Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Current state
A
End state
A
Customization
B
B1
C
C
D
All requirements are delta requirements
.
Figure 10.1
Customization requirements
detailed requirements. The customer knows the requirements but not the
product. Each tries to reduce the risk associated with dealing in an
environment of imperfect information. The buyer can reduce his or her
risk by engaging an expert consultant who is an expert on the OTS
product. The seller can improve his case by getting the buyer to invest
in drawing clear requirements. Hopefully, this improves the situation.
There could be other approaches. The buyer might take an opportunistic
approach and allow the features in the package to drive the requirements.
This, at times, makes a lot of economic sense. For certain organizations,
it may be cheaper to change their business processes to fit the package
rather than fit the package to their environment. It may not only be
cheaper, but also it may turn out better, especially if the business processes
in themselves are not the “best practices.”
Customization Facilities
Customization facilities vary from package to package and go from very
basic facilities to advanced development and integration environments.
Some products provide such powerful customization facilities that users,
for all practical purposes, can ignore the base product and create appli-
cations that are far removed from the domain. For example, one can build
an Event Management module using customization tools that came with
a CRM (customer relationship management) package, incorporating new
screens, reports, and business logic. In such cases, the base product is
being used as a development environment. Such customization poses less
of a problem for the customer because future versions of the base product
would, if backward compatible, protect earlier customizations. They could
pose more problems for vendors, in case major structural revisions are
made where such off-domain customization may not be part of the new
design. Furthermore, the vendor could run into opposition if, due to
acquisitions or mergers, they want to replace installations of Product A
