The Hidden Costs of Building Internal CRE SaaS Systems

The control you get with an internal build isn't worth these other costs. You're much better off buying an off the shelf commercial SaaS platform. Ultimately, the linchpin that supports a buy decision, getting a commercial solution as opposed to building internally, is that the differing perspectives that we get on a daily basis really drives innovation long term. I always felt that we had economies of scale that a homegrown system couldn't compete with. I would call it almost an isolated or self-imposed monopoly.

You have a system that was built internally to internal specs to support an internal process, but there aren't external stakeholders that are informing the innovation that's required in order to keep that system fresh over time. And so without that, you end up with an orphan system that does what it does, but it rarely improves. And the other thing, I think there are a lot of hidden costs on those systems that never get accounted for when that decision is made on the front end.

One hundred percent, but also throw in infrastructure and security, and especially security costs that go up and up and up. And I think that internal builds forget that they own the security of that. And that's a, that's a full-time job and only getting harder. What we always say with competing against an internal build is if we don't win it now, you're going to win it in the next downturn because they'll get their funding slashed for two, three, four years. If you go with a company like ours, we help you with that implementation.

It's the consulting, for lack of a better description, that you get on the front end in terms of how you deploy a system securely and effectively internally, how you begin to build on those wins and get momentum in the implementation process, there's value there that goes unaccounted for on the internal build as well. Our clients typically, and I challenge them with this, they can be in the technology business if they want to be. Most of them aren't in the technology business because they don't want to be in that business.

They have a business that they're running and they don't want to run a technology platform. And so, it makes all the sense in the world for those who realize that that the control you get with an internal build isn't worth these other costs, including the lack of innovation that may occur. So, you're much better off buying an off the shelf commercial SaaS platform.