheeseburger, you don\u2019t need your cheeseburger to be different, and the cheeseburger in question fulfils your exact needs.<\/p>\n

The same principle applies to software. If a COTS solution does what you need without customisation, and you don\u2019t need it to differentiate your organisation from all the other organisations that are using it, then go the COTS route.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are situations where this is the best approach – typically for internal, non-customer-facing systems (e.g. accounting systems).<\/p>\n

A few tips for buying software<\/strong><\/p>\n