Are you milling your own flour? The cost of building vs. buying your Data Platform

Imagine this: You invite your closest friends over for dinner, and they rave about the fresh, warm loaf of bread you serve. They love the taste, the texture, the way it pairs perfectly with the extra salted butter.

But let’s be honest—do they care whether you mill your own flour by hand? Probably not.

Yet, in the world of investment management, many firms insist on milling their own data—spending years and millions of dollars trying to build an internal data platform—when specialized solutions exist that could deliver better results in a fraction of the time.

Your clients don’t care about your data platform — They care about your edge

As an investment manager, your true value isn’t in building software—it’s in delivering superior returns, unique strategies, and insights that set you apart.

So, ask yourself:

• Are you differentiating based on returns, ESG integration, or unique asset allocation models?

• Or are you stuck building a data platform that should already exist?

  
  

Trusted Data: The foundation of your competitive edge

Every investment decision—whether it’s asset allocation, risk management, or ESG integration—hinges on one fundamental element: trusted, high-quality data.

Just like a master baker relies on the best ingredients to create an exceptional loaf, an investment firm relies on clean, accurate, and accessible data to (amongst other things) drive scale and efficiency.

They care about strategy, insights, ability to generate returns—not the data plumbing.

If a platform existed that could deliver trusted data faster, with less risk and greater scalability, why spend years and millions trying to build it from scratch?

Your competitive edge lies in what you do with your data, not in how you collect and process it. So if your unique value proposition isn’t being a software company, why are you acting like one?

When to invest in a Platform?

Many firms hesitate to invest in a vendor platform because they assume:

1. It’s too expensive.

2. It won’t meet their unique needs.

3. They’ll lose control over their data.

   
   

But the reality has changed. In the last 3-5 years, SaaS-based platforms have evolved to be more flexible, scalable, and cost-effective than ever.

We’ve seen firms triple their product range without adding operational headcount, simply by adopting a robust platform that automates their data workflows.

For smaller firms, data management-as-a-service offerings have also emerged—meaning you can get enterprise-grade data capabilities without the overhead.

The bottom line? If spreadsheets and outdated systems are holding back your ability to scale, it’s time for a platform.

The build vs. buy value proposition

If you’re considering building your own platform, ask yourself two simple questions:

1️⃣ What do we need to support our unique value proposition (UVP)?

2️⃣ Can we build it faster and better than we can buy it?

Building an internal platform requires deep expertise in area like:

✅ Bitemporal investment data models

✅ Investment structures

✅ Data mastering

✅ Lifecycle management

✅ Look-through decomposition

✅ ETL interoperability

✅ Data transformation & enrichment

✅ Workflow automation

✅ Exception management

✅ Industry-standard connectors

Unless you have a decade of engineering resources to spare, you’re likely underestimating the time and effort required to build these capabilities in-house.

We’ve seen firms spend three years and millions of dollars trying to build an internal system—only to realize that:

❌ It’s missing essential features.

❌ The business is still waiting on data.

❌ Competitors who adopted vendor solutions are already ahead.

❌ The key person risk is REAL.

Meanwhile, vendor platforms can deploy in 3-6 months, accelerating your time to market. The resources spent on building a platform internally could be better used to develop and refine your UVP.

The diagram below illustrates this well, showing the difference in time spent on a build (dark blue) vs buy (light blue).

Sunk cost or smart investment?

If you’ve already sunk time and money into an internal build, you might think: "We’ve invested too much to back out now."

That’s the sunk cost fallacy.

Investment managers know when to cut their losses on an underperforming asset. Your data infrastructure should be no different.

Even if you’ve started building, there’s still time to pivot—adopting a platform that delivers core capabilities quickly while letting your team focus on what truly differentiates you.

The diagram below illustrates this well. For example, if you have already spent resources on an internal, you can probably still achieve significant benefits by adopting one of the many solutions in the market to get those core competencies up and running fast.

Final Thoughts: Are you still milling your own flour?

At the end of the day, your clients aren’t asking if you built your own data platform—they care about your investment strategy, your insights, your ability to generate returns.

Why spend years reinventing the wheel when the right platform can accelerate your success today?

Let’s talk about getting you there faster

At ICS, we help investment managers achieve their unique value propositions faster with a trusted, scalable data solution.

📅 Schedule a consultation today and see how our ATHENA platform can be your competitive edge.