Case study
Cutting ERP vendor spend by bringing work in-house
From my work leading IT at a mid-sized manufacturer. Names are left out on purpose.
Context
The ERP vendor did all of the customization work and charged the company for every piece of it. Department and business leaders had good ideas, but the vendor's cost and schedule were a bottleneck.
My role
I built the internal framework for custom development and reporting, and managed the internal team. That covered how we gather requirements, brainstorm, prototype, manage risk, follow code practices and keep things secure. I built several of the ERP integrations myself as business add-ons, and trained the development team and staff on the new tools.
Approach
We moved all custom development in-house and used AI-assisted development to make that practical, so ideas from the business no longer waited on an outside schedule.
Tools
AI-assisted development (Claude Code, Microsoft Copilot), Git, SQL.
Result
Yearly ERP vendor spend went from $42K in 2023 to $25K in both 2024 and 2025, and to about $18K in 2026 (the 2026 figure is an estimate).
About $27K a year of vendor-led custom development was eliminated.
Lessons
- Do not underestimate your internal capabilities. Use the resources you already have, and build collaborative structures for turning ideas into projects that improve the business.
- Look hard at what is limiting your growth, and review your relationships with outside parties whose interests may not always match your own.