Business System Consultation Center - Our Business System ColumnVol.171 2026.01.01 Takahashi Minoru

The secret to being the sole person in charge

Thank you for your interest and continued support.
This is Takahashi from the Marketing Plan Research Laboratory.


A long, long time ago, the president of a certain company came to consult with me, half in a rage.
He said, “Our costs are doubling every year; we’re being taken for a ride by the system company.”


I listened to the details.


They had purchased a packaged system from a local IT vendor,
and both during the purchase and after implementation,
"Make it fit our operations perfectly!"
and the vendor reportedly responded by making numerous customizations.


The customizations started with redesigning the menu screen (!),
and naturally included adding fields to forms and master data,
and included custom conditional branching, calculation logic, and specialized report outputs for each client,
and reportedly resulted in over 200 custom items.


As a result, the system became so complex and massive
making it difficult for other companies to understand and update,
and for all aspects of updates, modifications, and maintenance,
the client had no choice but to accept whatever price the system vendor demanded.


Referring to the situation described in * above, this president was furious, saying, “I was duped.”


--


Indeed, the more a system is customized,
the better it fits the company’s culture, rules, and workflows, and the easier it becomes to use.
However, at the same time, the system becomes
At other system development firms, it tends to become a complex and convoluted mess that’s hard to work with.


This is a natural progression.
The more specialized the system, the fewer engineers there are who can understand it.
As a result, dependence on the original system vendor increases,
and eventually, the client loses their bargaining power as a client.


I believe there are quite a few company presidents who think,
"A good system company is one that will customize anything to suit our company!"
However, if taken too far,
is tantamount to creating the very disadvantages mentioned earlier.


From the perspective of pricing power,
a situation where “business operations inevitably grind to a halt if the system goes down”
carries the same risks as mentioned earlier.


If you become too complacent with customization,
employees lose the resolve to return to analog operations without the system.
This leads to a situation where the loss of the system is equivalent to the company grinding to a halt.


This means the company itself becomes a hostage,
leaving it with no choice but to do whatever the system vendor says—making it an easy target?
Salespeople sense this situation
and present aggressive pricing to customers whose dependence has grown.


*While aggressive pricing or price hike demands
are not necessarily "rip-offs" across the board.
For companies, systems they heavily rely on
often involve higher costs for the system provider as well.


--


・We automated everything simply because it was convenient
・Manual procedures were eliminated in the name of efficiency
・Eliminated paper forms and Excel spreadsheets to cut costs
・Making repeated minor adjustments to the appearance and usability because it was "hard to use"


Each of the above decisions may seem like the right call.
However, when viewed as a whole,
excessive customization increases dependence on the system
and may be eroding the company’s bargaining power and resolve.


While insisting on your “whims” may make things more convenient,
it also makes it harder to break away from the system vendor.


When implementing a system or requesting customizations,
we recommend considering the following points:
・Are there ways to use existing tools as substitutes or avoid implementing the system?
・How will operations continue if this system goes down?
・Is it possible or easy to switch to another provider, and do you have the resolve to do so?


--


In this consultation,
Prioritizing convenience over freedom,
prioritizing efficiency over options,
or over-customizing the system and losing your options,
I felt it would be best to select a system that avoids these pitfalls.
I hope you find this helpful.


That's all, Thank you for reading.

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