When, as a company, you are ready for new software to support business processes, you start orienting yourself in the software market. A question that always comes up in this selection process is:
Do I go for customization or do I go for standard software?
If you opt for the former, you start looking for a party that can create this software for you. This is usually a long process with many hurdles and challenges, but in the end, apart from possible technical limitations, you get exactly what you want. That there are some drawbacks to this goes without saying. To name a few:
- The software partner does not know your industry, this requires a lot of consultation to arrive at the right solution.
- You have to maintain the software yourself, a labor-intensive and therefore costly activity.
- Knowledge of the software must be properly secured, something that is still sometimes overlooked and only surfaces when certain employees leave the company.
- Future developments in the market require adjustments to the software, which means you enter a long and often laborious development process each time.
If standard software is chosen, then based on the package of requirements and wishes, a choice will be made from already existing standard solutions. Practice shows, however, that this set of requirements is never a standard list. Precisely not. It is a list of requirements grafted onto the specific processes of THIS company operating in this specific industry.
Experience therefore shows that if a standard solution already exists that fits 95% to this established set of industry-specific requirements and wishes you can no longer really speak of standard software. You have actually found a supplier that offers a solution for your industry-specific questions. In fact, you can conclude that:
- The supplier in question knows the specific industry well and therefore it is easier to discuss certain functionalities.
- You have found a vendor who will maintain the software and ensure that it grows with future changes in the market.
- The knowledge of the software is guaranteed by this vendor at all times.
So, because the software is made for the industry you are in, you can no longer speak of a standard product. Standard software does not exist, it is actually industry-specific customization.
Peter Gerhardt is Senior Lead Consultant Logistics at Dysel and helps customers achieve maximum results with its business software.
