diff --git a/meta-phosphor/recipes-phosphor/ipmi/ipmitool_%.bbappend b/meta-phosphor/recipes-phosphor/ipmi/ipmitool_%.bbappend
index 8f390f5..a6a8198 100644
--- a/meta-phosphor/recipes-phosphor/ipmi/ipmitool_%.bbappend
+++ b/meta-phosphor/recipes-phosphor/ipmi/ipmitool_%.bbappend
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@
 do_compile_prepend() {
     # copy the SRC_URI version of enterprise-numbers
     # to the build dir to prevent a fetch
+    mkdir -p "${WORKDIR}/build"
     cp "${WORKDIR}/enterprise-numbers" "${WORKDIR}/build/enterprise-numbers"
 }