Different stakeholders may see different ways to develop technology:
- Many tech professionals prefer to deploy solutions from leading vendors. For example, business applications from SAP, network from Cisco, etc.
- Top management sometimes tend to squeeze financing as much as possible: give money enough to fight the most urgent fire and not a cent more.
- Experts or enthusiasts may want to develop in-house solutions. This way could give a great outcome or the worst possible depending on the maturity of the experts and organization itself.
An optimal path is a combination of the above. Concisely, it brings us where we started.
If an organization does business in a sustaining way, it might prioritize out-of-the-box solutions. There might be not enough resources and expertise to produce internally anything but very simple tools. However, it is a waste of money to buy end-to-end solutions from the most successful brands until they offer a very competitive price. You might want to read this article to know more about this approach - "IT does not matter" (hbr.org/2003/05/it-doesnt-matter).
If disrupting, in-house way will be the preferred one. In order to disrupt the current state of things, you need to create something new. There are many theories of creativity, but one thing is unquestionable - you need creative people to create something. Capabilities, which creative (and highly professional) people bring on board, may help to build a perfect IT system from building blocks of any kind. Give them a choice and support, remove barriers and pray for the best. Third parties might do actual developments, but the intelligence directing them will be internal. However, even the most intelligent experts may sometimes stuck in their own universe. When there is a need to reinvent yourself, this article will help to clarify the approach - "Meeting the challenge of disruptive change (https://hbr.org/2000/03/meeting-the-challenge-of-disruptive-change).
In both of the cases, I would recommend to bind financing to the expected value. The budget covering risks might be higher in the disruptive model, but it should be reasonable and managed by the performance and cultural techniques described above.