White Paper: Looking Beyond the Horizon - Build Versus Buy

Build or Buy?

Every company - large, medium-sized or small - will run into, or will have already run into, this question.

To address it, most companies will embark on an interesting journey during which they collect a lot of information and, in all likelihood, build a business case to show the most cost-efficient option.

One of the difficult aspects of building this business case is the timeframe: usually components that go into a data center have an economic lifespan of 10 or even 15 years. Over so many years, the IT landscape is sure to change dramatically – it certainly has in the last 15 years! How can we possibly look so far ahead? The answer is simple; we can’t.

So we don’t. We tend to limit factors in our business case to the period we can foresee in detail, typically the next 3-5 years. However, there are some longer term criteria that can be planned for – at least in terms of risk or potential benefit rather than detailed cost. So we should spend some time looking beyond this 3 to 5 year mark and determine whether we think there are additional risks or benefits we should incorporate in the case.

This white paper explores some of these longer-term factors. The illustrations show that associating these factors with a monetary value can considerably impact your 10-15 year build versus buy TCO. Decide for yourself if they apply to your particular case. If they do, this paper will help you to make a quantitative estimate for most of them that can be used to help you make the right decision when planning your data center.

LOOKING FOR THE DUTCH VERSION OF THIS WHITE PAPER?