Buy Ready-made Solutions or Build Tailor-made Ones: What’s the Right Choice for Your Digital Transformation Strategy?

As Vietnam enters a comprehensive digital era, businesses are faced with a key strategic question: "For our core digital products, should we buy Ready-made solutions or develop Tailor-made ones?" This decision not only affects a company’s technological advancement but also serves as a strategic factor that can help it lead the market. Ready-made solutions offer a faster, more cost-effective way to digitalize. On the other hand, Tailor-made solutions can meet unique business needs and create a sustainable competitive advantage. So, when should a company choose Ready-made solutions, and when should it invest in Tailor-made solutions?

Understanding Ready-made and Tailor-made Solutions

Ready-made Digital Solutions are pre-designed, standardized solutions that cater to the most common needs across the market. Ideal for businesses looking for fast deployment, these solutions optimize both cost and time, offering features that have been tested and proven effective by other users.

Tailor-made Digital Solutions are bespoke-built to meet a company’s strategic goals from the ground up. With Tailor-made solutions, companies can leverage existing strengths and foster innovation to develop unique digital products, creating a lasting competitive edge and supporting sustainable growth in their market.

A successful digital product strategy—whether choosing Ready-made or Tailor-made solutions—should involve carefully considered options tailored to a company’s needs. Each path has its own pros and cons:

In general, deciding between Ready-made and Tailor-made solutions is an essential first step in a company’s digital transformation strategy.

Buying Ready-made digital solutions closely aligns with options like SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and off-the-shelf products. In contrast, Tailor-made solutions are geared towards innovative products designed to meet specific business contexts and requirements, requiring either a strong internal team or partnership with a digital product partner.

When Should Businesses Opt for Ready-made Solutions?

Ready-made solutions are best for companies in the following situations:

• Need for Standardization: When standardized solutions based on best practices or successful market models are needed.
• Speed of Deployment: Ready-made solutions provide companies with quick-to-deploy products that can meet immediate needs.
• Cost Optimization: These solutions allow cost savings by using features proven effective in the market.

When Should Businesses Opt for Tailor-made Solutions?

A business's digital transformation journey often passes through three stages: (1) Digitalized & Connected; (2) Integrated & Transformed; and (3) Reinvented.

The Reinvented stage—the third phase of digital transformation—is an ideal time for investing in tailor-made solutions. At this stage, digital products become a "technology weapon" that determines customer attraction and builds a sustainable competitive advantage. At this point, a digital product should meet several key requirements, such as:

• Optimized UX/UI: Providing an exceptional and impressive user experience.
• Efficient Operations Flow: Reducing errors and improving operational efficiency.
• Robust System Architecture and Security: Ensuring high performance, safety, and stable code quality.

With these unique requirements, Ready-made products may struggle to fit a business’s complex systems and workflows while also creating positive, impactful user experiences. Tailor-made digital product development meets specific needs and ensures long-term sustainability, a crucial factor for companies to maintain and grow their competitive advantage in a challenging market.

GEEK Up – The Ideal Product Partner for Tailor-made Solutions

As a Product Partner, GEEK Up understands business needs and customizes digital solutions aligned with long-term development goals, helping companies leverage and capitalize on their business values. Over the past 10 years, GEEK Up has crafted solutions for over 100 happy clients, delivering satisfaction and success for top names in the industry such as TPBank, Shinhan Finance, Eastspring, ACB Bank, Loc Troi Group, Hoang Phuc International, Amazon Global Selling, and more.

Contact GEEK Up to learn more about Tailor-made solutions and join us in building the “technology weapons” that will help your company lead and sustain competitiveness in a demanding market.