The Five Stages of Build vs. Buy
In the decade or so that we’ve been working to bring world-class battery analytics solutions to the battery ecosystem, we have seen the many different paths our customers take along the journey toward adopting Enterprise Battery Intelligence. Some quickly understand the importance and urgency of mastering battery complexity through data and bring in an EBI solution right away. For others, the path is more tortuous, marked by internal politics and multiple failed approaches at developing the analytical capabilities needed to be a truly top-tier battery-powered business.
The central question is often whether to build an in-house battery data analytics system from scratch or to bring in a commercial product designed to address key pain points in the product lifecycle to deliver battery program success. It strikes us that this “build vs. buy” dilemma can often lead companies through a process that resembles The Five Stages of Grief, a framework originally introduced by psychologist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross about a half-century ago. For those who need a refresher, the five stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In hopes of sparing some of you the (literal) years of frustration and lost opportunities you’d encounter experiencing the full five stages, we present “The Five Stages of Build vs. Buy: EBI Edition.”
Denial
“We got this.”
What’s happening:
At this early stage, you probably have realized that battery analysis has become a bottleneck for your business, but you’re not ready to take any serious steps to address the issue.
What you’re thinking:
- “We can keep using our spreadsheet macros — they’ve never let us down before!”
- “Elaine from the cell engineering team likes to code — she’ll write us some scripts!”
- “We’ll work the team a little harder to deal with the data workloads — that’s what they’re there for!”
What’s next:
Deadlines approach, work accelerates, data velocity and volume start to overwhelm, corners start to be cut.
Anger
“Why haven’t we shipped yet?!” or “What’s with all these product returns??!!!”
What’s happening:
You find that you’re making one unforced error after another. Your battery program is behind. You can’t hire enough battery talent. You can’t make agile product decisions. Your supplier is falling through. Those cut corners are coming back to bite you in the form of missed deadlines or product quality issues.
What you’re thinking:
- “My team is flailing, and they can’t even give me an accurate progress update. What do I pay them for?”
- “My Director/VP/CEO is furious. If I don’t fix this, I’ll be out of a job.”
What’s next:
At this point, the business-as-usual path is the road to ruin. It’s time to act.
Bargaining
“If we just put the right internal resources on this, they’ll get us out of this mess.”
What’s happening:
You’ve realized how important battery analytics are to your business goals and that you should have started investing in this capability sooner. You’re serious about upleveling but want to keep it in-house out of pride, or fear that someone important will realize your oversight.
What you’re thinking:
- “I’ll hire a few more engineers and have them work on data analysis full-time.”
- “We’ll shoehorn it into our all-purpose analytics tool. Or find the absolute cheapest product out there that seems like it’ll work.”
- “No one else will understand our specific needs — I’ll get IT to build us a system or hire some consultants to do it.
What’s next:
You fight for some serious budget to try and hire your way out of the problem (good luck in this market), or you bring in expensive consultants who spend the next several months, or even a few years, spec’ing out and building a bespoke solution to your specific problem — or at least the problem you had when they started building it…
Depression
“Welp, that didn’t work.”
What’s happening:
You couldn’t hire enough good battery engineers fast enough. The custom system came in late and over budget, and parts of it are already obsolete. No one knows how to maintain or update it. You’ve wasted time and money that you’ll never get back, and you’re no better off than when you started.
What you’re thinking:
- “Those IT consultants didn’t know anything about batteries. They really needed some domain expertise on the team, but my people were too busy.”
- “My team is telling me it doesn’t quite work right, and they’re going back to their old spreadsheets and Matlab scripts.”
What’s next:
This is a really tough spot to be in. Your battery program falls further behind, incurring real damage to the future of the business. The options at this point are severely limited. It’s either admit defeat and give up, or move on to…
Acceptance
“All right, it’s time to go with Voltaiq”
What’s happening:
You finally decide to look at bringing in a purpose-built, commercial battery analytics solution. You evaluate the options and go with the market-leading platform with the best functionality, the most scalability, and most robust security. The one that’s been in the market for a decade and is currently in use at many of the world’s largest tech companies, automakers, and cutting-edge battery companies.
What you’re thinking:
- “Why didn’t we do this years ago???”
- “Productivity is up, and teams from across the company are collaborating like never before.”
- “My team has stopped complaining about having to crunch all that data and can finally focus on high-value work.”
What’s next:
Your team is aligned. The entire company has visibility into the battery team’s progress, and functions across the company, from supply chain to finance, are benefitting from this new EBI capability. You’re getting the most out of your team and your budget, and your battery program is succeeding.
Hey, we get it. Batteries are complicated, and for a lot of companies it’s only recently that batteries have become crucial to overall product quality and successful business outcomes. The good news is that if any of this resonates — if you think you might be in one of these earlier stages — you can skip right to the end by getting your organization onto the Voltaiq platform today. We pioneered EBI and have an enterprise-proven solution that will help you ship products faster, optimize performance, minimize product risks, and strengthen your battery supply chain. We look forward to hearing from you.
