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Technology: Customizations Lead to Lock-in
IDC is reporting that many customers invest a significant number of dollars to get their ERP systems up and running. And the process of getting up and running usually involves significant software customization.
The drawback of highly customized systems are that they often lock the customer into a particular version of the software. Moving to a newer version of the software usually requires that all previous customizations be examined and updated to run in the newer environment, a process that can be extremely expensive. Because of the cost to upgrade, sometimes customers wait years before they take the plunge to upgrade the software and update their customizations.
IDC program director Bo Lykkegaard reports that “The customer with an aging, customized ERP version is not able to take advantage of new modules or other innovations from their vendor.”
Buyers of enterprise software would be much better off if they minimize as much as possible the amount of customizations that they enter into. That way they are well positioned to take advantage of bug fixes and new features quickly when they become available in later releases of the software.