What is the best way to balance ERP system standardization and customization?

ERP standardization has below benifit 1. Work as per global standards 2. Point 1 results adhere to audit standards 3. Point 3 results increase credibility of company in market 4. It benifits your company to increase in different investments

Using the ERP in its standard form has the benefit of speeding up the version update processes. Reducing time and cost in these projects. The standard version is already thoroughly tested and validated from the factory, avoiding future discoveries of errors generated in updates due to few tests.

1. Need to change current structure which might not as per global standards 2. Invest money 3. Need good monitoring during implementation from Customer side

Hybrid ERP tools and component systems allow for standardization features in addition to the ability to customize as necessary. Extensibility is a consideration as business needs and growth requires flexibility. Observability dashboards can help an organization monitor new entities, manage alerts and enable proper handling of system anomalies.

For addressing country specific processes or legal steps such as those in HRMS and Finance, customisation is vital. This way the ERP of the organisation is compliant with the laws of the sector & country it is being used in.

Customisation must prove to bring some extra significant value to the process or solution . “Thats how we do things” is not a proof of value. I often don’t see a proper business justification or proper IT approval process before taking a new customizations. And the result is strain on IT resources, lack of focus and unfortunately not happier users.

Customisation also increases dependency on the implementation partner and the people involved who brought about the customisation. Also in the long run, upgrading a customised ERP may prove to be a challenge.

Each time an update is required, it is necessary to test the entire process to ensure that everything remains functional. On the other hand, customizations allow adherence and security to the business process. The secret to success is balance, personalizing only what is necessary, leaving aside what is just a desire.

In my experience, having someone with an integrated view of the ERP and business as an approver of all change requests helps to keep the system consistent, avoiding impacts on other modules, which ends up happening when the manager of a certain module requests a change without pay attention to the impact on other ERP modules. This way, only what is strictly necessary is customized.

What I have seen in some companies is that each user requests a change, it is implemented without much integrated analysis and then no one wants to take responsibility for the entire work, as the system becomes a FRANKEINSTEIN. Then a brilliant idea comes up to change the system, which has a very high value compared to having someone with knowledge of the ERP and business processes centrally evaluating and approving change requests.

The main benefit of any ERP system is introducing best practise methods, standardising workflows thus allowing accurate measurement of performance. However, most ERP systems are slow do adapt or change. The whole purpose of standardisation is to identify a current state and continually improve towards an ideal future state. Customisation is required to ensure the system evolves with the business operation. Unfortunately customisation today is overpriced and very slow to roll out hence companies are trapped in their current state.

Open source solutions exist, therefore mitigating cost prohibitive solutions. A thorough audit of an enterprise’s data systems can assess the true needs of an ERP. The true value of an ERP is realized in addressing the outcomes of a thorough vendor and system analyses.