The transition to the cloud for customer service operations is no longer a “nice to have” concept for today’s companies, it’s a necessity. More than three quarters of modern contact centers are already based in the cloud, and demand continues to grow.
Cloud-based solutions like Engage for Amazon Connect empower companies to unlock greater agility and flexibility in the CX landscape. They ensure companies can adapt to changing customer preferences, with access to scalable omnichannel solutions, generative AI technologies, and robust analytics.
The challenge for many organizations is figuring out how to approach their transition to the cloud. Do they develop a bespoke contact center solution in-house, or invest in a pre-built cloud contact center, offered by a reputable vendor?
Here, we’ll look at the advantages and challenges of both options, to help you make the right decision, focusing on the key factors of cost, customization, and time to market.
Build vs Buy: The Time to Market Issue
Perhaps one of the key reasons many companies choose to “buy” a contact center solution, rather than building one in-house, is that buying is inherently faster. Even if you already have a team of agile DevOps experts who can leverage the intuitive capabilities of cloud-based platforms like Amazon Connect to create a custom solution, various factors will still impact your time to market.
When building a contact center solution, calculating the time it will take to launch the perfect system doesn’t start when you begin building. Companies spend months, even years before they begin building, conducting gap analyses, gathering information about requirements, and assessing resources.
Local Measure, a leading CCaaS vendor, working with Amazon Connect, found that one relatively small contact center with 50 seats or less, would need around 6-8 months to build the ideal contact center solution. Comparatively, with a pre-built offering like Engage, the same company would be able to launch their system within 5-6 weeks.
It’s not just a slow implementation that’s a problem here. The length of time it takes to create and launch a contact center can mean that by the time the solution is ready, the company would already be lagging behind new feature releases and capabilities.
From a speed perspective, buying generally makes the most sense, even for companies with the UX designers, software engineers, and architects they already need to develop a contact center.
Build vs Buy: The Cost Conundrum
There are cases when building your contact center solution might seem to make the most sense financially, such as when you already have access to architects and experts required for the development process. However, in most cases, building from the ground up does come with a steep price tag, particularly if you need to work with a Managed Service Systems Integrator.
While buying can be costly if you choose the wrong vendor, leading to extra costs for integrations, add-ons, and maintenance, the right vendor can save companies a significant amount of money.
For instance, the cost of an Amazon Connect configuration, desktop building, and purchasing assets to build a contact center could average as much as 4x more expensive than working with a partner such as Local Measure, to purchase a pre-built solution, that can be customized as needed according to the company’s needs.
Buying a contact center solution isn’t just cheaper because fewer resources are needed for development. Companies can access exclusive deals that make cloud contact centers cheaper to run in the long-term. What’s more, professional services and expertise can be offered as part of the bundle, saving companies money on hiring additional architects and engineers.
With the “buy” approach, you’re not just purchasing a fully functional contact center solution, you’re gaining access to expertise, maintenance support, and guidance that can help you unlock a greater return on investment from your contact center.
“We often tell customers just because you can build something doesn’t mean that you always should! Our customers tell us that when they focus on their core competency, with already stretched IT resources, they tend to see much better results with new technology projects. A partnership approach where a specialist partner brings fast time to value and domain expertise tends to lower the risks associated with change, and future proofs clients from future innovation. Sometimes customers fail to add up both the hard cost as well as the opportunity costs of having their most valuable resources tied up in an area outside of their core expertise,” says Jonathan Barouch, Local Measure CEO.
Build vs Buy: Customization and Scalability
In the build vs buy debate for cloud contact centers, customization and scalability are the areas where “build” solutions usually have the most significant edge. Developing a solution in-house means you have complete control over the look, feel, and capabilities of your solution. You can ensure that your platform integrates with all of your crucial software solutions, from ERP to CRM tools.
In addition, companies have the absolute freedom to adjust their contact center’s performance unlocking exceptional scalability over time. However, it’s worth noting that the right vendor won’t necessarily limit your customization and scalability options with a bought CCaaS solution.
Leading companies working with flexible cloud providers, like Local Measure and AWS, can still allow companies to adjust and configure their contact center to their specific needs. For instance, Local Measure’s Engage CCaaS solution provides businesses with absolute freedom to leverage omnichannel integrations for a range of channels, from messaging apps to voice and email. Complete with flexible pricing models that are tailored to the needs of businesses of every size, pre-built contact centers aren’t lacking options for scalability.
They further ensure companies can continue to take advantage of new innovations in the contact center too, such as generative AI solutions. Vendors like Local Measure can even give companies more control over their AI innovations, with “bring your own intelligence” solutions and Amazon Bedrock.
Choosing to “buy” a cloud contact center doesn’t necessarily mean compromising on customization and scalability. The right vendor allows companies to purchase the ideal solution for their needs, then continue to “build” on that implementation with new features and capabilities.
Build vs Buy: Which is Best for your Contact Center?
Ultimately, there are various cases where “building” a contact center could be a valuable option for certain companies. Building your own solution from scratch certainly offers more control over your system, and the capabilities you can access. However, there are significant downsides to this approach too, from added costs, to increased time to market, and greater responsibility for your own tech stack.
Companies that want to remain agile in the cloud contact center landscape, scale rapidly, and innovate at speed, while saving money and time, will usually benefit more from a “Buy” approach. The key to success, however, is choosing the right vendor.
Local Measure, working with Amazon Connect, enables organizations to purchase customized, highly bespoke omnichannel solutions for customer service, that can scale and adapt as their business evolves. Engage by Local Measure builds on the features of Amazon Connect to revolutionize customer experiences quickly, without the complexity of building from scratch.