FxBytes

Insights

Positions we are willing to be argued with about.

We publish the reasoning behind our advice rather than thought-leadership. If you disagree with a piece here, that is a good first conversation.

Format · Position papers

Positions open to argument

Deliberate

Reasoning · not thought-leadership

  • §1 · Balance sheet

    Ownership is a capital decision, not a licence preference.

  • §2 · Build price

    AI changed the price of building — not the reason to own.

  • §3 · Classification

    Rent commodity. Extend what works. Own what is strategic.

Margin · argue here

  • Q

    Challenge the payback?

  • Q

    When is rent still cheaper?

  • Q

    Who decides the lane?

If you disagree

Good first conversation

Focus · Ownership economics

CIO · COO · CFO

Focus
Ownership economics
Format
Position papers
Audience
CIO / COO / CFO
Cadence
Deliberate

Core positions

Start here

Three pieces that together explain how we think about what a business should own.

Position paper9 minRead the paper

Software ownership is a balance-sheet decision

Subscriptions are an operating cost that compounds forever. Owned systems are an asset with a payback period. Most organisations have never compared the two properly.

Read the paper
Position paper7 minRead the paper

AI changed the price of building, not the reason

When the cost of bespoke engineering drops several-fold, the set of workflows worth owning expands. The strategy question moves before the budget does.

Read the paper
Framework11 minRead the paper

Rent what is commodity. Extend what works. Own what is strategic.

The classification model we use to open every engagement, with the tests we apply to place a workflow in each lane.

Read the paper

Articles

Written for the decision you are actually making

Practical pieces on cost, ownership and platform limits — aimed at owners and operators, not procurement committees.

Economics7 minRead

What custom software actually costs

The four drivers behind every estimate, what a first workflow should cost, and when a licence is simply the cheaper answer.

Read
Decisions6 minRead

Buy versus build, honestly

Five questions that settle the decision at the layer level — and why bending a rented platform is the most expensive lane of all.

Read
Platforms6 minRead

The real cost of a workaround

Salesforce and ServiceNow workarounds look cheap per change and expensive in aggregate. How to price the layer you already pay for.

Read

Field notes

Shorter arguments, drawn from delivery

Published progressively. Ask us for the reasoning on any of these before it appears here.

  • The real cost of a platform workaround

    Every configuration that fights the product's model becomes an upgrade liability. How to price that before you accept it.

  • Why 'buy, don't build' aged badly

    The advice was correct when building was slow and expensive. Two of its three assumptions no longer hold.

  • Integration is not plumbing

    The system that decides what is true across your platforms is a strategic asset, whatever the diagram calls it.

  • Signals a workflow should be owned

    Six practical tests, including the shadow-spreadsheet test and the sales-differentiation test.

  • What Salesforce and ServiceNow are genuinely excellent at

    An honest boundary from a firm with practices in both — and where extension stops paying.

  • Measuring a build in operational terms

    Cycle time, exception rate, cost-to-serve. The metrics that survive a CFO conversation.

Next step

Prefer the conversation to the reading?

Thirty minutes on one workflow, with a written recommendation afterwards.

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