Common Misconceptions about Customized ERP Software

Today there are so many software tools available in the market – both proprietary and open source -that offer you with customizations as per your business requirements. There are many people who argue that development of a customized ERP software is quite costly as compared to the off-the-shelf ERP or plain vanilla ERP implementations. This argument is based on the logic that the modules and the code of the core ERP need to be modified which leads to increase in time and hence cost.

The above mentioned argument about higher costs is based on several misconceptions.

Misconception #1: Off the Shelf ERP system will have all the features that the company needs

The ERP systems sold off-the- shelf don’t have all the features that a company needs. There is always a set of features missing from the off-the-shelf products leading to a feature gap.

Misconception #2:  Off-the-Shelf ERP products do not need any customization

The feature gaps in off-the-shelf ERP products need to be filled by writing additional code or by using manual business processes. Further, business processes at different companies are always different. For example: a tire manufacturing company has different processes compared to an E-Commerce vendor. Hence any off-the-shelf ERP tool must be customized to fit the specific business requirements at a customer to make it really productive.

Misconception #3: Customizing ERP software takes long to implement

The time taken to customize an ERP software depends upon the extent of changes you want to make. For example: in the case of Odoo OpenERP Customizations, there are many ready made plug-ins and modules developed by individual contributors and partners. These library of plug-ins and modules drastically reduces the time taken to customize ERP.

Misconception #4: Customization is Expensive

Customization need not be expensive.  Custom ERP implementation companies have come up with cost-efficient delivery models. For example: Bista Solutions has a development center in India which is a low-cost nation. Using such delivery models, customization of ERP falls well within affordable budgets. Secondly compared to proprietary licensed ERP tools, open source ERP such as Odoo Open ERP comes almost free of cost (you pay for support warranties). Hence you end up saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in total cost of ownership (TCO)

If you’re interested in implementing or customizing an ERP system, get in touch. Bista Solution has over a decade of experience implementing business solutions for hundreds of companies.