The Hidden Growth Killer in B2B Software: When Customisation Becomes a Liability

By Mark Ward

Building on Rich Mironov's "Customisation Debt" article (October 2024), which brilliantly identifies how B2B software companies trade short-term deals for long-term scalability, a deeper examination reveals implications far beyond engineering constraints.

While Mironov focuses primarily on engineering and product management implications, the impact of customisation debt extends throughout the entire B2B growth engine. His observation that "special" customer requirements arrive weekly, not yearly, hints at a deeper structural problem in how B2B companies approach growth.

The Pattern Across B2B Models

Different business models face unique customisation pressures. SaaS companies grapple with custom APIs, non-standard pricing tiers, and bespoke reporting systems. Professional services organisations struggle with client-specific methodologies and unique delivery structures. Enterprise software providers face legacy version support demands and modified core functionality requests.

Beyond Engineering: The Full Impact

Customer success teams find themselves managing increasingly complex implementations, each requiring specialised knowledge that becomes harder to transfer and maintain. Support teams struggle with diverse configurations, while onboarding processes become increasingly convoluted. The sales organisation often begins relying on customisation as a crutch, leading to fuzzy value propositions and complicated deal qualification processes.

The commercial model starts showing strain through eroding pricing power and escalating cost-to-serve. Revenue recognition becomes complex, and margin sustainability faces mounting challenges. What starts as "just one more customisation" evolves into a systemic threat to business scalability.

The Human Cost

Perhaps most critically, customisation debt creates deep organisational fissures. Sales and Engineering, once collaborative partners, find themselves in increasingly adversarial positions. Product teams feel undermined by constant exceptions, while Engineering loses faith in commercial leadership. Sales teams lose confidence in product strategy, and former collaborators become antagonists.

The morale impact runs deep. Engineers see their strategic work constantly interrupted by customisation demands. Sales teams feel trapped between customer expectations and internal resistance. Product managers watch their roadmaps dissolve under the weight of special requests. Support teams struggle with exponentially growing complexity. Career satisfaction declines across functions.

This erosion of organisational cohesion manifests in subtle but devastating ways. An "us versus them" mentality emerges. Blame culture develops. Cross-functional collaboration suffers. Innovation enthusiasm wanes. Talent retention becomes challenging.

Building Sustainable Growth

Successful B2B companies demonstrate clear product boundaries with well-defined core capabilities and standardised integration points. They build scalable commercial models with consistent value metrics and clear upgrade paths. Their implementation approaches follow documented best practices and support scalable customer success.

The Path Forward

Protecting both the business and its people requires systematic approaches. Companies need clear boundary systems with documented customisation policies and transparent escalation processes. Recognition frameworks must acknowledge the true workload impact of customisation and link sustainable practices to career growth and financial rewards.

Cultural safeguards become crucial. Cross-functional understanding programmes, shared success metrics, and united leadership messaging help maintain organisational cohesion. Protected innovation time ensures teams can focus on strategic advancement rather than constant firefighting.

To protect both from the 'moral' burden of customisation demands, companies must set clear boundaries that empower staff to decline unsustainable requests, AND ensure transparent workload recognition that is linked to career growth and financial reward. Otherwise, the wheels eventually fall off the bus.

The success of B2B growth strategies depends not just on managing technical customisation debt, but on protecting the human capital that drives innovation and growth. Companies must build frameworks that empower teams to maintain sustainable growth practices while preserving the cross-functional relationships crucial to long-term success.

By recognising both the technical and human costs of customisation debt, organisations can build more resilient growth engines that protect both their technology and their talent. The challenge for B2B leadership is clear: build growth architectures that create customer value through scalable solutions while protecting the organisational fabric that makes innovation possible.

The key is acknowledging that sustainable growth comes from building robust, repeatable business models rather than collecting a portfolio of unique customer implementations. This requires careful balance between customer responsiveness and organisational scalability, supported by frameworks that protect both the business and its people from the corrosive effects of unchecked customisation.

Resources:

‘Customization Debt’ (Rich Mironov, October 2024): https://www.mironov.com/customization-debt/