Build, Buy, or Shut It Down

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Make critical decisions on building, buying, or shutting down product lines while aiming for growth and stakeholder satisfaction.
Implement a rigorous self-evaluation process to accurately identify products that align with strategic goals.
Develop and employ a versatile product evaluation framework to maintain agility, informed decision-making, and competitiveness in fast-evolving markets.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

A CEO should rigorously assess internal needs and evaluate product roadmaps, minimizing strategic errors and controlling development costs to speed up growth realization.
By adhering to our methodology, a CEO will realize the importance of strategic alignment in product decisions, ensuring that every choice directly contributes to the company's overarching goals and addresses the dynamic needs of the market, thereby optimizing resource allocation and enhancing value creation.
The adoption of a rigorous and versatile product evaluation framework facilitates quicker, more informed decision-making, enabling the company to swiftly adapt to market changes, seize growth opportunities, and maintain a competitive edge, ultimately leading to sustained long-term success.

Impact and Result

Info-Tech’s approach necessitates a thorough self-review to pinpoint requirements for achieving business objectives.
It employs a structured assessment method to gauge company competencies and identify potential obstacles and opportunities.
It yields well-prioritized, strategically aligned product choices with business goals for products, services, or revenue generation activities.

Build, Buy, or Shut It Down Research & Tools

1. Build, Buy, or Shut It Down Storyboard – A step-by-step document that walks you through how to assess internal needs and evaluate product roadmaps.

The Executive Brief found within walks through the information with the correct multidepartmental team structure to make critical product decisions.

Access your product strategy through self-assessment tools and guides.

Learn how to evaluate the market and potential partners or competitors to decide what to do.

2. Build, Buy, or Shut It Down Self-Assessment – A best-of-breed template to help you build a clear, concise, and compelling self-assessment of product strategy for stakeholders.

Here's how to approach this focused self-assessment:

Define the scope and set objectives.
Identify key factors and develop assessment criteria. Consider market demand, competitive landscape, financial implications, technical feasibility, and strategic alignment.
Collect data through market analysis.
Evaluate internal resources and capabilities.

3. Build, Buy, or Shut It Down Workbook – A structured product strategy workbook to help you prioritize strategy activities and build a product roadmap to ensure success.

This workbook is crafted to help product leaders identify their needs and facilitate the practical evaluation and choice of potential product lines to build, buy, or shut down.

This workbook helps you:

Use an interview guide method to critically evaluate your strategy and objectives, including examples of potential questions and their corresponding answers.
Determine your company's criteria to develop, purchase, or discontinue a product.
Implement the interview guide technique to systematically appraise various products that could enhance your company's offerings.
Create a structured list outlining the profiles of top-priority products or potential partners that align well with your company's needs and potential.
Formulate a proposal that clearly articulates the essential aspects of the desired relationship or partnership based on your company's key priorities.

4. Build, Buy, or Shut It Down Executive Presentation – This presentation template uses sample data to demonstrate an ideal build, buy, or shut it down strategy.

Use this template to document your final strategy outputs including executive-facing business alignment and strategy highlights, key initiatives and summaries, budget proposal, goals and operating model, and functional project roadmaps.

Build, Buy, or Shut It Down visualization

Make tough decisions when it comes to your products.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

Need Extra Help?
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Get the help you need in this 2-phase advisory process. You'll receive 8 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Assess Your Strategy

Call 1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.
Call 2: Review self-assessment questions.
Call 3: Identify product type and market segmentation.

Guided Implementation 2: Evaluate Market Opportunity and Make a Decision

Call 1: Review the opportunities, competitors, and buyer expectations with industry analysts.
Call 2: Refine product criteria and scoring attributes.
Call 3: Review research and draft findings.
Call 4: Use presentation to get management buy-in.
Call 5: Build or shut down the product and determine go-forward activities. Buy or start building out your RFP.