To Buy Or To Build – That Is The Question

As a self-proclaimed content snob, I used to have only one answer to this question: BUILD! Everything! We can build all the things!

Until I learned that it’s rare that you can build all the things for each initiative that your organization may have going on. Inevitably, some projects take a backseat to others and all of the things cannot get done, even with the best of intentions. And now, today, when resources are constrained in these uncertain time, building all the things is not on the table.

When you don’t have unlimited resources (like instructional designers, Subject Matter Experts, graphic designers, authoring tools, etc.), or let’s say you have time but not enough people to do the work, or you have a budget, but the project needs to be done yesterday – an off the shelf solution may be a good fit for you.

The hard part can be figuring out what to buy off the shelf versus what to spend your time and internal resources on building.

First, start with the things that are specific to your company – like product training – that you should build internally. No one knows your products better than you and the people inside your organization. Now think about topics like MACRA, account management, managed markets, health economics, market access, leadership, and foundational industry and disease state topics – those are topics that are specific to your industry, but not specific to your company.

These are perfect examples of topics that you may benefit from purchasing from a reputable off-the-shelf provider so that your time, money, and staff resources can be used to create company-specific training.

As you make your decisions, you may find that it might be beneficial for your organization to partner with an off-the-shelf provider versus building training internally. If your next step is to partner with an off-the-shelf provider – be sure to check out the Key Questions to Ask an Off-the-Shelf Provider.