Best of Breed Architecture: Value for Money and Resiliency Worth Considering

Before you build anything custom or buy an all-in-one solution, there is a question you should always ask first.

The Decision Nobody Gets Right the First Time

At some point, almost every growing organisation faces the same crossroads: the current system isn’t working anymore. It’s too slow, too rigid, too expensive to change, or simply not built for where the business is going.

And then comes the question: what do we do next?

Three paths typically emerge:

1. Build something custom — designed exactly for your needs, owned entirely by you
2. Buy an All-in-One platform — one vendor, one contract, one system for everything
3. Assemble a Best of Breed stack — the best tool for each function, integrated together

Most organisations jump straight to option one or two. They either fall in love with the idea of building something perfectly tailored, or they’re seduced by the simplicity of a single platform.

Both instincts are understandable. Both are often wrong.

The argument I want to make is simple: Best of Breed should always be your starting point. Not necessarily your final answer — but the lens through which you evaluate everything else.

What Is Best of Breed?

Best of Breed (BoB) is an architecture strategy where you select the best-in-class tool for each specific business function, then connect them together through integrations.

The idea is straightforward: rather than accepting a platform that does ten things adequately, you choose tools that each do one thing exceptionally well.

The alternative — All-in-One (AIO) — is a single vendor’s suite covering all functions under one roof. One login, one data model, one support contract.

Both have genuine advantages. The question is not which is universally better. The question is which is right for your organisation, your processes, and your stage of growth — and how you make that determination rigorously rather than intuitively.

Why Best of Breed First?

The reason BoB should be your starting point is not ideological. It’s practical.

The market for specialised software has never been better. For almost any business function you can name — customer management, people operations, project delivery, billing, analytics, document management — there are mature, well-supported, API-first tools that have been refined over years by teams focused on nothing else.

When you build custom, you are competing with those teams. You are taking on the cost of building, maintaining, and evolving software that someone else has already solved. That is a significant commitment, and it is rarely justified unless your process is genuinely unique.

When you buy All-in-One, you are accepting a compromise. The platform does everything adequately, but it does nothing exceptionally. And as your business grows and your processes become more sophisticated, those compromises compound.

Best of Breed lets you start with the best available solution for each problem, without committing to a single vendor’s vision of how your business should work.

The Framework: How to Evaluate Properly

Whether you ultimately choose BoB, AIO, or custom, the evaluation process should follow the same steps. Here is the framework I use.

Step 1: Map Your Functions

Before looking at any tool or platform, define what you actually need software to do.

Break your operations down into discrete functions. Each function should have:

• A clear owner (who is responsible for this process?)
• A clear purpose (what outcome does this function produce?)
• A clear set of requirements (what must the software do to support it?)

This module map is the foundation of everything that follows. Without it, you are comparing platforms without knowing what you need them to do.

Step 2: Understand Your Users

This is where most evaluations go wrong.

Not all users are equal. In almost every organisation, there is a small group of power users who need deep access to multiple functions — and a much larger group who need only limited, self-service access.

Map your users by role and by function:

• How many users need full access to each module?
• How many need read-only or self-service access only?
• Are there roles that span multiple functions?

This matters enormously for cost. All-in-One platforms typically charge a flat rate per user across the entire platform. If the majority of your users only need access to one or two functions, you are paying for capabilities they will never use.

The user distribution analysis alone often determines whether BoB or AIO is more economical.

Step 3: Assess Process Complexity

For each function, ask honestly: is this process standard, or is it differentiated?

Standard processes are those that work roughly the same way across most organisations in your sector. Expense management. Leave requests. Basic CRM. For these, any decent tool will do the job. The value of specialisation is low.

Differentiated processes are those that reflect something genuinely unique about how your business operates. A pricing model that no standard tool supports. A workflow with approval logic that doesn’t fit any template. A data structure that requires custom fields and relationships.

For differentiated processes, neither AIO nor off-the-shelf BoB tools will fit without significant customisation. This is where custom development becomes genuinely justified — not as a default, but as a targeted solution for a specific, irreducible complexity.

The rule of thumb: buy standard, build differentiated.

Step 4: Calculate True TCO

Total Cost of Ownership is not just licence fees. A complete TCO calculation includes:

• Licensing — per user, per module, per year
• Implementation — setup, configuration, data migration
• Integration — connecting tools to each other and to existing systems
• Training — getting your team productive on new tools
• Maintenance — ongoing support, updates, and administration
• Opportunity cost — the cost of functional compromise when a tool doesn’t quite fit

The last item is the hardest to quantify and the most frequently ignored. If your billing process requires three manual workarounds because the platform doesn’t support your pricing model, that cost is real — it just doesn’t appear on an invoice.

When you calculate TCO honestly across all of these dimensions, the comparison between BoB and AIO often looks very different from the initial licence cost comparison.

Step 5: Assess Integration Maturity

Best of Breed only works if your tools can communicate reliably. Before committing to any BoB stack, evaluate:

• Does each tool have a well-documented, stable API?
• Is there an integration platform that supports all of them?
• Who will own and maintain the integrations over time?

The integration layer is not a one-time project. It requires ongoing attention as tools are updated, APIs change, and business requirements evolve. This needs to be owned by someone with the technical capability to manage it.

If your organisation lacks this capability — and is not willing to build or buy it — the simplicity of AIO has genuine value that should not be dismissed.

Step 6: Evaluate Strategic Fit

Finally, and most importantly: evaluate for where you are going, not just where you are today.

The right architecture for your current state may be the wrong architecture for your future state. A platform that fits your processes today may constrain them in two years. A custom build that solves today’s problem may become tomorrow’s legacy system.

Ask:

• How is our business model likely to evolve?
• Will our processes become more complex or more standardised over time?
• What flexibility do we need to adapt quickly?

BoB architectures are generally more adaptable — you can replace individual tools as needs change without rebuilding the entire stack. AIO platforms offer less flexibility but more stability. Custom builds offer maximum control but maximum maintenance burden.

What Structured Organisations Do Better

One pattern I have observed consistently: structured organisations get more value from Best of Breed.

By structured, I mean organisations where:

• Processes are documented and consistently followed
• Roles and responsibilities are clearly defined
• Data ownership is explicit — someone is accountable for the accuracy of each data set
• There is technical capability to manage integrations and tooling

In these organisations, BoB delivers on its promise. Each tool does its job well, integrations work reliably, and the stack evolves cleanly as needs change.

In less structured organisations, BoB can become a liability. Without clear process ownership, data becomes inconsistent across tools. Without integration governance, connections break and nobody notices until something goes wrong. Without technical capability, the stack becomes unmaintainable.

If your organisation is not yet structured, the priority is not choosing the right tools. The priority is building the processes and governance that will make any tools work.

When to Choose Each Path

Based on this framework, here is a practical guide:

Choose Best of Breed when:

• Your user distribution is uneven — many users need only limited access
• Your processes are complex or differentiated in specific areas
• You have technical capability to manage integrations
• You need flexibility to evolve individual components independently
• You want to avoid single-vendor lock-in

Choose All-in-One when:

• Your user needs are relatively uniform across the platform
• Your processes are standard and well-served by existing templates
• You have limited technical resources for integration management
• Simplicity and a single vendor relationship are genuine priorities
• You are early-stage and need to move fast without building infrastructure

Choose Custom when:

• A specific process is genuinely unique and cannot be adequately served by any existing tool
• The differentiated process is core to your competitive advantage
• You have the engineering capability to build and maintain it sustainably
• You have exhausted BoB options and confirmed no tool fits

The Honest Trade-offs

No path is universally superior. The right answer depends on your organisation’s specific combination of process complexity, user distribution, technical capability, and strategic direction.

Key Takeaways

• Always start with Best of Breed as your reference point. Evaluate what the market offers before deciding to build or consolidate.
• Map your modules and users before looking at any platform. The economics are determined by these inputs, not by vendor marketing.
• Buy standard, build differentiated. Custom development is justified for genuinely unique processes, not as a default.
• Calculate true TCO, not just licence costs. Integration, maintenance, and functional compromise are real costs.
• Structured organisations get more from BoB. If your processes and governance are not yet solid, fix that first.
• Evaluate for where you are going, not just where you are. The right architecture today may be the wrong architecture in two years.

What approach has worked — or not worked — in your organisation? I’d love to hear your experience. Connect with me on LinkedIn.