ERP Customizations
ERP Customizations
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With the revolution of digital transformation and the significant expansion of business, (ERP Systems) have become one of the essential tools in enterprises and companies to manage their various operations and activities efficiently and effectively.
Enterprise Resource Planning’s (ERP) solutions offer a wide range of applications and integrated software modules that enable them to manage enterprise operations and various business functions such as:
- Finance and Accounting
- Human Resources (HR)
- Supply Chain and Inventory Management
- Projects Management (PMS)
- Tasks Management
- …etc.
Although companies providing ERP solutions build their systems based on technical studies and extensive analysis, seek to design and equip their systems according to recognised standards and work on developing their systems continuously to keep pace with customers’ requirements and to meet their needs to reach ready-made systems to be marketed and sold so that their customers can apply those systems and work on them directly, every enterprise or company- be that small, medium or large in size – has extraordinary and unique requirements and processes that may not be fully addressed through the ERP’s ready solutions system. Hence, the enterprise providing the system must intervene and prepare for the system and execute appropriate customisation to meet the client’s specific needs, which is what ERP customisation means.
The processes for customising ERP systems to meet specific client needs include:
- Modifying existing functionality in the ERP system.
- Creating new jobs to meet specific requirements.
Whether the customisation carried out by the company providing the system is limited to modifying the existing system functions or in an expanded manner that extends to the creation and addition of new functions to the system, the (ERP) system customisation processes provide many advantages; the most important of which are the following:
- Meeting Unique Requirements: ERP system customisations help meet unique requirements not addressed by off-the-shelf ERP solutions.
- Improving Productivity: Customization processes simplify system operations and improve productivity by saving time and effort before customisation processes in work procedures, preparing reports, etc.
- Improving Data Accuracy: By understanding document cycles and adjusting data flow due to system customisations, system operators and decision-makers in different departments can view and track data in an easier, more accurate, and consistent manner.
- Cost Savings: Systems companies’ customisations help their customers eliminate the need for manual processes and reduce errors.
In view of the benefits and advantages of resource planning systems allocation processes, there are basic steps that the company adheres to before starting any allocation for the client, and among the most important of these steps are the following:
- Full study of customer requirements.
- Scientific analysis of all requirements.
- Determining what requirements are covered by the current system.
- Determining the requirements that do not exist in the current system and need to be modified.
- Determining the requirements that do not exist in the current system and need to be created and added.
- Starting to implement the customisation.
- Customization testing and approval.
Examples of customising ERP systems
The customisation processes for systems differ according to some factors. The first is the customer’s activity, the second is the complexity of the work, and the third is the branching of document rotors. For example, the most crucial customisation processes are listed below.
- Custom Reports: Customized Reports
The reports in any resource planning system are the general picture of the system outputs that the customer deals with as the final summary of each activity. Therefore, the quality and strength of the reports in terms of meeting and covering all activity results is the cornerstone of whether or not the customer is satisfied with the system. If there are reports that are not available in the standard and ready-made ERP system, the system provider company must make the required allocation of these reports and enhance the standard reports already in the system to achieve customer satisfaction and improve confidence in the system. - Integration: Customized Integration
Since resource planning systems are applicable, compatible, and appropriate for various industrial, commercial, service, and other sectors in the public or private sectors, it is necessary that these systems be customisable and integrated with other systems either by linking databases or importing and exporting data in different formats or by relying on API techniques, so that they can be integrated with other systems that may have already been with the customer forced to stay on them for one or more reasons and cannot be dispensed with. Such systems include Call centre systems, e-commerce or logistical systems for exchanging data and information. - Customised workflow:
Some activities may require customisation of ERP workflows to reflect their processes more appropriately to the activity and business processes. - User interface customisation: Customized User Interfaces
Customising the user interface is a modification in the design of the interfaces and screens that the end user works on, and it may be one of the needs of some customers to improve the look and feel of the ERP system to make it easier and smoother to use. - Customised Data Structure:
Companies may require modification or addition of spreadsheets in the ERP system to obtain specific data unavailable in the standard solution. - Custom Modules:
This customisation is rare, given that most ERP systems are fully modular. Still, some customers with particular requirements to cover special and unique activities require the addition of new modules or functions to meet those requirements.
ERP customisations effectively win customer satisfaction from various sectors by meeting their unique requirements and achieving their goals. However, it is essential to ensure that the customisation is done in a way that does not endanger the integrity and stability of the ERP system. It is also important for companies and organisations to ensure that the contract is with an ERP system provider with long experience to ensure that the required customisation is carried out through systematic planning and effective implementation in terms of efficiency, reliability and cost.
