Build On Buy: The Third Retail Technology Model Emerging In The AI Era

SVP SW Portfolio Management at Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions, Yevgeni drives innovation and delivers cutting-edge retail technologies.

​AI is making software easier to create. For retailers, this changes a decades-old technology decision and raises a more important question: What solutions are actually worth building?

Over the years, some of the biggest technology decisions in retail started with the same question: Should we build it, or should we buy it?

Building offers control and the ability to differentiate. On the other hand, buying provides access to proven technology, scale and capabilities retailers did not have to create and maintain themselves.

The rapid rise of AI is changing that equation, which ultimately reduces both time and resources needed.

Software that once required months of development can increasingly be created or modified much faster. User experiences, workflows, reports, integrations and applications are becoming easier to build.

This shift changes the economics of innovation. Rather than choosing between complete ownership and complete dependence on a vendor, retailers can now be far more deliberate about where they invest internal resources and where they leverage established technology. That balance is giving rise to a model: build on buy.

Build on buy means first buying the mission-critical foundation that must perform, scale and continuously evolve, while preserving the freedom to build the experiences, workflows, intelligence and differentiation above it.

What Becomes Easy, And What Remains Hard

AI is changing the economics of software, but it is not changing every layer equally.

Consider a retailer creating a new associate experience. Building the interface is becoming easier. Creating the workflow is also becoming easier. Connecting an API, generating a report or developing an AI assistant can take a fraction of the effort it once did.

The cost of creating software is coming down much faster than the cost of operating consequential systems.