Transition to In-house
Off the shelf and on your terms
Using commercial off-the-shelf software like Foundry comes with many benefits: Costs and capabilities are known quantities, solutions deploy quickly, and demands on often over-stretched internal teams are limited. Speed, predictability and access to best-in-class products on tight timeframes can bring critical competitive advantages.
With these benefits comes some loss of control. Whether to a greater or lesser extent, buyers necessarily tether themselves to their chosen vendor and the market for professional services around it.
That downside can be great enough for some organisations that they opt for a custom solution. Yet the outcomes rarely meet the expectations – despite the invariably great costs, long time-frames and heavy demands on software engineering teams, the capabilities often fall short of those the competition can simply buy. No business can buy its core competency from a vendor, but few businesses can afford to dedicate scarce resources and scarcer time to building their own versions of software that already exists in the marketplace.
Playing to your strengths as a business
The trade-off between capabilities and control is not inescapable: As with any other software, you can bring Foundry under your control with the right skills and processes. In my experience, Foundry’s architecture is well suited to competent in-house management without relying on a large contingent of expensive specialists for day-to-day operations.
A successful in-house software transition plan starts with a careful evaluation of how Foundry is currently deployed and which teams are best positioned to take ownership of each aspect of the solution. It is an iterative process that reflects the realities of how the platform is adopted and which problems it is applied against.
By the end, your own teams will confidently have control of the Foundry platform, and ensure it keeps serving the needs of the business.
Benefits of a rethink
- Be confident that you’re deploying the full range of capabilities present in the platform
- Stay in control of your software – and your workflows
- Keep internal resources focused on your core competencies where they have the most impact