Build vs Buy vs Partner Decision Framework

# Build vs Buy vs Partner Decision Framework

**Domain:** Product and Engineering
**Level:** 🔴 Advanced

> Evaluate whether to build, buy, or partner for a specific capability. Produces a structured decision with scoring across cost, speed, control, scalability, and strategic fit.

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## Variables

Fill in every `[BRACKETED_VARIABLE]` before running. Do not leave any bracket unfilled.

| Variable | What to Enter | Example |
|----------|---------------|---------|
| `[CAPABILITY_NEEDED]` | The specific capability you need to add | e.g. Natural language processing to extract compliance obligations from FCA policy documents |
| `[BUILD_OPTION]` | What building in-house would involve | e.g. Hire 1 ML engineer at £80k/year, 4-6 months to first working version, full control, significant ongoing maintenance |
| `[BUY_OPTIONS]` | Available products or APIs you could purchase | e.g. OpenAI GPT-4o API at £0.03 per 1k tokens, AWS Comprehend, or specialist RegTech NLP vendor at £2,000/month |
| `[PARTNER_OPTIONS]` | Potential partners who have this capability | e.g. Partnership with Qdrant (vector DB) plus a prompt engineering consultancy; or white-label agreement with a RegTech data provider |
| `[STRATEGIC_CONTEXT]` | Why this capability matters strategically | e.g. NLP accuracy on FCA documents is our primary differentiator; if a competitor solves this better, we lose our moat |

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## The Prompt

Copy everything in the code block below. Replace all `[VARIABLES]`. Paste into Claude, GPT-4o, Gemini, or any capable LLM.