{"id":3240,"date":"2012-09-17T07:00:37","date_gmt":"2012-09-17T15:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=3240"},"modified":"2012-09-17T07:00:37","modified_gmt":"2012-09-17T15:00:37","slug":"enterprise-software-configuration-versus-customization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/enterprise-software-configuration-versus-customization\/","title":{"rendered":"Enterprise Software: Configuration Versus Customization"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a classic case of a mega-ERP project gone wrong from a decade ago,\u00a0Peter Solvik<\/a>, former CIO at\u00a0Cisco, described the problem<\/a> of too much customization as too much spaghetti. \u00a0Enterprise software customization projects have over the years become notorious because of their complexity, costs, and overrun schedules. \u00a0It used to be that implementing ERP, CRM, HR, supply chain management and almost any enterprise application required extensive amounts of \u00a0software customization to be successful.<\/p>\n

Those days are gone now. \u00a0Configuration is winning mindshare. \u00a0The move towards configuration has been aided by the fact that today’s software is more flexible than ever before. \u00a0SaaS vendors are particularly leading the way. \u00a0The ability to customize SaaS software is typically either limited or not possible at all. \u00a0But on the other hand, SaaS software is also tends to be highly configurable, so customizations aren’t needed as frequently.<\/p>\n

Jannik Bausager<\/a>, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft, said that\u00a0“configuration is hot right now because, in going to the cloud, there are different customer expectations in terms of being able to move to the latest version quickly.”<\/p>\n

The general rule of thumb has become that, whenever possible, try to avoid excessive customizations. \u00a0The simpler the implementation, the lower the costs and the easier the migration path will be later on when new versions of the underlying software is released. \u00a0But that’s not to say that customizations are wrong or bad in themselves. \u00a0Often the value that customized software can bring to a project is well worth the time and effort. \u00a0But before starting any customization one should carefully look at the potential risks and ramifications involved, particularly in the area of long-term maintenance.<\/p>\n

Doug Henschen<\/a>, executive editor at InformationWeek, recently looked<\/a> at the overall trend of how businesses are balancing their use of configuration versus customization when implementing enterprise applications. \u00a0The report found that 54 percent of businesses say that “changing, upgrading or optimizing existing applications” is their most challenging task.<\/p>\n

Henschen summarized <\/a>the InformationWeek\u00a0by saying that “So when do you configure and when do you customize? … It boils down to deciding what is commoditized and what’s a differentiator for your company. If custom functionality is your key to competitive advantage, by all means customize. Otherwise, stick with configuration so you can worry less about breaking the app with each and every upgrade.”<\/p>\n

\"Digg<\/a><\/div>
\"Reddit<\/a><\/div>
\"Stumble<\/a><\/div>
\"Buzz<\/a><\/div>
\"Vote<\/a><\/div>
\"Share<\/a><\/div>
\"Bookmark<\/a><\/div>
\"Kick<\/a><\/div>
\"Shout<\/a><\/div>
\"Share<\/a><\/div>
\"Bookmark<\/a><\/div>
\"Post<\/a><\/div>
\"Google<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a classic case of a mega-ERP project gone wrong from a decade ago,\u00a0Peter Solvik, former CIO at\u00a0Cisco, described the problem of too much customization as too much spaghetti. \u00a0Enterprise software customization projects have over the years become notorious because…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enterprise-software"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}