Determining which product configurator to use is a major decision point for any business with configurable products to make. There is no correct decision. In my experience, any choice is a hard choice, and no action is also a choice. Throughout this article I will cover different approaches I have seen work in the past and how to come to those decisions.

Requirements

You first must understand your requirements.

Firstly, what systems does the configurator need to support? Many times it isn’t just the ERP that needs to update or view configuration… portals, EDI, PIM, and order management systems also need that configuration. Companies do not want to maintain the product configuration in multiple systems. That tends to push them toward using a single configurator supporting all systems. That configurator could be built inside the ERP or could be an external purpose-built product configuration software.

I’m not going to deep dive into more advanced product configurator features, like business rules, flexibility, pricing and discounts, 3D imaging, parametric modeling formulas, integration approach, building as-configured BOMs, and promise date calculations. You can determine your needs on your own. Compare your requirements against your future ERP, for example Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. Consider prioritizing your requirements using MoSCoW: must have, should have, could have, and won’t have. Now you have a scorecard to evaluate possible approaches. Beyond this way of determining the ideal path forward to support business objectives, consider accounting for cost, risk, and time to implement.

Some Approaches

With scorecard in hand, it is time to evaluate product configurators. Your existing configurator may be an option, or might be obsolete. Consider whether you could keep your existing product configurator while still going to Dynamics 365. This would require interfacing the configurator to Dynamics 365; that integration may or may not already exist. Reflect on whether your team has the expertise to effectively implement and utilize a complex ERP with a configurator, or if it would be better to stick with what you know.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management has a product configurator built into it, that allows for building constraints using Optimization Modeling Language (OML). Recently Microsoft has expanded on advanced pricing functionality, which now enables pricing by product and customer attribute, in addition to other things. The combination of the two may enable you to adopt what comes with D365 instead of considering another system.

See more: Product configuration overview – Supply Chain Management | Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Learn

Should you find yourself in the place where you want to evaluate other options, keep that scorecard handy and reach out to several product configurator software vendors. I encourage you to explore whether there is a product configurator specific to your industry (use your network or conferences). Be sure to ask for a demo and make a decision from there.

Larger Decision at Play

Consider that there is a larger strategic decision to make:

a) Are you a company that wants to adopt a platform fully to simply management and take advantage of synergies?

b) or a company that wants to adopt best in class software for each portion of the business?

Through my career talking with hundreds of manufacturing companies, I have found that adopting Microsoft as a platform truly unlocks unrealized and unrecognized value. In my opinion, Microsoft is leading the AI race, but at least everyone would agree that Microsoft is at the front of the race. Every business application in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 suite takes advantage of the data from the others, and integrates in a way that you do not have to babysit. It is that foundation of centralized capability and data that enables quick and significant value unlocked by AI, without having to march through a complex sea of data across multiple platforms when using a different approach.

Sometimes too, a hybrid approach is beneficial. Something like common at the core and agile at the edge. In other words, for manufacturers and distributors, accounting and procurement are probably areas that are not unique to the business, however product engineering (R&D) and project delivery can vary significantly between business units and geographies and are areas where organizations may consider purchasing a best-in-class application. That however has to be justified because of the additional required interfaces, skills, and support when expanding beyond the corporate platform.

Regardless

Regardless of whether you prefer a best-in-class or best-of-breed strategy, changing product configurators is a great opportunity to rationalize or simplify your existing product structure. For example you might remove options that are hard to fulfil, or rarely chosen. Perhaps a simpler product model would enable it to fit into an existing software you own, or into your future ERP. A simpler product model can make your products easier to purchase and understand for your customers, not just make it easier on you to maintain and price. Perhaps there are other ways to prepare your product model and product strategy for a new solution.

In the end this decision can be hard to make, because all roads can be difficult, all products are not equal. Have you had to make this decision? What were your deciding factors?

I enjoy learning from others and would love to have a conversation with you if you are going through this decision!

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