IDG Contributor Network: How to determine when to build or buy enterprise software

Recently I was talking to somebody at Oracle who recounted the case of a potential CRM customer that got away. Oracle had beaten out Salesforce, Microsoft, etc., and was poised to close the sale. Then the customer decided not to purchase, but rather to continue developing their homegrown CRM system.This customer was faced with the build vs. buy question and decided to build. Always a difficult question to answer, it is too easy to make the wrong choice. There are two responses to this question:M