Yield Management System: Make Or Buy?

So when you have decided that there is no more time to waste and you need to upgrade your yield management software tools, then the first critical decision usually is: shall you make it or buy it?

Believe it or not, the decision is often unintentional.            

Often, in-house development is something that “just happens.” A workaround to a problem is needed and before you know it, you have dedicated staff working on a wild-and-woolly yield management solution. The perception may be that using existing resources is cheaper – but who is monitoring the hours spent?

How do you retain and share the knowledge within the company? Does the home-built solution have enough potential for scaling up with your growing business needs? There are always hidden costs that are not taken into account when deciding on an in-house approach.

When making a conscious decision on whether to invest in DR YIELD’s flexible and innovative YieldWatchDog solution, customers have to consider many factors including costs, benefits, risks and rewards. There is always an economic, human and technological aspect when it comes to these decisions.

We have found that the reasons why customers choose to develop in-house are usually:

• Time concerns – they think that they can achieve their goals in due time, but the problem is that they usually have a mistaken perception of the amount of time necessary.
• Customizability – they are of the opinion that a complete solution could not possibly be found in off-the-shelf software, but are unaware that constant adjustments require continual reworking from in-house programmers and designers.
• Costs – they believe that it is more cost effective to develop a solution using their existing resources, but costs are often significantly higher in the long run due to unforeseen obstacles and an underestimation of the overall project size.

Why reinvent the wheel?

It is never a simple task to find appropriate staff with the expert skills necessary to develop the kind of software that we offer. What’s worse, is that when a developer leaves, they usually take their knowledge with them.

As suppliers, we are able and willing to meet the innovation demands of our customers, it is what we do.

Our expertise allows us to deliver a superior quality product at a far lower cost than could ever be achieved “in-house.”

We at DR YIELD do not simply deliver an off-the shelf, blanket solution. Our continual collaboration with existing customers allows us to deliver a product that is constantly adapted to your latest business needs.

Article originally published in 2016.