I suppose it all depends on the extant in-house expertise. If you're in a "we don't know what we don't know" situation with respect to the problem, it's less ri

I suppose it all depends on the extant in-house expertise. If you're in a "we don't know what we don't know" situation with respect to the problem, it's less risky to buy the experts with a proven record rather than spend an indefinite amount of time and money on R&D which might not yield success. Integrating into a familiar bureaucracy is at least the devil you know