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15:["$","p","12",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"Two lines in that table are usually missing from the business case. Workaround labour is the first: five staff spending forty minutes a day compensating for a system is a substantial annual cost that never appears on an invoice. Per-user licensing is the second: it is affordable at 20 users and materially different at 120, and it scales with exactly the growth you are planning for."}]
16:["$","p","13",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"That said, custom development carries a risk that products do not. Badly built software with no documentation and no tests becomes its own legacy problem within a few years. The cost comparison only holds if what gets built is maintainable."}]
17:["$","h2","14",{"id":"the-answer-is-usually-both","className":"scroll-mt-28 pt-8 text-2xl sm:text-3xl","children":"The answer is usually both"}]
18:["$","p","15",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"In practice, the strongest arrangement for most mid-sized businesses is a hybrid: buy the commodity systems, build the operational layer, and connect them."}]
19:["$","p","16",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"Accounting stays in an accounting package. Payroll stays in a payroll product. The system your operations team lives in all day is custom, because it follows your workflow — and it posts to accounting automatically instead of someone re-typing invoices."}]
1a:["$","p","17",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"This keeps regulatory burden with vendors who specialise in it, keeps your differentiating process under your control, and eliminates the manual re-entry that usually sits between the two. It does require integration work, which is a real cost and a real skill, but it is far smaller than either extreme."}]
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1d:["$","p","20",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"Before going down that route, ask what happens at the next major version, who can maintain the customisation apart from the original implementer, and whether the customisation survives an upgrade. If those answers are unclear, a smaller custom system integrated with a stock product is usually safer."}]
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1f:["$","ul","22",{"className":"space-y-2.5","children":[["$","li","The process is regulated or identical across companies → buy.",{"className":"flex items-start gap-3.5","children":[["$","span",null,{"aria-hidden":true,"className":"mt-2.5 size-1 shrink-0 bg-signal"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"The process is regulated or identical across companies → buy."}]]}],["$","li","The process is standard but you use 20% of a large product → buy the smaller product, not the enterprise one.",{"className":"flex items-start gap-3.5","children":[["$","span",null,{"aria-hidden":true,"className":"mt-2.5 size-1 shrink-0 bg-signal"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"The process is standard but you use 20% of a large product → buy the smaller product, not the enterprise one."}]]}],["$","li","The process is specific and staff maintain spreadsheets alongside the system → build that part, integrate the rest.",{"className":"flex items-start gap-3.5","children":[["$","span",null,{"aria-hidden":true,"className":"mt-2.5 size-1 shrink-0 bg-signal"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"The process is specific and staff maintain spreadsheets alongside the system → build that part, integrate the rest."}]]}],["$","li","The process changes frequently as the business evolves → build, with the changeable rules as configuration.",{"className":"flex items-start gap-3.5","children":[["$","span",null,{"aria-hidden":true,"className":"mt-2.5 size-1 shrink-0 bg-signal"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"The process changes frequently as the business evolves → build, with the changeable rules as configuration."}]]}],["$","li","You cannot describe the process clearly enough to specify it → do neither yet. Map it first.",{"className":"flex items-start gap-3.5","children":[["$","span",null,{"aria-hidden":true,"className":"mt-2.5 size-1 shrink-0 bg-signal"}],["$","span",null,{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.7] text-steel","children":"You cannot describe the process clearly enough to specify it → do neither yet. Map it first."}]]}]]}]
20:["$","p","23",{"className":"text-[1.0625rem] leading-[1.75] text-steel","children":"That last point is not filler. The most expensive software decisions we see are made before anyone has written down how the work currently happens. A process map costs days. Choosing wrong costs years."}]
21:["$","aside",null,{"className":"order-first lg:order-last","children":["$","nav",null,{"aria-labelledby":"toc-heading","className":"lg:sticky lg:top-28 border-l border-edge pl-5","children":[["$","p",null,{"id":"toc-heading","className":"label-mono text-slate","children":"On this page"}],["$","ol",null,{"className":"mt-4 space-y-2.5","children":[["$","li","Buy the processes that are the same everywhere",{"children":["$","a",null,{"href":"#buy-the-processes-that-are-the-same-everywhere","className":"text-sm leading-snug text-steel transition-colors hover:text-signal","children":"Buy the processes that are the same everywhere"}]}],["$","li","Build the processes that are actually yours",{"children":["$","a",null,{"href":"#build-the-processes-that-are-actually-yours","className":"text-sm leading-snug text-steel transition-colors hover:text-signal","children":"Build the processes that are actually yours"}]}],["$","li","Comparing costs properly",{"children":["$","a",null,{"href":"#comparing-costs-properly","className":"text-sm leading-snug text-steel transition-colors hover:text-signal","children":"Comparing costs properly"}]}],["$","li","The answer is usually both",{"children":["$","a",null,{"href":"#the-answer-is-usually-both","className":"text-sm leading-snug text-steel transition-colors hover:text-signal","children":"The answer is usually both"}]}],["$","li","When customisation of a product is the trap",{"children":["$","a",null,{"href":"#when-customisation-of-a-product-is-the-trap","className":"text-sm leading-snug text-steel transition-colors hover:text-signal","children":"When customisation of a product is the trap"}]}],["$","li","A short decision guide",{"children":["$","a",null,{"href":"#a-short-decision-guide","className":"text-sm leading-snug text-steel transition-colors hover:text-signal","children":"A short decision guide"}]}]]}]]}]}]
24:null
a:300
2a:["$","td","2",{"className":"border-b border-edge px-3 py-3.5 align-top text-[0.9375rem] leading-relaxed text-steel first:pl-0 first:font-medium first:text-silver","children":"Weeks to months, staged"}]
2b:["$","tr","5",{"children":[["$","td","0",{"className":"border-b border-edge px-3 py-3.5 align-top text-[0.9375rem] leading-relaxed text-steel first:pl-0 first:font-medium first:text-silver","children":"Change control"}],["$","td","1",{"className":"border-b border-edge px-3 py-3.5 align-top text-[0.9375rem] leading-relaxed text-steel first:pl-0 first:font-medium first:text-silver","children":"Vendor decides the roadmap"}],["$","td","2",{"className":"border-b border-edge px-3 py-3.5 align-top text-[0.9375rem] leading-relaxed text-steel first:pl-0 first:font-medium first:text-silver","children":"You decide, and you pay for it"}]]}]
2c:["$","tr","6",{"children":[["$","td","0",{"className":"border-b border-edge px-3 py-3.5 align-top text-[0.9375rem] leading-relaxed text-steel first:pl-0 first:font-medium first:text-silver","children":"Risk"}],["$","td","1",{"className":"border-b border-edge px-3 py-3.5 align-top text-[0.9375rem] leading-relaxed text-steel first:pl-0 first:font-medium first:text-silver","children":"Vendor pricing changes, features removed, product sunset"}],["$","td","2",{"className":"border-b border-edge px-3 py-3.5 align-top text-[0.9375rem] leading-relaxed text-steel first:pl-0 first:font-medium first:text-silver","children":"Depends on code quality and documentation"}]]}]
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