Sometimes the honest answer to buy vs. build is build. Intake flows, document automation, review workflows, the glue between tools that will not talk to each other, and custom applications when the market genuinely has no answer. Built and documented so your team is never dependent on the person who wrote it.
What it does, what it deliberately does not do, and how you will know it worked.
Something clickable early, so the expensive disagreements happen before the work.
In stages, with working software at the end of each one.
Documentation, runbooks, and a support arrangement, so this never rests on one person.
Thirty minutes, your real workflow on the table or just a chat. You'll deal with Damian directly regardless. Tell him where it's stuck, and he'll come back to you with a proposal.