Question

Some AIS systems come largely prepackaged, but others require a lot of customized settings. How does that fact impact the decision?

Answer 1

Impact the decision depends upon nature of organization if its small in a nature then smaller system is usefully to install in such organization.

If the nature of organization is large or medium then largely prepackaged system is useful.

In case of largely organization they develop their own AIS system as per there requirements and it also fulfill the need of entire organization.

These are disused in four parts with pros and cons.           

Off-the-Shelf Software

Pros

§  Lower up-front cost

§  Feature rich

§  May meet most of your business needs

§  Support is often included or can be added with a maintenance contract

§  User communities across the internet and forums provides self-help support

§  Quick to deploy

§  All design, development, QA/testing is handled by vendor

Cons

§  May come with upgrade costs, licensing fees, or per-seat costs

§  Will likely not meet all business needs

§  May include features and functions that are not wanted

§  You may have to change business processes to match the software functionality

§  Will be variably out-of-sync with your business vernacular

§  May include security or technical solutions that do not conform to internal business guidelines

§  May have infrastructure/platform requirements that your business cannot support, or can with additional cost

§  High customization costs, or impossible to customize

§  Feature requests will likely go unheard and future enhancements may not be relevant to your business

§  Obsolescence is possible. Slow to evolve with your business or industry, so your business may need to keep processes matching the software, change software in the future, or introduce additional systems to bridge between software and future processes

Fully Customized Software

Pros

§  You can start with the core-essentials and add features and functions later at any time

§  Solution tailored to match business needs, processes, and security requirements

§  Easier to orientate staff to the software, because it follows your business practices and vernacular

§  Can be developed using a software language and infrastructure/platform matching your business needs vs. those of a ‘mass market’ nature

§  Possible integration with legacy and additional systems

§  You own the software

§  Possible competitive advantage

§  Direct vendor support Unlimited options ultimately provides for an extensible, evolving solution that can stay current with your business

§  No obsolescence and investment in updates and enhancements is 100% controlled

§  Changes can be made quickly

§  Often without any additional licensing fees

Cons

§  High upfront costs

§  Changes and features requests may be billable

§  Requires developer sources (with inherited risks)

§  Requires developer communication during the software development cycle: requirements, design, development, QA/testing, and training will require business involvement

§  No user community to provide self-help (but direct relationship with vendor negates need for this)

Off-the-Shelf…with a Twist

Pros

§  Lower up-front cost

§  Feature rich

§  May meet most of your business needs with customizable options to refine further

Cons

§  Customized boxed solution would have less community support and potentially none from the original vendor

§  Customization is typically quite a bit more expensive than with a more traditional customized software solution

§  Upgrading through the original software company may no longer be possible

§  May come with upgrade costs, licensing fees, or per-seat costs

§  May be variably out-of-sync with your business vernacular

§  May include security or technical solutions that do not conform to internal business guidelines

§  May have infrastructure/platform requirements that your business cannot support, or can with additional cost

§  Missing features and functions that your business needs may not be possible to add through customization, necessitating additional software or solutions from

Customized Software with Off-the-Shelf Components

Pros

§  Leveraging pre-existing libraries, frameworks, reports, forms, and functionality can help reduce upfront costs

§  You can start with the core-essentials and add features and functions later at any time

§  Solution tailored to match business needs, processes, and security requirements

§  Easier to orientate staff to the software, because it follows your business practices and vernacular

§  Can be developed using a software language and infrastructure/platform matching your business needs vs. those of a ‘mass market’ nature

§  Possible integration with legacy and additional systems

§  You own the software

§  Possible competitive advantage

§  Direct vendor support Unlimited options ultimately provides for an extensible, evolving solution that can stay current with your business

§  No obsolescence and investment in updates and enhancements is 100% controlled

§  Changes can be made quickly

§  Often without any additional licensing fees

Cons

§  High upfront costs

§  Changes and features requests may be billable

§  Requires developer sources (with inherited risks)

§  Requires developer communication during the software development cycle: requirements, design, development, QA/testing, and training will require business involvement

§  No user community to provide self-help (but direct relationship with vendor negates need for this)

§  Be careful of trying to get a square peg into a round hole: if the base solution is not a good fit for your business needs, then you may be trying to over customize pre-existing tools. Leverage less – or none – of the preexisting software.

Impact our decision depends on nature of organisation and number of transactions and size of business depends upon what kind of utility they want in there organisation.