Re: opinions please - build vs buy

[Stephen Lumini]

**

In my experience the most important factor is what Chris Woyton said "how
large is the gap between what I need and what I can buy?".

 

Though I would disagree with his third point:

"If what you need exceeds or varies considerably from what the ITSM
suite provides...determine if using ITSM as a starting point is more cost-effective than building from scratch."

 

If you make any significant changes to any OOB product, you will likely have restricted your upgrade path and any "build-in" compatibility with other modules.

 

The decision boils down to the same common themes - time and money.  ITSM is expensive and includes annual maintenance costs, but it shows up pretty much ready to go (though if the processes are very different then you have training time to account for).

 

Custom build is more time intensive, but if you have good Analysts and good developers you will have a more useful, more efficient app - usually cheaper in the long run.

 

Finally, as Chris also said, if you have mature, useful processes then you will want to keep those, which almost always means custom build.

 

I admit I'm always partial to custom because then I understand how the system works, how it's supposed to work, and why it does some of the kooky things it does (and I don't get frustrated with dopey functionality).

 

Later

Stephen

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Senior Remedy Architect

Research In Motion

Waterloo, Ontario


"John.A Simpson-contr" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

First of all, Thanks to all of the not so lazy posters for your input!

How many users? Good question, not sure how it makes to much difference
other then the more users we have the harder it is to get them to agree
on what to build or to buy!

The Answer is a little tough since we are continuing to deploy globally
while adding end user interface via a simplified Web front end for end
users and also introducing email submit and modify capability, (in our
current HD Chg app)....So with that said... we currently have about 300
IS users, but this will increase substantially as we continue to add
more sites in Western and Eastern Europe and eventually in Asia
Pacific.

Another factor that will increase casual users will be the need to have
more financial/functional approvers for SOX related changes reviewing
changes and approving proposed, and the eventual release to production
of system changes.

When we consider End Users, who may either request support, report
problems or otherwise be involved in testing and or approvals, we have
approx 25,000 named users via LDAP external authentication.

hth answer your question, but with that said, what would you suggest?
build or buy? Or would you suggest what some have suggested, do both?

- jas

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tuesday, May 09, 2006 >>>
How many users do you have?

Nick

On Tue, 9 May 2006 13:58:57 -0400, John.A Simpson-contr
[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>BMC/Remedy HelpDesk & Change vs ???
>
>background...
>
>TRW Automotive has been using ARS since 1997, all custom/homegrown
>HelpDesk & change management. We have one production server, one test
>server and one development server. 41 fixed and 63 floats in
>production.
>
>My boss's boss, has asked us to evaluate, how much to continue just
>buying ARS fixed and floats and 'rolling our own', (my words not
hers),
>vs buying and then modifying/configuration of an "off-the-shelf"
>HelpDesk and Change Management.
>
>I am asked to compare 3 systems, BMC/Remedy HelpDesk/Change, one
other
>ARS based solution (Enterprise Service Suite?) plus one additional
>non-ARS based solution.
>
>
>I am hopeful I will get some very helpful opinions/recommendations...
>
>
>
>John A. Simpson
>TRW Automotive
>Information Systems Program Office
>Remedy Global Technical Lead
>Fenton MI USA
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>810-750-2547
>
>__________________________________________________________________________
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