The ERP reckoning: Decades of customization could block AI value
Information SystemsOperations
THE AI ANGLE
Exposing legacy technical debt and driving ERP de-customizationDecades of bespoke enterprise resource planning (ERP) customization have become a primary obstacle to enterprise AI adoption, as agentic AI models require standardized processes and clean data foundations rather than fragmented legacy code. While some IT leaders view moving to a 'clean core' as the necessary price of admission for AI, others view forced upgrades as vendor-driven revenue cycles and hesitate to fund wholesale de-customization. For faculty, this highlights how unaddressed technical debt in core transactional systems directly inflates implementation costs and delays modern operational AI initiatives.
THE TEACHING ANGLE
Students can debate the trade-off between preserving highly customized business processes that offer unique operational differentiation and adopting standard ERP cores required to deploy scalable AI agents.Read the original at cio.com Generate teaching or study materials
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