Build or Buy?

What's inside

The build or buy decision your organization cannot afford to get wrong.

You are being asked to make a technology decision that will determine whether your savings targets get delivered or missed. Your IT team may be proposing a build. Your vendors are proposing a buy. Neither proposal will ask the questions that matter most.

This guide ensures your AI investment decision works for the numbers you are accountable for, not against them.

• What general purpose AI can and cannot do in a sourcing context

  Where models like ChatGPT and Claude add value, where purpose-built sourcing AI diverges, and how to evaluate the capability gap before it becomes a delivery gap.

• What the McKinsey and Gartner data says about enterprise AI builds

  Timeline benchmarks, failure rates, and total cost of ownership.

• Critical questions to answer before you choose a direction

  A structured decision framework across outcomes, timeline, cost, data readiness, compliance, and adoption, built to surface what any proposal, build or buy, leaves unanswered.

The choice looks straightforward until you ask the right questions. For most organizations it does not stay build versus buy. It becomes build, underdeliver, and buy anyway, with the lost savings already on your ledger.