AI Make or Buy Strategy
Build, buy, partner, or hybrid? A structured sourcing decision for each AI capability you're investing in. The framework that ends the "we'll just build it" reflex — and the "let's buy SaaS" reflex too.
PRICE
€2,490
DELIVERY
8 days
FORMAT
Partner-led
BUY NOW — €2,490
SEE SAMPLE DECISION →
§ 01 · The problem
"We built what we should have bought. We bought what we should have built."
Engineering teams want to build — it's interesting, it's owned, it's a career milestone. Procurement wants to buy — it's faster, it's accountable, it's a known cost line. Neither bias produces the right answer consistently. The wrong sourcing decision compounds: years of integration debt for buy-when-you-should've-built, or burning a €200K team-quarter on something Microsoft Copilot does at €30/seat.
The Make or Buy Strategy applies a structured decision framework to each AI capability you're considering. Strategic differentiation, build cost, time-to-value, vendor maturity, switching cost, governance fit. The framework that surfaces when "build" is ego and when it's strategy — and same for "buy."
§ 02 · What you get
A defensible sourcing decision. For each capability.
Five deliverables built to make the make-vs-buy-vs-partner decision rigorous, traceable, and aligned with your strategic intent.
DELIVERABLE 01
Capability scorecard
Each candidate capability scored across 8 dimensions: strategic differentiation, criticality, IP value, in-house capability, vendor maturity, switching cost, time-to-value, total cost of ownership.
DELIVERABLE 02
Make-buy-partner decision matrix
Each capability mapped to one of four sourcing modes: build, buy, partner, hybrid. Decision rationale documented. The 2×2 your CTO can defend in board.
DELIVERABLE 03
Vendor landscape (for buy/partner)
For each "buy" or "partner" decision, a shortlist of 3-5 vendors with comparative analysis: capabilities, pricing logic, integration model, maturity, lock-in risk. The starting point for procurement, not the finish line.
DELIVERABLE 04
TCO comparison model
5-year TCO comparison for each sourcing option per capability. Build cost vs license fees, integration, ops, switching. The number behind the recommendation, not the gut feel.
DELIVERABLE 05
Sourcing strategy memo
6-8 page memo summarizing decisions across the portfolio. Strategic logic, key trade-offs, sequencing recommendations. The document that goes to Comex or board for sign-off.
§ 03 · The method
Five lenses. One decision per capability.
Sourcing decisions go wrong when they're made through a single lens — cost-only, strategy-only, or speed-only. Our framework forces five lenses on every capability, and reconciles them explicitly.
LENS 01
Strategic differentiation
Does this capability differentiate you against competitors? Build differentiating capabilities. Buy commodity capabilities. The strategic question, asked first — because it constrains everything else.
LENS 02
Capability & capacity
Can you build it well? Do you have the engineering depth and the time? Honest assessment, not aspirational. Most "we'll build it" decisions die on this lens within 18 months.
LENS 03
Economics over 5 years
Build cost is front-loaded; license cost is annuity. Both have hidden lines: ops for build, switching for buy. Five-year TCO comparison surfaces what year-one comparisons hide.
LENS 04
Time-to-value & opportunity cost
Buying ships in weeks; building ships in quarters. The right question isn't "which is cheaper" — it's "what's the value of the 6 months we lose by building?" Often more than the build savings.
LENS 05
Lock-in & reversibility
How hard is it to undo this decision in 3 years? Build is reversible at a cost; buy creates vendor lock-in that gets harder to unwind over time. The lens that prevents irreversible strategic bets in immature vendor markets.
§ 04 · Process & timeline
Eight days. Three sessions. Sourcing decisions you can defend.
Partner-led from capability scoping to Comex-ready memo. Co-designed with your CTO, procurement, and business owners so the decisions stick.
DAY 01
Capability scoping
90-min session: the 3-7 capabilities under review, strategic intent, internal capacity, budget envelope. We frame the decision space before scoring anything.
DAYS 02–03
Scorecard & vendor scan
Capability scorecard built across 8 dimensions. Vendor landscape scanned for each "buy" or "partner" candidate. 3-5 vendors shortlisted per capability with comparative analysis.
DAYS 04–05
TCO & decision modeling
5-year TCO comparison per capability per option. Decision matrix populated. First-pass sourcing recommendations drafted. Working document shared async for review.
DAY 06
Pressure-test session
90-min joint session with CTO, procurement, and business sponsors. Challenge every recommendation. Surface internal disagreements. Calibrate the recommendations against organizational reality.
DAYS 07–08
Memo & handover
Sourcing strategy memo finalized. 90-min handover with the sponsor: walkthrough of decisions, anticipated objections, sequencing recommendations. You own the case end-to-end.
§ 05 · Who it's for
For leaders caught between "we'll build it" and "let's buy SaaS."
Built for four roles that own the make-or-buy decision — and want a framework that's neither engineering-biased nor procurement-biased.
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER
Your team wants to build everything. Your CFO wants to buy everything. You need a defensible framework that distinguishes strategic build candidates from commodity capabilities — and protects engineering capacity for what matters.
CHIEF AI OFFICER / CDO
You own a portfolio of AI initiatives and the sourcing question keeps recurring. You need a repeatable framework to apply consistently — not one-off decisions made on instinct and meeting energy.
CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER
You're being asked to source AI vendors at speed. You want a strategic framing before procurement — to avoid signing a 5-year contract for something engineering should have built, or buying a feature you'll replace in 18 months.
PE OPERATING PARTNER
A participation is committing engineering capacity to build AI capabilities. You want third-party rigor on the make-vs-buy logic before they lock in 18 months of build cost on something that may already be a commodity.
§ 06 · Frequently asked
Six honest answers to common questions.
How many capabilities can you cover in one engagement?
3 to 7 capabilities for the base €2,490 engagement. Beyond that, we'd scope a Portfolio Optimization (Skill 08) instead — different framework, larger scope. The base price holds the analysis depth, not the surface area.
Are you independent from AI vendors?
Yes — we don't take referral fees, vendor commissions, or co-marketing arrangements. The vendor landscape we deliver reflects our honest read of the market, not whoever wrote us a check. If we recommend a vendor, it's because we'd recommend it to ourselves.
What if the answer is "build" — do you build it?
No — Odyssey specifies, we don't build. If a "build" decision comes out of this Skill, the natural next step is the Custom Claude Skill or Agent Specification (Skill 11), which delivers the engineering-ready spec your build partner needs. We stay independent on build economics.
How do you handle hybrid recommendations?
Many capabilities sit between pure build and pure buy: buy the model layer, build the orchestration; partner for the platform, own the data. We document hybrid recommendations explicitly with the boundary between owned and outsourced components — and where future re-evaluation makes sense.
How fresh is your vendor landscape knowledge?
We track AI vendors continuously — Anthropic, OpenAI, Cohere, Mistral on foundation models; Vertex, Bedrock, Azure AI on platforms; LangChain, LlamaIndex, Haystack on orchestration; verticals like Glean, Sana, Hebbia. The market shifts every quarter and we shift with it. We tell you what we don't yet know with the same honesty as what we do.
When should we use this vs the Use Cases Prioritization Matrix (Skill 02)?
Sequential. Skill 02 answers "which AI initiatives should we pursue?" — this Skill answers "for each one we're pursuing, do we build, buy, or partner?" Common pairing: 02 first to filter, then 06 on the survivors. Each works standalone.
§ Ready when you are
Decide before engineering capacity gets committed.
€2,490, eight days, partner-led. The sourcing framework that ends the build-vs-buy debates — and the wrong decisions they produce.
BUY NOW — €2,490
SEE SAMPLE DECISION →