Enterprise Applications

Where do enterprise applications stand today?

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What is meant by an enterprise? 

The word enterprise comes from old French. It means to undertake something, and it has to bear fruit. An enterprise is an economic environment which should encourage that growth. Enterprise systems are a suite of integrated software modules within a common central database. A system designed and applied in such an environment is an enterprise application.

An enterprise application integrates computer systems to run each phase in an enterprise’s operation. Enterprise applications have become a core strategy for effectively managing a business and will continue to provide increasing value to companies that understand their benefits. Businesses use them to assist them with solving their problems. So, the core functionalities of an enterprise application are reliability, stability and predictability.

What is the role of an enterprise application 

Enterprise apps are for speed and scale. And they are built to meet strict security and administration management requirements. The three major enterprise applications are enterprise systems, customer relationship management, and supply chain management. Enterprise systems use enterprise software to support finance and accounting, human resources, manufacturing and production, and sales and marketing processes. Enterprise systems provide many benefits like improved management reporting and decision making, a unified information systems technology platform, and more efficient operations and customer-driven business processes. 

Supply chain management systems help manage its supply chain, including planning, sourcing, making, delivering, and returning items. The benefits include improved customer service and response, cost reduction, and better cash flow. Customer relationship management (CRM for short) systems - both operational and analytical - help firms improve the benefits of customer assets. Operations CRM refers to customer-facing applications, such as sales force automation, call centre and customer service support, and marketing automation. Analytics CRM refers to customer relationship management applications dealing with customer data analysis to provide information for improving business performance. These systems capture and consolidate data from all over the company and then distribute the results to systems and customer touch points across the enterprise. The benefits of customer relationship management include increased customer satisfaction, reduced marketing costs, and lower costs for customer acquisition and retention. 

What role does technology upgrade play in enterprise applications?

Enterprise applications help companies support many different areas of their businesses. When a process is used consistently across the board, there is a good chance that an enterprise application exists. If not, develop one to assist that process. Some applications may entail cloud computing, where some or all the support infrastructure is in the cloud. Others may have an on-premise system or even a hybrid version with both. It is also necessary to differentiate between off-the-shelf software and custom software. Sometimes an existing application might meet your business needs. But if these options aren’t a fit, you will want to build a custom enterprise application. 

What should an enterprise application be capable of doing?

When do you need an enterprise app?

One of the advantages of enterprise applications is their ability to improve productivity and efficiency. They streamline the business processes in all areas and support new upscaling models with greater transparency. In the digital world, enterprise applications also improve the dynamics of customer interactions. They enhance communication with real-time access for scheduling and two-way communication. 

Enterprise applications support companies by serving customer insights to business leaders and analytics to decision-makers. The powerful insights unlocked by the more digestible data enterprise applications pave the way for companies to find and leverage competitive advantages, new market opportunities etc. Businesses can see the key performance indicators (KPIs for short) they want to see and how they want the information presented, making it actionable. 

How to upgrade from your legacy applications?

It is also essential to understand that every instance is unique. One approach may work well for one application, but there isn’t a universally correct way to go about the migration process. You may refactor one or two business-critical applications, re-platform a secondary one, lift and shit a few minor ones. One consideration to enforce in your decision-making process is how these moves, or shifts, will impact employee productivity. 

The process of moving from one tier of technology to another can be called digital transformation. It may be the buzzword in tech circles today. But it should not overshadow the critical transformation of existing products and processes to attract and retain customers, drive business growth and remain competitive. People also should become a part of this movement to achieve total digital transformation. 

A legacy system upgrade must include modern platform infrastructure, architecture, and features involving people, processes and technologies. It is a double-edged sword to maintain the continued cost of maintaining a legacy system and the cost and migration of applications one by one. The digital transformation acceleration must have a mindset shift into the strategic importance of modern technology. 

How to develop an enterprise app?

Craft a strategy to set the foundation for success. Review those tools your company uses to see what is working and where you can attain more value. Also, plan for how your enterprise app will integrate with the apps or system structures that you will retain. Determine key performance indicators (KPIs) to define success and your in-house abilities. And then build an enterprise app to meet your needs. Integrate the associated with legacy applications from cost to customer and employee experience. 

Legacy applications often have interdependencies that aren’t evident on the surface. Don’t start with the oldest programs first. Start with those programs or processes that can stand on their own feet and wouldn’t inadvertently take down others. In digital transformation, this is where enterprise complexity analysis helps by digging into the code and unearthing those dependencies. As the adage goes, one step at a time. 

What are the skills necessary for a successful digital transformation? 

Digital transformation - Processes 

Even old applications can now be redeployed on cloud platforms and outfitted with modern innovations like application program interfaces (APIs) and micro-services. The analysis stage isn’t an either/or proposition. One of the first steps is to redeploy the application to cloud infrastructure unchanged. Migrate to a new runtime platform (such as a software container). Restructure its existing code for optimal use. 

For antiquated systems that are typically upon which the company is built from scratch back in the days of mainframes and COBOL. These are the most challenging applications, and doing that may not be a good idea. Business processes aren’t necessarily software but are a part of the digital transformation in applications that involve workflow automation and document management. Business process analysis is a methodology that helps companies examine existing processes to find new efficiencies. Many tools are available to automate this work, and users can see business flows using drag-and-drop tools. Robotic process automation (RPA) is part of a rapidly growing category falling under the broad heading of hyper-automation. 

Digital Transformation - Technologies 

RPA works to automate routine human tasks such as keying in data from printed documents. Tools available to retrofit ageing applications with new ones are called Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). These enable to improve gradually over time. It is a relatively easy way to extend the life of old software while something new or modern is getting written or installed. The next step is orchestrating the exchange of services between applications called an Enterprise Service Bus (ESBs for short). 

ESBs are the parents of what we call cloud computing. Modern cloud applications consist of loosely coupled software functions assembled quick. An ESB enables developers to enhance and extend functionality by plugging in new services. A live example is building a new user interface using cloud services and connecting to a legacy-end system for processing via APIs. 

Digital transformation - People 

When processes and technologies are taken care of, the measure of a digital transformation is its people. The developers of many of these migrant applications have done the hard work of provisioning for backward integration. There has been considerable consolidation in enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management (ERP and CRM). 

People - inside and outside the company - will need to be provided with a migrant path for applications that undergo a digital transformation. An initiative is a better opportunity to adopt agile technologies to complement or replace traditional technologies like DevOps or the waterfall model. Digital transformation should encourage close collaboration between developers and business users, rapid iteration with daily code releases, continuous feedback, and extensive use of services. Enterprise application improvement or migrating options are happening, and costs are coming down. There has never been a better time to revisit your organisation’s software portfolio to bring it into the age of digital transformation.  

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