How much customization should you allow in your erp?
Based on the case study, more than 15% customization of an ERP is risky for any organization. To meet the business requirements of any organization it's quite common to customize the ERP sometimes. ERP is already a standard business process in the worldwide global market which can be adapted by any type or any size of organization. It's a platform independent and ready system for multidimensional businesses. Though every business has its own unique business processes and requirements, 15% to 20% customization can be okay in that case. More than that may occur several critical issues for an ERP implementation.
From the architectural viewpoint if an organization wants to make a large difference in terms of the customization of an ERP, it may breaked the existing features and functionalities. First of all, it will be cost effective which somehow an organization can bear, but there are high chances of missing the core features of an ERP by over customizing. Every time an organization desires to customize the ERP more, it will increase the complexity of maintaining ERP features.
Most of the businesses want to keep their existing business processes however. This is one of the major reasons behind the organization's demands for customization of an ERP. Organizations keep trying to add their existing management workflows, previous functionalities, process flows in the ERP. Here if we talk from the ERP perspective, if an organization chooses a standard ERP its already having the most upgraded features and functionalities for any businesses. A standard ERP matches almost 70% to 80% business requirements while increasing the business efficiency to reach the highest level of organizational goal. Rest on the things an organization can customize based on their unique requirements. The utmost priority is to choose a standard ERP which uses the latest technology and has the ability to adapt any business criteria.
Another fact is whenever an organization wishes huge customization, it will increase the implementation time and cost both. Further upgrades will be more complex, costly, and become more difficult to manage for the organization. Technically speaking, over customization creates the chances of breaking the source code which can damage the ERP system eventually. While an ERP reduces the error for operational transparency, a customized ERP increases the errors to the system. Sometimes customization can be the obstacles to meeting an organization's business goals. Control over the project figured out as a lakings due to over customization.
An organization doesn't have to take all of the above risks in their business if they choose a standard ERP which can cover the business needs. Only a standard ERP requires less customization for any type of industry. Without breaking the existing features, increasing implementation time, and without breaking the source code an ERP can adapt to your business requirements with the facilities of migrating an old business system to the new one.