1. Developing an in-house solution

Developing a solution in-house puts the internal team in control and allows a solution that perfectly fits your current needs. Isn’t that ideal? But what happens to your self-built solution in 2,3, or 4 years down the line? It builds up a technical debt, meaning that at some point in the future costs will be involved to update and maintain this solution. To alleviate this technical debt, news and media companies will need to take time away from their focus and core strengths to maintain, fix bugs, and ensure compatibility with other changing pieces of their tech stack. Additionally, if the solution has to continue being a perfect fit for the company’s needs, maintenance won’t be enough – technical improvements, R&D, and scalability will have to occur in order for the business to keep up with operational requirements. In short, media companies will also need to keep up with technological innovation and market trends.

The alternative is, of course, outsourcing. This has several advantages: 

• Access to expertise and skills that may not be available in-house
• Greater business efficiency and productivity by allowing a company to focus on its core business functions
• Seamlessly scale operations up or down as needed, allowing companies to adjust to changing market conditions and customer needs
• Cost-efficient as companies will avoid hiring and training processes to maintain the solution
• Tap into innovation that originates from a large number of use cases, feedback and trials. On its own, a company might only see one piece of the puzzle of where the market and trends are moving towards. However, a vendor who works with a range of customers has its ear to the rail and may respond to input and indicators from many sources.

Now that we have examined the option of in-house development, let’s have a look at external expertise.

2. One-stop-shop solutions

A “one-stop shop” is a vendor that offers a range of software solutions that cater to several needs. The main advantage of choosing a “one-stop shop” vendor is that it simplifies the procurement process and reduces the number of vendors a company needs to manage.

In many cases, however, these solutions don’t integrate well with other solutions. The main value is that all business needs are being addressed by just one solution, hence one-shop-stop vendors place less emphasis on interoperability and integrations with other solutions. 

Another drawback is that this approach may lead to compromises in terms of expertise, innovation, and deep value-adding features. These holistic solutions meet many needs and solve many problems, but due to their nature of covering a certain quantity of needs, they have to compromise on some feature qualities.