Customize your business operations with ERP software customization. Enjoy streamlined workflows, real-time data, and a seamless solution for unique needs. Elevate with precision and flexibility!
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software plays a central role in streamlining your business operations. From product development planning to human resource management to supply chain management, you can integrate your company's core strengths into a centralized system and visualize data to inform and support your decision.
Customized or customized ERP software is sometimes capable of solving problems that off-the-shelf software cannot, given the particularities of each organization. You can incorporate features unique to your business and how it works.
Personalization is the answer for some organizations, but not all. Want to know if it's right for you? Here are some important pros and cons to consider.
The advantages of customizing your ERP
Let's look at the positive side first.
You have absolute control over your product
Customization can solve this by leveraging only the features that are important to your organization and industry and how it works. You'll be able to research your leadership team and departments to determine the best components to maximize company-wide success.
You will achieve flexibility
These days, flexibility is key. When you partner with a custom ERP software development team, they will work with you to build software that can be tweaked according to what you want. If your company changes, your developer will be able to adjust the software to accommodate new demands and different times. This is more difficult with standard software.
You will gain a competitive advantage
Since no standard ERP system can completely solve all of your organization's challenges, customizing your software is often the answer. After all, the ultimate goal is to achieve a competitive advantage in your industry, and if you don't put in the effort to create a system that will allow you to have a clearer, bigger picture and see all the data surrounding your processes, then you'll be missing out. Meanwhile, if your competitors are using ERP software that capitalizes on their potential and helps them achieve their goals, you could be left behind.
You can scale and change your ERP system when your needs change
Companies grow all the time. As you hire new employees and implement new processes and procedures within your organization, you need a company-wide system that grows with you. If you use a customized approach, you can be confident that your software development team will scale solutions to meet you and your team where you are, adjusting the software accordingly to accommodate new users, services, and demands. Even the design and infrastructure can be changed to change the ERP system as your needs grow and evolve.
You will own your software
When you use routine, off-the-shelf software, the license belongs to the software company. If you are using a SaaS model, for example, you will likely pay a subscription fee to use the ERP system. But when you have a platform created especially for you, the software and its license will belong to you. You will not have to continually pay for the service to use it in your organization. This also means that you can continue to tweak and add new features to further customize the software.
The Cons of ERP Customization
The other side of the coin.
There is a risk of “excessive personalization”
Personalization is all well and good, but there is such a thing as too much. Sometimes companies get so involved in adding custom features that the software becomes unrecognizable and no longer achieves the goals it set out to achieve. This may force you to discard the solution completely as it may no longer serve its purpose.
This doesn't mean you should only rely on off-the-shelf software, but it does mean you need to be careful when going down the customization rabbit hole. Set goals and once achieved, avoid the temptation to keep adding unnecessary features.
You may miss key features of out-of-the-box software
Likewise, if you are so focused on customizing your product, you may ignore the key features of your existing software and obscure them with unnecessary features. It can also be difficult to install regular updates and upgrades, which are often necessary to keep the platform running smoothly. This may interfere with the basic functionality of the software.
You could introduce bugs
Can be expensive
It stands to reason that adding more features to an existing product will be more expensive than simply using the software as it came. Generally speaking, the extent to which you choose to customize your ERP software will correlate with the fee you pay. This means if you want extensive customization and an amalgamation of new features, it could be priced high. Of course, a developer worth their salt will work with the company to ensure they get what they pay for.
Build your ERP software with BairesDev
Developing a Customized ERP with BairesDev: Step by Step
Requirements gathering and planning. During this phase, we meet with you to understand your needs, objectives, niche market, values, current IT infrastructure and overall strategy. With all this information, our engineers can start planning the ERP, from choosing the right technology stack to designing the system's key features.
- Design and prototyping. After agreeing on our plan, our designers, software architects and developers transform your requirements and specifications into product designs. During this phase, we not only consider the functionality of the ERP, but also its appearance and the entire user experience. All of this comes to life in a prototype where you can check if we are on the right track.
- ERP development. With your approval of the prototype, we move on to backend and frontend development. Back-end engineers will work on the core of the ERP (basic functionality, databases, internal logic), while front-end developers will focus on everything users will interact with.
- Quality control and testing. Depending on the methodology agreed upon at the beginning of the project, this may be a separate step or an ongoing effort conducted throughout development. Either way, our QA engineers and testers work tirelessly with your ERP to identify bugs and issues that could hamper performance and functionality. The goal? To ensure your ERP works as planned.
- Production and Maintenance. Once we arrive at a high-quality ERP, we deploy it to production, integrate it into your infrastructure, and release it to end users. After that, we monitor its usage to deal with potential bugs that appear after launch. We also work with you to expand the ERP functionality and update it whenever necessary.
Things we pay extra attention to
- Inside the ERP An ERP is only as good as its core functionality. That's why we focus on developing the highest-performing code to meet your business's most pressing needs and requirements. We focus on the key problems you are trying to solve and work tirelessly to build a system that solves them efficiently and effectively. Additionally, we always develop ERPs so that they are easy to scale later to ensure they can grow with your business.
- Functionality As the main benefit of implementing an ERP lies in automation and governance, it is easy to forget that the system's functionality must also be aligned with your operational needs and objectives. That's why we develop relevant functionality based on the information we collect in the requirements and planning phase. Therefore, our goal is to enhance your current processes while at the same time paving the way for reinvented workflows to increase your productivity and improve your efficiency.
- Must-Have Capabilities When creating an ERP, it's easy to be tempted by the many things you can do with it. Truth be told, targeting all of them at once is impractical (and nearly impossible). That's why we always start to understand who you are and where you want to go. Using this data, we can better project which features are critical and which are nice. Of course, we always bridge the gap between the two, crafting a roadmap through which you can build the latter on the former.
ERP System
SAP ERP Solutions
SAP is one of the best-known ERP providers in the world, offering different modules and subscription-based solutions for various industries, all leveraging cloud resources. As a cutting-edge alternative, SAP guarantees scalability, energy inside and outside the facilities and countless resources. That's why integrating SAP ERP solutions into your business is such a smart choice – it can take you to the next level.
Oracle ERP Cloud Solutions
Our ERP development team can help you implement Oracle's cloud-based solutions quickly and smoothly. We can also help you with upgrades, support, custom Oracle ERP development, and even special projects that have Oracle solutions at their core.
ERP for HR
As it is a system capable of serving an entire company, you might think that an ERP is only worth it if you want an extensive management system. However, you can implement an ERP in your organization to boost a particular department. You can do this with practically any area of the company that has to deal with large volumes of data, but few can benefit from an ERP as much as the HR department.
ERP for Financial Management
ERP implementation can also benefit finance teams as it helps collect reliable data for financial planning and forecasting. Using an ERP allows you to streamline your financial processes, saving time and money. You can use it to configure actual data into financial planning models, automatically create forecasts, and provide financial coaching.
common questions
What is ERP software development?
ERP software development is the process by which a software development team builds an ERP system for any company. An ERP is a complex system that handles the management of many business processes in a company, which means it works as a kind of mediator between the main processes.
The main objective of an ERP is to ensure adequate data collection, process governance and automation. Therefore, the development team needs to have the experience and know-how necessary to build a complex software system that is at the heart of a company with multiple areas and teams working together in real time.
How is ERP developed?
The process of developing an ERP system is not much different from a normal software development process. This means that an ERP is developed following basic development stages, including the requirements gathering and planning, design, development, testing and deployment stages.
Naturally, a system as complex as an ERP introduces some nuances into the development work. This often means paying attention to the complex core functionalities and seamless integration of the ERP system with the larger, equally complex infrastructure that the system will sit on.
What are some examples of ERP software?
The demand for ERPs has grown increasingly since the 90s, which means that there are many ERP solutions available on the market. Probably the best known include Oracle solutions (such as JD Edwards and ERP Cloud), SAP systems (such as S/4 HANA and Business One), and Microsoft applications (such as Dynamics GP and Dynamics NAV). They are all good choices, but to choose one correctly it is essential to consider some factors, such as company size, departments that will use it, prices, among others.
What is the role of an ERP developer?
An ERP developer is a software engineer who develops and maintains Enterprise Resource Development (ERP) systems. This way, this professional builds the solution himself, but also works with it to develop new reporting features, customize its components, adjust its interface and update it. ERP developers are highly analytical and have extensive experience working with enterprise database systems.
What are some of the benefits and disadvantages of ERP?
Companies in today's business landscape need to be able to collect and analyze data to derive actionable insights from it. So, a growing number of companies turn to ERP solutions to do just that. This is because ERP software can offer the following benefits:
- Simplifies workflows and automates operations
- Provides financial planning support
- Improves data accessibility and security
- Improves communication between teams at an enterprise level
As beneficial as it is, an ERP has its drawbacks. Some of the most important include:
- Expensive to build and maintain
- Challenging to implement
- Can create even more complexity in an already complex environment
Source: BairesDev
