Definition of Enterprise Software
Enterprise software (or business application) is software designed to support and streamline business processes within an organization. It is an essential component of daily operations, facilitating critical functions such as financial management, customer relationship management (CRM), and employee information management. Enterprise software enables data and document processing, user collaboration, and provides valuable information for decision-making.
Organizations typically use multiple enterprise software that are more or less interconnected or integrated. The specific software an organization utilizes depends on its industry and business needs. Virtually no organization can operate effectively without enterprise software.
Essential types of enterprise software include:
- Accounting Software: For financial management and accounting processes.
- Payroll Software: For payroll processing and personnel management.
- Email Systems: For basic communication.
- CRM Software: For customer, business, and sales support.
- Operations Management Software: For managing work and tasks.
Characteristics of Enterprise Software
Enterprise software is typically a specialized application used by multiple users within an organization. While many small and medium-sized businesses may also rely on tools like Excel and spreadsheets for certain functions and processes, dedicated enterprise software provides more robust and scalable solutions.
What are Basic Types and Categories of Enterprise Software?
In general, it can be anything that allows people to work together and provides information to people. There are also files with papers, but above all they are individual applications that usually fall into these areas. The following list will give you an idea of what constitutes enterprise software.
Most common business software categories are:
- Accounting Software
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software
- Human Resources (HR) Software
- Project Management Software
- Task Management Software
- Work Management Software
- Supply Chain Management Software
- Business Intelligence (BI) Software
- Marketing Automation Software
- Content Management Systems (CMS)
- Time Attendance Software
- Collaboration Software
- Inventory Management Software
- E-commerce Software
- Help Desk Software
- Intranet Software
- IT Management Software
- Learning Management Systems (LMS)
- Manufacturing Software
- Procurement Software
- Risk Management Software
- Security Software
- Service Desk Software
- Vendor Management Software
- Warehouse Management Software
In general, software that allows people to work together, share and keep data, collaborate and provides them information.
It doesn't matter where and how the information system applications are operated (in the cloud or on the company's infrastructure, premises). Importantly, they store, process and provide information important to the running and management of the organization. It must therefore support all company processes, both the core ones and all supporting and control processes.
How do organizations run enterprise software?
Organizations run enterprise software either on-premise or using cloud services.
Enterprise software operated on-premises
- It uses company servers
- As a rule, it runs on the company's internal network
- Organizations must have specialists who take care of servers and the operation of business applications
Enterprise software in the cloud
- Enterprise software runs on the provider's servers
- The organization only uses applications, it does not have to have its own specialists
- It just cares about the user
- Operation is provided by the provider