Should I buy off-the-shelf software or build custom for my print or embroidery business?

Neither, framed as a binary. The real question is what percentage of what you actually need a platform covers. High coverage with a low cost to close the gap usually means buy. Low coverage, or a platform that forces you to change how you work, is where a purpose-built layer starts to make sense.

What is the most common mistake when making a buy-vs-build technology decision?

Treating the licence fee as the whole cost. The real comparison is coverage against the cost of closing the gap, plus what it costs to change how you work to fit the platform. Most of that never appears on a quote.

How do I work out how much a platform actually covers?

Follow your processes from start to finish and note every point where the platform does not fit, in the order they happen. That list is the uncovered percentage, and it is the only reliable way to see it. A Clarity Audit does exactly this.

Does buying a platform sometimes turn out to be the right answer?

Often. High coverage and a low cost to change how you work means buy, clearly and quickly. The test has to be able to reach that answer, or it is not a real test.

What does buy plus a custom layer mean for a decorated-goods business?

The platform is right but leaves gaps: supplier feeds, artwork, reporting across more than one business. A purpose-built layer closes those gaps without touching what the platform already does well.

The real question

It covers 25% of what you need. Do you buy it?

This gets asked in different words most weeks, usually framed as buy or build. It isn't really that question. If something covers a quarter of the job, the decision isn't about the quarter. It's about the other three quarters, and what closing them costs.

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Decorated garments staged on a production floor, the operation a platform decision has to actually serve. — THE OPERATION DECIDES, NOT THE VENDOR

Before you buy anything

Three questions that replace the binary.

None of these require naming a platform. They work for whichever one you're looking at.

Coverage

What percentage does it genuinely cover?

If the best thing on the market covers a quarter of the job, the question isn't whether to buy it. It's what closes the other three quarters, and what that costs. Usually nobody has priced it, so it gets treated as free. It isn't free, it's just invisible.

Fit

Does it work how you work?

Or do you rework the business to fit the software? Every platform encodes an assumption about how you should operate. Fine if you agree with it. Expensive if you don't, and the cost never appears on the quote.

Bloat

How much of it will you actually use?

Platforms are built to cover a hundred and one scenarios because they have to sell to everyone. You'll use maybe a fifth of it. You pay for all of it, and you carry the complexity of the rest for as long as you own it.

The arithmetic

Three numbers, and you can work them out yourself.

Nobody needs to sell you this. Follow your own processes and the numbers are already there.

STEP 1

What it covers

Follow the workflow start to finish. Every point where the platform doesn't fit is part of the uncovered percentage.

STEP 2

What the gap costs

Closing it with more software, or with someone's time every week. Both are real costs. Price whichever one you'd actually choose.

STEP 3

What changing to fit it costs

What you'd have to rework about how the business runs to use the platform as designed. That number is usually the one nobody wrote down.

Sometimes the answer is buy. High coverage and a low cost to change how you work means buy it, clearly and quickly. This has to be able to come out that way, or it isn't a real test.

How I help

No vendor relationships. No platform I'm paid to prefer.

There are several good platforms in this sector. The right one depends on your business, and I earn nothing from whichever you pick.

What I bring is the sector experience to run the coverage test properly: what a platform actually handles in a decoration workflow, where it stops, and what it's worth closing that gap versus living with it.

You can't run these numbers without seeing the operation.

Working out what percentage anything actually covers means following your processes from start to finish first. A Clarity Audit is a day on site, then the comparison in writing within five working days.

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