You are an engineering manager at a mid-sized IT services company deciding how to deliver a new enterprise workflow automation capability for BFSI and healthcare clients. The company has 140 active managed-services customers, $180M annual revenue, and a strategic goal to grow digital operations revenue by 25% over the next 18 months. Sales estimates that a differentiated solution could generate $12M in first-year bookings, but only if launched within 6 months; after that, two large competitors are expected to bundle similar functionality into broader transformation deals. Your team is evaluating three paths: build a proprietary accelerator on top of the company’s cloud and automation stack, buy a niche vendor for $8M with a product already used by 20 enterprise customers, or reuse and extend existing internal assets that currently cover roughly 60% of the required functionality but were not designed as a standalone offering.
How would you decide whether to build, buy, or reuse in this situation, and what would you recommend? Explain the strategic logic, economics, and execution trade-offs behind your choice.