by Each warehouse is unique, with its own set of challenges, limitations, and benefits, as well as solutions that must be tailored to specific industries. With this in mind, when deciding how to build or purchase your WMS, it is critical to consider your specific business requirements.
The successful implementation of a WMS is the result of a thorough understanding of your company’s needs, processes, and challenges in day-to-day operations.
With current rapidly expanding markets, it’s time to start thinking about your WMS options.
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Table of Contents
Should you build or buy a WMS? What are the reasons?
Reasons to ‘build’
It is not cheap to design and implement custom-built proprietary WMS software.
It requires resources and time for development, as well as ongoing maintenance and improvement.
The following are some common arguments used to justify the build approach.
Ready-made WMS solutions do not meet all requirements
There are numerous features in today’s WMS solutions.
However, some businesses believe that their specific requirements necessitate the use of specialized software.
Vendor based solutions are not flexible
The majority of ready-to-use software does not allow for extensive changes to its functionality.
For some businesses, this may imply having too much or too little functionality, leading to the decision to go the DIY route.
Suitability
If a company relies on multiple software platforms that must share data, incompatibility can be a deal breaker.
Build-your-own solutions have the advantage of allowing for consistent integrations across platforms provided by various partners.
Reasons to ‘buy’
It’s safe to assume you didn’t build your own car, roof, or shoes.
So, why start work on a project as large as developing your own WMS software?
Unless your company is so unique that a proprietary WMS is absolutely necessary, diverting your attention, effort, and money to develop it is most likely a waste of valuable company resources.
Here are some things to think about.
Lack of internal technical expertise
This should be self-evident.
If your company’s software team lacks the experience or skills to develop a WMS solution, you should outsource the development and maintenance of this mission-critical software to a third party with extensive WMS domain knowledge.
Budget
The costs of developing custom software as complex as a modern WMS can quickly mount.
Established vendor-based solutions are generally less expensive and easier to implement, making them more cost-effective than utilizing dedicated internal resources.
Fewer distractions
Expert WMS vendors understand your business and will take the time to help you plan your WMS rollout, whether it is phased or completed all at once.
This minimizes disruptions to existing processes and allows warehouse personnel to gradually become accustomed to the new process.
Competitive advantage
One of the primary advantages of any WMS solution is its ability to streamline all inventory handling processes.
WMS makes every stage of the process faster, easier, more efficient, accurate, and traceable, from receiving and placing to picking, packing, and shipping.
These benefits cannot be overstated for distributors and small businesses, especially if your competitors are not using WMS.
Scalability and flexibility
Most WMS solutions provide exceptional scalability to meet organizations’ changing needs.
They are easily adaptable to additional equipment deployments such as conveyors or carousels, and new functionality, such as inbound transport management, can be added through regular upgrades or additional modules.
WMS solutions have been tried and tested for decades
Today, very few warehousing operations are truly unique when it comes to inventory management and ecommerce fulfillment.
Most businesses have similar processes and requirements in place.
Adopting tried, tested, and trusted solutions allows your company to benefit from industry standards and best practices without having to reinvent the wheel.
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What are your options for building or buying a WMS?
Across all industries, packaged warehouse management software is becoming more integrated, flexible, and functional.
However, you may believe that a custom build is required to fully accommodate your business’s needs. Here are the options available to you.
Purchase the complete WMS package
With multiple WMS options available, you can select the package that best meets your requirements.
It gives you a ready-made solution with customization and integration options that you can implement in your business.
It is possible to purchase a fully customizable and deployable WMS based on your business requirements, providing you with the highest level of innovation and future readiness and assisting you in aligning with industry best practices.
Build your own WMS
If you have specific business needs that require customization, you can hire a team to build your solution, define features, manage integrations, and implement it with your own team.
In some cases, this may be the simplest and most practical solution.
The onus is then on you to ensure that your WMS is future-proof and to manage major updates, reconfigurations, customizations, and new integrations.
Large businesses have more complex processes to manage, and as a result, developing a custom WMS can take years.
Smaller businesses with simpler processes are more likely to complete development and implementation in a more reasonable time frame.
However, the decision is more complicated than it appears, and each solution has its own set of advantages.
I recommend evaluating your business based on the processes and capabilities you examine and making the decisions that will provide you with the most value.
Build or Buy WMS: The driving factors
The business and warehouse criteria that drive your “build or buy” decision:
Business size
The bigger your company’s size, the more money you may have to spend on a Warehouse Management System that optimizes your processes to match demand.
However, the size of your company may dictate that you have less time to devote to custom creation, as there is a greater demand for innovation, flexibility, and future readiness.
In a small business, on the other hand, tailor-made solutions can provide the simplicity you require without providing redundant functionality and capabilities.
Business type
The type of business you run can influence your decision to build or buy.
How many processes, integrations, moves, and steps are necessary?
If your company has complex processes and large amounts of data to enter, the time it takes to build your WMS will be affected.
Consider whether your company already has the technical knowledge and industry domain expertise to build and maintain your own WMS, whether you have the resources to run and update it on a regular basis, and whether building your WMS will expand your operational capabilities in line with business objectives.
If your industry does not allow you to build your own solutions and your business goals do not align with the need to improve technical skills, a packaged WMS can save you a lot of time, effort, and money in the long run.
Business goals
As previously stated and expanded upon here:
- Does your company truly require competitive internal solutions tailor-made to compete with best-in-class competitors?
- Will you train employees to manage your WMS in accordance with your current growth strategy?
- Do you want to run your own business but require internal team innovation?
Think about where you want to be in the future.
Purchasing a package can facilitate a more straightforward growth path in a given business, whereas developing one can align with the goal of being self-sufficient and developing technical capabilities.
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Projected growth
All businesses want to grow, but your expansion may require a unique set of enabling factors to keep you on track.
If your goal is to keep up with explosive growth with a WMS that can flexibly and reliably meet the demands of your customers, consider how you will handle background management as you expand.
Can you ensure that your in-house team is competent, innovative, and adequately prepared to provide the support you require in your warehouse?
Or would you prefer vendor input and support?
Available time
How long will it take you to implement if you build rather than buy?
If you need to implement a WMS quickly, the size and type of your business will have a big impact on the options you choose:
- Implementing a WMS in large, complex, and process-heavy warehouses and supply chains will take time and effort.
- Creating a WMS in a smaller, simpler business will take less time, will be a less intensive process, and will require less labor.
Consider the time you have available, what is feasible in the time frame you require, and plan accordingly.
Budget
While building may appear to be the solution, you must set costs based on all variables.
A build and implementation may have very different costs than a package implementation, and knowing exactly what costs you will face will help you make an informed decision.
The factors mentioned above are not the only ones that influence your decision.
With software development becoming more accessible and easier, and large IT departments leveraging skills to provide support services, you may find that your landscape allows you to build solid and effective ones.
Understanding your company is the first step in determining which path to take.
Following that, a good estimate of what will be involved and how long it will take is critical.
If your company has in-house software resources, developing WMS in-house may appear to be a very appealing option.
The results may not meet your expectations if the software team does not fully understand how to support business objectives through WMS software development.
Furthermore, it is possible that resources will be allocated before the WMS is completely finalized or implemented.
Many DCs and warehouses are still using outdated paper and pencil or WMS solutions, and as a result, they lack the functionality to compete by today’s standards.
A WMS that is adaptable to changing business requirements is well worth the investment.
There are companies that have successfully developed and implemented their own WMS solutions, but they typically lack the scale and geographic reach of large box distributors.
The benefits of being able to implement a commercially available WMS are appealing for smaller companies with less complex requirements.
You’ll benefit from a system in which the majority of the issues have been resolved, without having to deal with the pitfalls and unexpected problems that come with developing and maintaining a completely in-house solution.
Finally, the most important factor to consider in the buy vs. build debate is that your management and staff deserve the tools they need to grow and improve your core business.
Discover those tools, and you’ll be well on your way to long-term success.
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