A design or buy process for determining software sourcing strategy

Make or buy decisions are recognised as significant strategic drivers in manufacturing business. These decisions can be systematised in a rational process to ensure that decisions are taken within a strategic context rather than reacting to short-term resourcing issues. Likewise a design or buy process is needed to help determine which elements should be bought off-the-shelf or subcontracted, and which should benefit from internal investment to maintain or build up the capability to innovate. A strategic make or buy process developed at Cambridge was adapted for design or buy decisions in software development. These decisions are taken at an operational level, project by project, to cope with local resourcing conditions, but the new process enables them to be taken within the strategic context of the business. This paper describes the new process. The major adaptations lay in the operation of certain decision steps rather than the process itself. The process provides the means to address complex software sourcing issues in the telecoms industry with a new consistency. It has been tested in GPT Ltd. as part of a Teaching Company Programme with Cambridge University Engineering Department's Manufacturing and Management Group.