KeyMark Versus In-House Solutions

4 minute read

Why Partner with KeyMark: A Blog Series

Primer

  • Why partner with KeyMark over other resellers? 
  • Why partner with any reseller, for that matter? 
  • Why partner with KeyMark over building a custom solution?
This blog series will address these important questions and more, providing evidence and resources along the way to help you select the best framework for your digital transformation journey.
 
Disclaimer
We greatly respect organizations fully equipped and prepared to take on the challenges of a custom solution. There’s no right way to reach your automation goals, but we do think there’s a best way. This series focuses on the added benefits of a You + KeyMark relationship.

Issue #3: KeyMark or Another Solution Provider

The Case for Building In-House:

The most significant requirement for building an in-house is an experienced and capable IT team. A close second is clearly defined automation goals and a strategy. We recommend setting up a center of excellence consisting of specialized positions to communicate automation needs and set objections (more on building a CoE here).
 
With everything in place, building a custom solution comes with three benefits that we’ll conveniently call the three C’s of solution building. They are as follows:
  • Cost: Building a solution in-house could cost you less in initial investments, provided your IT team is up to the challenge.
  • Control: You retain complete control over your data and security measures by keeping everything in-house. That’s especially appealing for companies operating in highly regulated industries or dealing with sensitive customer information.
  • Customizability: Building an in-house solution comes with the benefit of complete customizability over the design and functionality of a solution.

Cause for Pause

That seems like a lot of great reasons to go ahead and start building your automation solutions from scratch… so what’s the catch? We’re all for a good DIY project, but when it comes to custom solution building, several long-term considerations could be enough cause for pause. 

Consider the following long-term costs of a custom project.

The cost of expertise
Building an in-house solution will soak up a lot of IT time. That creates delays in other projects or the build itself as priorities shift. As a result, custom solutions often take a lot longer to reach visible ROI. You may also need a greater quantity and/or quality of IT personnel, resulting in extra hiring and upskilling — both of which accrue additional costs.
 
Knowledge Expiration
Your savvy IT team builds a solution, but over time, those same solution architects graduate to different positions or move on from the organization altogether. What happens to your custom solution when the people who built and knew it intimately move on? Poor change management over time results in information and data loss that is both costly and a security/compliance risk.
 
Maintenance and Updates
Every minute that a system is down has a cost. Once your in-house solution is operational, you’ll be on the hook for any and all ongoing maintenance, updates, and support. That’s a significant burden for IT staff, especially as technology evolves and greater capabilities become available.

The Value in a Value-added Reseller

Resellers bring the best of both worlds in access to top-shelf automation technology and ongoing maintenance and support done for you. We wield decades of expertise to shorten the runway to your automation success while alleviating the hassles of hiring, retaining, training, and lifetime maintenance. And as for those three C’s, we’ve got those covered too.

Cost: We work with you to assess your needs and rapidly build and deploy solutions that work. That means ROI is realized in days and weeks rather than months and years. Additionally, there’s no need for additional hiring, and we handle the upskilling in our included implementation and training services.

Control: Your solution remains your solution. We offer on-premise, cloud, or hybrid solutions, allowing you to hand-pick and monitor your hosting environment and the required amount of control.

Customizability: We’ve built thousands of solutions in just about every industry under the sun, and understand the nuances of each to deliver completely tailored products. Whether it’s a customized solution built on an existing framework with rapid app development tools or something that’s never been done — we’ll build it.

Download KeyMark By the Numbers for more information on our successful project hours

KeyMark by the Numbers
Download Now

Making the Choice that’s Right for You

Our previous edition goes in-depth on what sets KeyMark apart from other resellers. Before that, we talked about buying solutions straight from the source. Ultimately, there are many routes you can take when kickstarting your digital transformation journey, and the best choice may depend on your unique circumstances and priorities. Yet, we hope we’ve given you enough reason to seriously consider the benefits of a You + KeyMark partnership.

To learn more about how KeyMark can empower your business with a partner’s mindset and tailored solutions, give us a call. Our team of experts is ready to assist with your project!

View Issue #1&2 of the Value in a Value-Added Reseller blog series below.

Keep Reading

What do you get with KeyMark's support plans.

What’s the Value in KeyMark Support?

Award-winning Extended Support We’ve extensively covered the value in a value-added reseller, and one of the major claims is the addition of implementation, training, and award-winning lifetime support. But what makes KeyMark support “award-winning”, why are our support teams consistently ranked in the highest echelon of partner programs, and —

Read More
Content Services and CSPs are a natural evolution of enterprise content management.

What is a Content Services Platform?

What are Content Services? Content Services is the logical evolution of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions in today’s cloud-native, mobile technology stack. Fundamentally, cloud content service platforms (CSPs) shift the focus from document management in a single hub, to integrated services delivered directly to the applications where end users spend

Read More
Search