Mitigating Digital Debt in Packaged Enterprise System Customization

Packaged enterprise systems (PESs) are built with an assumption that they support best processes. Nevertheless, PESs often require some modifications (i.e., customizations or configurations) to ensure they fit an organization’s needs, data structures, information infrastructure, and related processes. These modifications are resource-consuming and may generate significant costs over a system’s lifetime, eventually generating digital debt that leads to a high risk of system failure. As such, organizations aim to modify systems as little as possible as the first measure to mitigate such risk. In this paper, we study how organizations minimize PES customization. We conducted a case study on the customization of a commercial PES in the Nordic region. We interviewed 16 business representatives and consultants involved in implementing and operating the enterprise asset management (EAM) system in their respective organizations. They all stated that modification or "customization is not good in long term" and presented their practices to keep customization low. Although these are not necessarily "best practices," they nevertheless provide insight into these professionals’ approaches to minimize lifetime costs. To minimize PES customization, attention should be devoted to new product evaluation, project planning, and project execution. Different factors, such as business process actors’ resistance to change, ineffective change management, and the missing engagement of all business units, increase the amount of customization.