What are Enterprise Applications?
Enterprise Applications (EA) are software solutions designed to improve productivity and efficiency in a business by providing logical tools to model processes. Enterprise applications can be used across an entire organisation’s departments to coordinate and run all business applications. Examples include customer relationship management (CRM) systems, billing, supply chain and supplier relationship management.
Enterprise applications software are a wise investment for large organisations across a wide variety of industries as they are useful for creating a centralised platform that can integrate, process and store a vast amount of data from different sources. This means they are particularly useful for:
- Managing customer relationships
- Creating data-driven insights
- Improving business efficiency
Enterprise application software vs SaaS:
There is some confusion over the difference between enterprise application software (EAS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS), but there are several key distinctions that make them quite different and suited to different types of organisation.
Benefits of SaaS:
- Software can be rented and is cost-effective
- Hosted on the cloud so can be accessed by multiple users as long as there’s internet
- Is good for a specific business function like sales
Benefits of EAS:
- Software is typically bought so can be customised to suit a wide variety of businesses
- Easily updated to suit an organisation’s changing needs
- Can be connected to an internal server and accessed in more private and secure ways
- Can store huge amounts of data
What Skills do you need to work with enterprise applications?
To work in enterprise applications the minimum requirement for education is typically a bachelor’s degree in computer software, IT, computer science or a related field. There are also many hard and soft skills required:
Technical skills for enterprise applications:
- Experience in support, configuration, implementation and maintenance of EAS (i.e. CRM, or ERP)
- Knowledge of software development cycles and methodology (SDLC)
- Knowledge of relational databases or SQL querying
- Understanding of cloud-based applications
Soft skills required for enterprise applications:
- Excellent communication skills to liaise with a team and report issues or updates
- Inquisitive mindset to be driven to learn more about enterprise applications developments
- Ability to work and motivate independently and as a part of a team
The Different Types of Enterprise Applications Job Roles:
- Enterprise Applications Director
- Enterprise Applications Manager
- Enterprise Application Developer
