This paper surveys the research on enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems’ customization, focusing on Cloud-ERP. ERP system customization refers to the actual alterations of the system on a macro level to meet a specific business organizational requirement or business process. Currently, customization of ERP systems is considered by several researchers and practitioners as a double-edged sword. Hence, ERP systems’ customization is often perceived negatively in the ERP literature or as a challenging issue that might affect the system's future updates and upgrades during its life cycle. While the ERP literature is rich, the number of studies focusing on ERP customization is relatively low, and literature within the cloud context is scarce. Thus, this article intends to bridge the research gap and highlight the area around cloud-ERP customization. Based on a systematic review of literature, our main findings show that, while customizations are viewed negatively in general, they are inevitable for some organizations and may provide a competitive advantage when representing a non-standard competitive business process. In addition, most of the current literature argues that the major Cloud-ERP providers do not provide system customization possibilities to most of their clients. And finally, the findings of this research are presented and organized via the five ERP business benefits dimensions introduced by Shang & Seddon.
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Hansen et al. (2023) studied this question.
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