Should you buy or build your metadata management solution?

We can all agree that metadata plays a vital business role regardless of your use case. Here’s one question that needs to be considered carefully at the outset: should your team build a metadata solution yourself or buy a managed metadata service?

Is there a clear answer?

In this post, we’re going to briefly cover some of the pros and cons of buying vs. building a metadata management solution that you will want to consider, so that you can make an informed decision for your business.

4 questions to ask when considering buying or building

How do the options compare over the full lifecycle of the project? 

While the capital outlay of sourcing a metadata solution from a specialist provider can be perceived as cost-prohibitive, when comparing it with building it internally, the total cost of ownership of both solutions need to be analysed before making a decision. Developing your own bespoke solution will take a lot of time, money, and long-term maintenance to boot, as well as requiring retaining the specialist knowledge of your staff.  

From our experience the lifetime costs of a managed service end up being less than an outsourced option, as the support and maintenance costs are effectively shared with other users of your metadata platform of choice. 

>> Buy or build? Both have their benefits, but you should not look solely at the initial costs but rather the total cost of ownership.

Do you have constraints on your team’s time or budget? 

First, you’ll want to look at the commercial constraints of your project. How much time and what level of funding will be required to get a solution up and running?

Outsourcing your metadata to a third-party provider like MetaBroadcast might be perceived as a more long-term cost commitment however, it enables you to focus on your core business and gives you instant access to the specialist metadata knowledge and experience that you will need to boost discoverability or whatever your use case. 

>> Buy or build? Consider how long it will take you to deploy a solution.

Do you have access to specialist knowledge? 

If you’re feeling lost on how to start building a metadata entertainment platform, you aren’t alone. 

Working with metadata is a niche and complicated workflow, particularly when looking at the potential breadth, scale and complexity of the data sources. Regardless of your use case, metadata is increasingly important given the importance of content discovery with the deluge of content, and so ensuring that your solution adapts to customer needs is key. It requires specialist knowledge and you need to get it right. Finding, acquiring, onboarding, developing and retaining that talent won’t be easy and can distract your team from other operational requirements. 

Working with an outsourced solution and team that already has that specialist talent available, though, can be far simpler. 

>> Buy or build? Again, utilising a tried-and-tested managed service is a fast track to getting what you need.

Will you have full-time metadata specialists on stand-by? 

Lastly, what are your plans for the team that might implement your solution. From our experience engineers want to move onto the next development project rather than support and maintain projects. However it will be critical for the success of your project that you retain their metadata knowledge after your solution enters production. That’s because maintenance, expertise, and technical support will be required long after you’ve built your bespoke metadata solution. You will need to ensure your metadata service is supported throughout the year even when members of your team are on holiday, sick or in extremis where support is required out of office hours. 

In addition you are likely to require additional features to be developed to meet your customer’s needs. This can add unexpected costs and complexities in the long term. Or, you could let a specialist third-party option handle this component for you as well.

If ongoing resourcing is likely to be a challenge, then sourcing a managed metadata service from a specialist provider with a team who solely focus on metadata is likely to be an attractive alternative.  

>> Buy or build? If budget permits a team of developers, then building could be an option. If you want to outsource the support and maintenance to a team of metadata specialists then buying is the right call.

What’s the answer?

Building might be perceived to be more affordable, but sourcing and buying a managed metadata service is likely to be more practical for your business enabling you to focus on your core business. 

If you would like to discuss these considerations in more detail with a trusted third-party solution for your metadata needs, reach out to the team at MetaBroadcast today.