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.