Why ‘Build’ When You Can ‘Buy’ a World-Class EQMS Solution
A few months back we published a whitepaper titled ‘Build vs Buy: What’s Better for QHSE Software?’ It was something we wrote because it was a common dilemma faced by both quality and safety leaders.
The paper offers an in-depth analysis of the following topics:
- The pros and cons of building an EQMS (and EHS) solution – one that is custom designed for your enterprise
- If you decide to build (instead of buying) – do you have the budget, expertise, and resources to build and support the application over time?
- If you decide to buy, is the solution flexible, scalable, and customizable – so it can fit into your organization’s processes and workflows?
It was a paper that resonated strongly with CIOs and quality directors who were making decisions on Build vs. Buy. In this blog, we present key findings from our research and conversations with quality leaders and uncover why it is often difficult to build, maintain and continuously improve an EQMS solution.
Buying is Better than Building; But, Make Sure the Solution is Secure, Flexible and Customizable
According to an article published in Forbes magazine last year, buying is often better especially when there are proven solutions in the market. According to the article,
“In most situations, working with a reputable provider to deploy a proven solution will allow companies to get the technology into the hands of users more quickly and generally ensures that the solution will have more comprehensive support throughout its lifecycle.”
The article goes on to add that, from a technical perspective, it is critical that the software solution being chosen has the following capabilities:
- Ease of customization and configurable templates available out-of-the-box
- Intuitive user experience, so there is widespread adoption across the enterprise
- Support for SSO, user authentication
- Highly secure, scalable and flexible
- Seamless integration with ERP, CRM, PLM and other business systems
- Offers data at the core, so it becomes a single source of truth for data in your domain (in our case all quality and safety data)
- Cutting-edge AI and analytics capabilities that will make the entire platform future-proof
The points mentioned above are critical for EQMS software as well.
Going back to our original question:
Should an organization design and develop its own custom applications that address its specific quality & safety needs (build), or should it purchase a pre-made package from an outside software firm (buy)?
After years of concentrated development from leading ERP and CRM vendors, would you really want to build your own ERP or CRM application? Then why look at building your own quality & safety application?
The answer to this question is straightforward:
Buy a flexible and scalable solution, Built on a modern cloud platform with built-in best practices. Take advantage of the latest data and AI capabilities to truly make life easier for quality, health, and safety leaders.
The point is: software development is not about “re-inventing the wheel,” but about implementing a proven solution that solves a business problem.
Additionally, some of the drawbacks of building an EQMS from scratch are:
- Longer development time
- Challenges related to training, support and adoption
- Difficult to continuously improve, and add capabilities
- Diverts focus away from your core business if you want to add new functionality
- Talent-related risk
- Continuous testing for security, functionality, and performance needs to be done
By choosing a proven EQMS solution available in the market, you’re able to remove the risk of building and maintaining a software product that’s not your core area of expertise.
ComplianceQuest: A Next-Generation, AI-powered EQMS Solution
At ComplianceQuest, we offer a next-generation EQMS solution built on our five guiding design principles aimed at delivering quality excellence for your enterprise:
- Improves and streamline all quality processes; Make life easier for quality leaders
- Simple, seamless, and consistent user experience – made more efficient with AI and analytics features
- Enables data-driven decision making and the EQMS solution serves as the single source of truth
- Flexible platform to suit your QMS process and workflows; best practices-driven solution available out of the box
- Enables continuous improvement of quality performance, with the power of data, integrated risk management, and collaboration features
For a more detailed perspective, download the whitepaper on Build vs. Buy here: https://www.compliancequest.com/whitepaper/build-vs-buy-qhse-software/
You can also request a demo by clicking here: https://www.compliancequest.com/lp/eqms/