Most in-house IT builds are doomed to fail – here’s why

DIY can often turn out rather expensive – and this is certainly the case when it's an in-house IT build.

According to a survey of 2,000 IT and security decision-makers from Exclaimer, 71% of in-house IT builds fail to deliver on time or on budget, and are eventually abandoned.

In heavily regulated industries like manufacturing and finance, that figure rises to 83%.

The reasons for in-house builds vary from country to country, the study noted. UK teams are more likely to build in-house to meet compliance and data residency requirements, accounting for 33% of projects.

US teams, meanwhile, build primarily for integrations with legacy systems, at 28%.

Yet while nearly half of IT teams say they still prefer to build their own tools, only 8% of those projects are delivered on time and just 11% stay on budget. More than half take between 1.6 and two-times longer than planned and 46% of all in-house IT projects end up costing close to twice what the organization originally budgeted for.

Meanwhile, 63% of teams say they spend between 10 and 50 hours per month maintaining internal tools, and 66% require an extra $20,000 to $100,000 a year to keep them running.

With 64% of organizations reporting security-related downtime and 31% citing compliance and data protection challenges as key barriers, researchers warned what starts as a cost-saving initiative can instead become a long-term liability.

“The data shows that while building in-house can feel like control, it often comes at the expense of time, security, and scalability," said Paul Hammond, chief product and technology officer at Exclaimer.

"At Exclaimer, we’ve seen how easily operational burden creeps in when IT teams are forced to maintain tools that were never meant to scale. This research helps organizations see the full picture, that true efficiency isn’t about owning every line of code, but freeing teams to focus on growth and innovation.”

Buying, not building, is the go-to for some IT leaders

IT leaders that choose to buy rather than build point to speed (30%), access to expertise (29%), and reliability (28%) as key drivers.

In the UK, regulatory pressure is pushing organizations towards specialist vendors for compliance and control at 33%. In contrast, US teams are focused on faster scalability and reduced maintenance.

“As organizations race to modernize and scale securely, we’re seeing that IT leaders recognize that buying from trusted partners delivers faster deployment, predictable performance, and built-in compliance without the constant drain of maintenance and patching," said Hammond.

"The research shows that these partnerships now represent trust, visibility, and control, backed by enterprise-grade governance and security. The question is therefore not whether IT teams can build, they must decide when they should."

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