Comment by manvillej
> If you're big enough you will have unique requirements that nobody else has.
the problem is when EVERY process is that way.
yes, each business has unique aspect to their processes, but when every process is heavily customized by people who have no business designing processes & applications, organizations start to hamstring their flexibility and scalability.
Its like hand-making a Ferrari with completely custom parts when what you need is a Toyota Camry. If you aren't gonna race with it, its a waste of money.
I have been working in the ERP space for over a decade. and almost ALL customers have no criteria for when to customize or keep a customization. They don't do any cost benefit analysis or any strategic planning beyond building a customized tool for the thing immediately in front of their nose.
Personally I hate software customizations. I prefer to build from scratch using proper software development tools than use whatever piss-poor customization system commercial software typically provides.
I recently sold my director on building some software from scratch rather than try to combine two commercial products together for some Frankenstiened solution. The motivation for Frankenstiening it is that we are paying for both services so we should use them (and at least one is very customizable). Only after 6 months of failing to get these systems to play together in an acceptable way, I finally asked a team member to spend 3 days building a mock up of a new app. From there it was quickly approved and we hope to roll out next month. I only wish I had done that sooner; we would have had way more time for development.