The Enterprise Application Software or EAS are an essential part of any business. These tools are required to enable the employees to perform their job roles effectively. The term enterprise is generally referred to a large-scale business or organization, technically speaking all businesses whether it is an entrepreneurship or self-employment to SMEs are also enterprises. However, when we use the term enterprise it typically refers to a business which is established and have a large scale operation which involves many business functions and employees. An enterprise define both public and private sector businesses as well as government entities/departments, and non-profit organizations with multi-regional operation. No matter what industry sector a business belongs to or what kind of products or services it offers, all such organizations have one thing in common which is a large employees base with different job roles, and a large amount of information and data flow is needed for daily operations.
All employees need information and data to effectively perform their job roles, whether it is sales, accounts, procurement, customer relation, marketing, maintenance, production or strategy and planning department, everyone needs data and information to perform their daily tasks. The enterprise application software(EAS) is just used to facilitate all that, and it make sure the data and information flow seamlessly within and outside of the organization as well.These day’s the enterprise application software(EAS) are also gaining popularity in small and medium size businesses and enterprises. Earlier only large enterprises would use such a large-scale software. The enterprise application software (EAS)allows automation of various internal processes and boost the overall efficiency of the organization. If an organization is utilizing its resources more effectively it is easier for them to satisfy their customers and employees, which is a key to long term growth. In this blog we will discuss the key features of an enterprise application software.
What are the Key Features of an Enterprise Application Software?
The main objective of an enterprise application software (EAS)is to resolve all the problems an organization could face, while leveraging the automation and digitalization to aid routine tasks and business processes. The enterprise application software(EAS) should help businesses obtain their objective and should be aligned with the organizational goals and mission. A successful business is always growing, so does its needs, a point comes when managing business processes and even the entire operation become so complex and time consuming that it could literally halt the progress and growth due to the limitation of resources and expensive operational cost. That is why the enterprise application software(EAS) are commissioned, to ensure all resources are being used at their maximum efficiency and to minimize the operational cost without affecting the output or quality of work. There are two key component of enterprise application software, one is purely based on its functionality and the other is based on its user-friendliness. Here are some key features that each enterprise application software(EAS) must have to help businesses compete in the market and to keep them flexible for innovation and growth to meet the ever-changing customer demands.
1. User Friendliness and User Experience
Businesses often neglected this aspect of the enterprise application software. The user-friendliness and user experience is extremely crucial. In the modern digital age where everyone is very accustomed to modernized, intuitive and simple user interfaces (UIs) the traditional enterprise application software(EAS) have old user interfaces, looks bulky and difficult to navigate, hence the user experience is not so good. However, each modern day enterprise application software(EAS) must offer an intuitive, modernized and user-friendly user interface (UI). If an enterprise application software(EAS) has to be as good as any modern consumer app is, they must have to utilize the modern techniques and development tools. Another important factor to consider while selecting an enterprise application software(EAS) is the ability and flexibility to customize. With all off-the-shelf solutions, this is very difficult and expensive to achieve and most of the times such software doesn’t even support customization. That is why we market experts and software professionals always suggest to opt for a tailor-made solution, rather an off-the-shelf enterprise application software(EAS) solutions.
The user-friendliness is not only achieved by simply adopting a modern looking user interface with simplified navigation and easy-to-understand functionality. In fact there are several other factors that can cost you time and effort. For example, a small feature of an enterprise application software(EAS) is the single sign-in feature, that might not look much but when your employees have to sign-in to multiple accounts or dashboards, it could take a lot of time and efforts, on top of that it is irritating, so a single sign-in could prevent this and it can significantly improve the user experience. Which also impact on their work quality and efficiency. Moreover now a day’s the smartphones have almost become the primary device to surf the internet, which means if your enterprise application software(EAS) is offering any kind of smartphone application integration, your employees can easily access to the important stuff while on the go and they can receive notification, alerts and messages with zero latency. Similarly the cloud is also becoming popular and on one hand it prevents the expense and hustle of managing the in-house data centers, and on the other hand it could take the entire enterprise application software(EAS) online and allow your employees to access to their official dashboards and data from anywhere outside the office too. Such features can significantly improve your employee’s user experience and help improving their work efficiency and satisfaction.
2. Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP)
The enterprise resource planning system is used to integrate all or important business processes in a unified data base to achieve automation, data synchronization & exchange, information flow and simplicity to maximize the efficiency of the organization. It ensures a centralized and unified data structure to ensure everyone is aligned with the organizational goals and objectives. Another biggest advantage of the ERP is that it help automating the repeated tasks, and improve employee efficiency and quality of the work. The ERP doesn’t prevent different departments to have their own tools and systems, but what it do is that it unified the data and information from all systems into a single user interface. This provides management a great advantage and they can get have higher visibility of each and everything going-on within the organization. The ERP not only help monitoring different departments and their tasks, but it also help business to easily identify the duplicate tasks and let them eliminate useless or inefficient business practices and business tools. The departments which have shared interest can also get updated information which improve efficiency, productivity, and simplicity which reflects in the outcomes and performance of the business.
3. Human Resource Management System (HRMS)
For any organization there are three main types of resources, first raw materials, infrastructure, etc. second is the finance and the third is human resource. The human resource is considered to be the backbone of any organization. Hiring skilled staff, maintain a passionate workforce and ensuring personal development of your employee are the primary tasks of the HR department. When organizations expands, their HR become more complex, with manual work or semi-automated work, the HR department won’t be able to produce desired results. That is why a Human Resource Management System (HRMS) is needed, it can significantly reduce the workload of the HR, enabling them to focus on their primary objectives and goals. It automates routine tasks and with digitalization it brings automation, which results in huge cost reduction and great improvement in the HR efficiency at the same time. Having sufficient resources and finance help businesses to draw best strategies and make long term plan, but it is the people who execute those strategies and plans. That is why managing human resource is absolutely crucial for the success and growth.
Any enterprise application software(EAS) must include a comprehensive human resource management system (HRMS). Which help businesses in their regular HR tasks, such as hiring and selection process, payroll management, employee benefits and compensations, employee performance management, employee development programs, data analytics and basic HR tasks to maximize the employee performance and to minimize the cost & expense.
4. Customer Relationship Management System (CRM)
The customer relationship management system or CRM is a tool that enables businesses to maintain and improve relationship with their customers, by collecting and providing all relevant information in a single dashboard. It includes customers’ details, agents’ details and their performance, and it also keep record of each and every interaction of the customer and prospects with the business. Basically a CRM can help various departments to effectively manage and monitor customer relationship to improve quality and customer satisfaction which drives long term success and growth. The customer relationship management system (CRM) is a great tool to build trust, offer services and facilitate business processes throughout the customer business relationship. The main purpose of CRM is to ensure a smoother customer journey and happier experience. That is done by facilitating customers and employees from sales marketing and support department. The CRM streamline and integrate data in a single dashboard which helps sales and marketing teams to manage sales and marketing funnels more effectively. The CRM also helps tracking and monitoring the performance of various business processes and mechanisms that directly impact the customer relationship with the business.
Marketing is an essential part of customer relationship and lead generation. Marketing help businesses build a brand identity and reputation which helps them to acquire more customers and gain customer loyalty. These days the marketing is divided in two segments, one is traditional marketing and the other is digital marketing. The traditional marketing is being gradually replaced by the digital marketing. An enterprise application software(EAS) must include a very efficient marketing automation tool which allow businesses to communicate their brand message with the targeted audience and help them promote their products and services. The marketing automation tools are absolutely necessary such as in case of email communication & marketing, it is impossible to allocate enough human resource to send emails to thousands of customers manually. That is why automated email marketing tools are used, to shot out mass email marketing campaigns and for automated email communication. Similarly the social media and other channels can also be automated to post news, updates and marketing material which take maximum workload of your marketing team and let them focus on business oriented tasks.
5. Supply Chain Management (SCM)
Any enterprise application software(EAS) provides a certain level of functionalities to manage the procurement and supply chain. A dedicated supply chain management tool is used to effectively and efficiently manage the procurement, suppliers, contractors, storage facilities, and in some cases distribution network as well. For large businesses and enterprises with several suppliers and contractors it is nearly impossible to manage supply chain without any digital aid or tools. That is why supply chain management tool is an essential for any enterprise application software(EAS) solution. The main objective of supply chain management system is to facilitate and support the employees who are working in different business departments to effectively manage the supply chain tasks and to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage which enables the business to achieve long term success and high profitability. The primary objective of the supply chain management system is to ensure the flow of information and materials/services throughout the organizations that are involved from the product idea to delivery to the end users.
6. Business Process Management Tools
A business process is defined by the tasks an employee or a group of employee perform to contribute to achieve the high-level organizational goal and objectives. The business process could be anything such as generating new leads, or making sales, or managing account books, or purchasing or even hiring new employees. The biggest advantage of an enterprise application software(EAS) is that it help automating various business processes and save your employees from repetitive tasks and also help them to manage various business processes with high efficiency and more productivity. When businesses grow their business processes become increasingly complex, the main reason behind this is lack of communication between different department and employees, this results in mismanagement and sometimes since employee don’t always have sight of others, so repeated work is done which is a waste of time and resources as well. That is why the business process management tools are used to ensure the automated data and information flow between all connected departments and employees to make sure everyone is efficiently contributing to the achieve the goals and objectives of the organization.
7. Business Intelligence Data Tools
The business intelligence data tools are extremely important and considered to be the backbone of the strategy and planning department. The entire business success is dependent on the strategy and plans they made to achieve their goals and objectives. The market is very competitive and the customer needs and demands are continuously changing, in such scenarios having a deeper understand and insight of your entire organization including its business processes, resources, efficiency of resources, employees and their performance and customers’ mind set could be a game changer. The business intelligence data can feed enterprise performance management tools, it can provide data analytical features with in-built algorithms and software engine. Businesses can learn trends, they can accurately identify the areas of improvement, they can collect employee and customer feedbacks, businesses can evaluate their business process and customer journey, and much more. The business intelligence data provides actionable information which can be used to build strategies, make changes and to improve overall efficiency and productivity of the business.
8. Customization and Scalability
One-fit-for-all doesn’t fit anymore. Every enterprise and organization have its own unique culture and tactics to deal with a problem. This results in very unique and specific needs which any randomly selected off-the-shelf solution can’t fulfill. The problem with off-the-shelf or ready-made enterprise application software(EAS) is that they are built to address the most general and sometime basic needs, even with such system the business always use other tools and integrate them with them to improve efficiency. Most of the time businesses do need customization or changes in their enterprise application software, which in case of a ready-made solution are mostly very expensive and secondly the scope of the changes are very limited which most of the time couldn’t satisfy the users. So, ultimately business get bound to those limitations and sometimes they even have to change their internal processes to accommodate the rigidness of the tools they are using. However, with a tailor-made or customized enterprise application software(EAS) the entire system is specifically designed for the organization hence they are not bound to any limitation. This can significantly boost their efficiency and ensures user satisfaction.
Another big problem with the off-the-shelf or ready-made enterprise application software(EAS) is that they don’t give business proprietary rights, the tools will ultimately remain the property of the supplier. However, the customized enterprise application software(EAS) developers completely transfer the software, tools and source codes to the business hence business also get free form the dependency of the supplier. They own the final system and they can either set up in-house team to manage, operate, update and customize it or they can hire any company to do that. This not only provide additional benefits but it also reduce the cost of operating and customizing the tools and entire system. Business are always growing, so does their needs and demands, and according to those requirements the need of changes, modifications or addition in the enterprise application software(EAS) also grows. And that is called scalability. A customized enterprise application software(EAS) is always future-ready and provide more flexibility for expansion and changes with much better cost efficiency.
9. Data Security and Privacy
The data security and privacy is one of the top priority for any IT infrastructure. In this modern age of internet and digitalization the security and privacy are two major concerns of the consumers. Think from a customer’s prospective, if you know a business got a data breach, will you be willing to deal with them again? It would be very hard to trust them again. If any such thing happens a business loose its credibility and trust of its customers, suppliers and partners. The trust and reputation is very hard to earn, businesses spend years and a huge chunk of their hard earned profits into building their reputation and gaining trust of its customers and suppliers. The enterprise application software(EAS) is the main brain of the entire organization and it have highly sensitive data to public publications, and everything in between in it. The security and data privacy is the most sensitive matter here. A good enterprise application software(EAS) always put security and data protection at its top priorities.
A customized enterprise application software(EAS) is relatively more protected against modern age threats and cyber-attacks, as its source code, infrastructure and core is protected and unavailable for the masses. However, an off-the-shelf solution is being utilized by millions of users all over the world, which means a huge number of people can gain access to its core, data structure and source code, which makes it more vulnerable to cyber-attacks, hence the business have to invest a lot more in security solutions and protective measures.
Read More: How to Develop Customized Supply Chain Software?
10. Cloud and Mobile Functionalities
The word cloud or cloud computing is making buzz since a few years now, most of the enterprises and organizations are still hesitant for going cloud based solutions. Especially the government departments, large enterprises and multinational organizations still prefer to have in-house data centers and IT infrastructure which is costly and very expensive to operate too. However, the cloud and the mobile enabled enterprise application software(EAS) are the future. The cloud is robust, secure, and extremely cost efficient comparing to the in-house data centers. On top of that all leading cloud service providers offer local and regional data centers to provide additional safety and security for the data and also offer compliance for local or regional regulations. Businesses and enterprises don’t need to worry about bearing huge cost of in-house data center and additional resources to run those data centers. Any modern enterprise application software(EAS) should be compatible for both local and in-house data centers as well as for the cloud based data centers.
Similarly the mobile enabled functionalities are also relatively a new phenomenon. If an enterprise provide mobile access to their enterprise application software(EAS) or at least a part of it the operational efficiency can be increased significantly. These days, the smartphones are very common, everyone use them and they are powerful enough to handle very complex and bulky applications. The data access and instant availability of the information can boost the work efficiency of the employees who are working off-campus or during their field trips. The robust data flow, easy access to the information and communication is the primary objective of the enterprise application software.
Read More: What is custom software development?
Conclusion
The enterprise application software (EAS) is an essential tool for any enterprises, big or small. The primary purpose of enterprise application software(EAS) is to enable a robust data flow and improve the communication within and outside the organization. In this blog we have listed basic features and essential parts of an enterprise application software(EAS) which help businesses in running daily operations as well as it also help them to effectively implement their policies and business strategy to achieve their financial and non-financial goals. An off-the-shelf enterprise application software might not be able to fulfill the changing needs of the business. In fact the off-the-shelf EASs are more complicated and complex to use and are very expensive in terms of commissioning and running costs. A customized enterprise application software (EAS) is very cost-efficient and provide more flexibility and control to the businesses over its operation and controls. RSI Concepts is a leading enterprise application software supplier in Dubai, UAE and our solutions are customized and tailor-made to fulfill any kind of demand. If you want to learn more about the subject or want to get an enquiry for our enterprise application software (EAS) please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.