At MCI, a routine series of questions helps IT managers decide how to best meet their needs In the past year, MCI had to make a decision about whether to buy or build a system to track third-party services inventory. The following series of questions illustrates how the company arrived at a decision to buy the application.Should we build? Q: Is there competitive advantage in building? A: No competitive advantage. Q: Is the project covering core or generic business processes? A: Generic. Q: Is there business expertise in-house to build something world-class? A: Yes, but resources are tight and this is not a priority. Q: Is there technical expertise in-house or available on the market to build something world-class? A: Same as previous answer. Q: What is the total cost of ownership? A: Low to medium. Should we buy? Q: Do capabilities exist that meet or nearly meet our needs? A: There are two packages that meet our needs. Q: Can our business processes fit those imposed by the package? A: Yes. Q: Is the vendor going to be around for a long time? Many of the best solutions come from smaller vendors, so it is necessary to review their financials. A: Both vendors are viable. Q: Does the vendor fit into our cornerstone technology stack? (For MCI: Microsoft .Net on the portal side, IBM Websphere on the back-office OSS side.) A: Yes, for both vendors. Q: Does the vendor have a vision that is compatible with our vision of future growth needs for the package? A: Excellent vision; better than we have in this area. Q: Does the vendor have a demonstrated ability to deliver releases on time? A: Yes, based on reference checks. Q: What is the TCO (total cost of ownership)? Is it less than building and maintaining this ourselves? A: An RFP was conducted and significant concessions were obtained. TCO is favorable. Software DevelopmentDevelopment Tools