In the last article, we covered what to look for in a CDP when shopping for one. Let’s go a step back and consider the conundrum of whether to buy a CDP off the shelf or to build one of your own.
Let’s visit a few key pointers which should be considered while arriving at a decision.
Time to Market
Let’s face it. CDP is a complex piece of software which would take time to build especially if you are starting from scratch. Even if you have a datalake or a data warehouse, even then you would need to put in significant effort to ‘productionise’ a CDP solution of your own in time before some new tech replaces it altogether (remember the fad around DMPs and how the browser cookie policy have made these shiny tools redundant). Off the shelf CDPs are much faster to implement through agencies which in most of the scenarios are plug and play (well not exactly plug and play !)
Engineering Resources
Putting together a CDP within the organisation would need a lot of quality engineering resources. Not every organisation has the resourcing prowess of such a magnitude. If you intend to outsource development of the CDP then the off the shelf option would essentially be much more lucrative.
Identity Resolution
Most of the identity resolution use cases are catered to by the existing CDPs in the market. Unless you have a totally out of the world requirement on this front, chances are that the existing systems have you covered.
Use Case Maturity
When your team is working on the use cases to solve for using a CDP, you might not account for the distant future. The advantage that the firms with CDP offering hold is that they have a very wide gamut of use cases already catered to or accounted for with their offerings due to exposure to various industries and clients within those industries.
If you start building a CDP and midway realise that your current design does not accommodate an important use case, you might add to your timeline to market.
Knowledge Management
This one is not exactly an issue but an action item to keep in mind if you go for a build approach. You would need to have a robust knowledge management process in place. This would ensure that a crucial resource leaving your organisation does not hamper the development to a major extent. Confluence and Jira and similar tools can come in handy for this process. The challenge in this scenario remains in getting the team to use the tools and document every important piece of information.
Architecture Visibility
If you do go ahead with a build approach, the biggest advantage is that you have complete visibility of the solution architecture and can have better control over things you can tweak.
Operational Costs
If you go ahead with the build approach, one thing that you would need to ensure is that there are always the required resources available on standby to address any operational issues with the CDP.
In case of an off-the-shelf CDP, the onus of servicing falls on the vendor or the agency with whom you have the contract.
Along with the above, the infrastructure required to keep the self built CDP running may add to the costs involved.
The above factors should give a fair idea of what to expect when deciding on build vs off the shelf approach towards CDP.
Feel free to add more in the comments section.
If you feel you would like to opt for an off the shelf CDP, reach out and may be we can help.
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