Enterprise Business Software
Enterprise Business Software
There is no formal definition that places a hard line between normal Business Software and Enterprise Business software, the term Enterprise is often abused as a superlative simply to differentiate a higher priced version of a product from a lower priced version with limited features or capacity. But most people working in the IT industry regard Enterprise software as being products with functions which would only be of use to a large organization, not just a product with higher capacity.
Broadly speaking, Enterprise Business Software can be divided into two categories; software packages that provide conventional functionality but are capable of handling complex organizations with a multi tier structure, and software that implements specialist functions that would only be needed by a large corporation.
The most common example of providing conventional functions at a complex level is Enterprise Database Systems. A multinational corporation operating in many countries will require a different accounting and administration system in each jurisdiction in order to satisfy local requirements, and this is often achieved by operating individual companies. Although the administration has to be kept separate, many other operations will be done at global level. Purchasing requirements, for example, are often combined in order to maximize buying power.
Enterprise database systems must be capable of handling multiple databases that perform independent operations and maintain independent data sets, and yet have the possibility of accessing and integrating data from adjacent databases.
In a complex multi database system, getting a global overview can be difficult. Enterprise Database Systems usually provide sophisticated Data Mining Tools which allow complex rules to be defined in order to drill down into the individual databases, analyze the data, and present tables of summary information.
A common example of the second type of Enterprise Business Software, packages that provide functionality that is only of interest to larger corporations, is market analysis and forecasting packages. Conventional accounting systems only give a picture of how the company has performed, large organizations try to predict how it is likely to perform.
Specific software is used to model a company with fixed and variable costs so that an estimate of profit and loss can be made on the basis of predicted sales figures. Company representatives in the field are expected to provide feedback on their customers’ expectations such that the data may be collated and used to provide probable sales figures. The model is continually updated, and actual data is also fed in as it becomes available in order to highlight weakness in the model that need to be improved.
Many specialized Enterprise Business Software tools are designed to run on top of Enterprise Database Systems, but some enterprise tools are completely independent. For example Media Management Software allows media and document files to be shared and managed across a large organization using methods that are more efficient than conventional databases or file sharing.
Large scale operations make even minor sophisticated optimizations worth doing, and Enterprise Business Software keeps growing in its scope and functionality. Combined with Internet and Intranet access, Enterprise Business Software is allowing large organizations to operate at a truly global level, rather than as a group of related companies.
