The honest answer is that most companies asking for a custom CRM or ERP should not build one.

If eighty per cent of what you need already exists in Dynamics, Odoo or NetSuite, configuring one of them beats a ground-up build on cost, time and the decade of maintenance nobody budgets for. We publish that argument in full, against our own short-term interest, because a client who builds the wrong thing does not come back.

A custom build earns its keep when the workflow is the business — when the thing you do differently is exactly the thing no platform models. That was true of the B2B trade platform we built end to end for a Dubai client, where verified onboarding, bidding and inspection-to-payment settlement had no off-the-shelf equivalent.

To be exact about the limit: we have not delivered a named ERP implementation — no SAP, Oracle, Dynamics or NetSuite rollout — and you will hear that on the first call rather than after signing.

• Custom CRM/ERP or customise a platform? An honest guide
• Hyves — a B2B platform that had to be custom