Gone are the days when organizations seldom cared about productivity or employee collaboration. With digitization steering a new revolution, the time is ripe for companies to focus on efficiency and enhance engagement among employees and clients. Enterprise app development has become imperative to achieve these indispensable goals.With the market for global enterprise mobility poised for the exponential growth of 21.9% (CAGR) between 2017 and 2026, enterprise applications can answer organizations’ privacy issues and other crucial challenges. However, streamlining the environment within an organization is no easy feat. You need to invest the right amount of money, collaborate with the right enterprise app development company, and ensure that the whole project is within the organization’s scope and budgetSo, several questions need answering:
- What is enterprise app development?
- Why is it the need of the hour in this modern era?
- What are the challenges to develop enterprise software?
- How should one approach or visualize an enterprise app?
- What are the characteristics of enterprise software?
- How does this enterprise app development differ from conventional software development?
By the end of this article, you’ll gain better clarity and understanding of the different aspects of enterprise app development.
What is Enterprise App Development?
Enterprise app development is a sophisticated approach where a company develops an application or software to improve its business. The strategy behind this can be to improve efficiency, streamline employee data, or prevent data mishandling.Today, enterprise applications are essential for organizations that thrive on staying competitive in a crowded market space. According to a report by Digital Strategy Consulting, 59% of the employees think that their organizations are too slow at delivering mobile apps for the workforce. With employees shifting towards unified apps or software, organizations need to take the all-important step towards digitization and enterprise application development.
Why Is Enterprise Software the Panacea for Organizations’ Problems?
Now that we have identified what enterprise apps are, it is time to dig deeper to understand how enterprise app development can benefit organizations. Here’s why they're currently so vital:● Improvement in business efficiency: As organizations shift from just doing business to building a brand, efficiency is a critical component that needs instant attention. Companies cannot run the risk of losing out on employee productivity. With accurate data and real-time analysis using software/app, the overall business efficiency can be enhanced. According to a report by Salesforce, mobile apps can improve employee productivity by 34%. The report also informs that nine in 10 companies have stated that work apps have significantly modified the employee’s behavior.● Automation of business processes and workplace satisfaction: Time management is another critical component that an organization needs to be sustainable. Automating some of the common challenges faced by employees can boost their productivity rate proportionately. Similarly, by answering various employee problems, workplace satisfaction rates are significantly better as well. This way, instead of letting employees worry about low-value tasks, you can streamline their activities towards those that generate higher revenue for the organization.● Accurate insights and better business flexibility: Today, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have become the backbone of numerous industries. Having such tools to aid your company can help place you one step ahead of your rivals. With real-time data and analytics reports, you can make informed business decisions. And with the company becoming agile and quick, the business flexibility aspect improves drastically.According to a report by Adobe, some of the disadvantages of not deploying enterprise software include:● 47% of companies miss out on signing new clients● 51% fall under the “outdated” category● 61% encounter poor efficiency in operationsContrastingly, companies using these apps experience a massive turnover of ROIs of over 35%.
Enterprise App Development Benefits and Challenges
As is the case with all technologies, there are plenty of benefits and challenges that exist when it comes to enterprise app development.Let’s take a look at what benefits you can expect:
- Automated mobile workflows: Without the right processes, it can take a significant amount of time for business processes to be completed. With mobile apps, the amount of workflows that can be automated is immense. The time saved can then be dedicated to other crucial tasks.
- Improved productivity: Enterprise software has the ability to streamline complex business operations while boosting overall employee productivity rates. The result is an overall gain of business efficiency.
- Better customer engagement: The more you know about your customers, the better you can serve them. With enterprise software in place, you can get accurate insights on customers and their preferences. This will also help in building a data-backed marketing strategy to further improve customer acquisition rates.
- Collaboration: Collaborating with employees across different locations is now easier than ever before. With enterprise software, employees can collaborate seamlessly.
Although enterprise app development can benefit organizations, there are certain challenges that they may face, including:
- Setup and implementation: Investing in enterprise app development is complex. It requires highly skilled enterprise app developers and efficient project managers to come together for the best results.
- Compliance issues: Some enterprises have strict compliance policies that need to be adhered to for data protection and privacy issues. Therefore, when developing enterprise software, it's important to have a clear idea about existing policies and compliance regulations.
- Understanding the crucial features of ERP software: Enterprise software is intelligently designed to help companies streamline their business processes. However, many startups may not understand what these apps entail exactly and may pass up on the benefits they can reap.
It's always best to work with a trained and experienced team of professionals who can deliver the right solutions for your business.
Main Types of Enterprise Apps
There are many types of enterprise applications, each serving a different purpose. Some of the most common enterprise applications are:
Customer Relationship Management Software
This is a key tool for businesses that deal with customers and clients. Customer relationship management software helps companies manage data in an organized manner while also helping them improve customer service.
Salesforce Automation Software
These solutions help companies streamline their sales and marketing efforts, while also helping them increase operational efficiency.
Order Management Systems
This software helps businesses handle orders efficiently and improve customer satisfaction levels. These solutions can be used by a wide variety of organizations, from manufacturing to food delivery.
Inventory Management Software
This software enable companies to manage their stock in real time, while also helping them improve the customer experience.
Procurement Applications
This category includes all types of enterprise applications that help businesses purchase goods and efficiently.
Project Management Software
With these tools, managers can easily organize and manage projects within an organization.
Enterprise Resource Planning Software
This tool helps businesses track and manage their operations including finance, sales, and marketing. It also acts as a bridge between the back-end processes of an organization and its front-end operations.By using an enterprise application that's best suited for your business, you can recognize many benefits and improve your business's bottom line.
What are the Characteristics of Enterprise Apps?
Before we proceed to enterprise application development, it is fundamental to understand the characteristics or special features of enterprise apps. These include:
● Interconnectivity
The enterprise app must stay up-to-date and establish interconnectivity among employees. By doing so, internal teams can streamline their activities efficiently. Besides, with interconnected networks, the enterprise app becomes a single point of contact for different employees.
● Entirely scalable
Scalability is paramount for any product in today’s world. Enterprise software needs to be scalable in unison with the growth and advancement of the organization. This way, organizations needn’t shift to new software in the future.
● Fail-proof security
One of the main reasons organizations switch to enterprise application development is the security aspect. Organizations cannot compromise on confidential information. Hence, enterprise apps need to be incredibly protected to prevent cyber-attacks.
● Personalization and customization
Providing personalized services to employees has become the norm for modern organizations. Enterprise software can provide the best-in-class experience to end-users (employees) for personalization and customization.
What is the Difference Between Enterprise Application Development and Conventional Software Development?
You need to be able to recognize the differences between enterprise software and conventional software development. One of the striking differences lies in the end-users. While the conventional approach typically involves clients or customers as end-users, enterprise apps are specifically developed to be used by employees within the organization. Besides, a company usually develops the software after considering aspects like market conditions and competition. However, enterprise application development considers the environment sustained within the organization.Subsequently, enterprise apps tend to have a longer product life when it comes to standard software. This is because organizations do not change drastically in a short duration as compared to the real-time market. By planning updates for medium-term and long-term, enterprise apps tend to sustain for an increased timeframe. Also, the concept of storage is more critical to apps than traditional ones as organizations need to streamline data and store a large amount of necessary data for various purposes.
What are the Steps Involved in Developing an Enterprise App?
Now that you’ve understood the necessity of enterprise software, it’s time to initiate your enterprise application development. Let’s look at some of the crucial stages involved in the process.
● Assemble a consolidated cross-functional team
You need to have a dedicated group of members who work in tandem to give shape to your enterprise app. Since the enterprise app is intended to satisfy your employees, ensure equal participation of different departments with one unified head orchestrating the development proceedings.
● App design
Designing the enterprise app is a major milestone that you need to focus on since the UI/UX of the platform directly impacts the engagement rates. With wireframing, you can iterate and bring out the best design for your enterprise app.
● Building on the front-end and back-end
The most important stage in developing an enterprise app is working on its front-end and back-end. Integrating the right set of features and ensuring that the back-end is entirely secured can go a long way in ensuring the app’s sustainability and scalability.
● Testing and launch
A bug-free app is the first pre-requisite that employees expect from an organization. Passing the developed product through the right amount of testing can help rectify defects before launching the enterprise app for your employees.
What are the Things to Keep in Mind While Developing an Enterprise App?
Several aspects need the utmost attention whilst initiating enterprise application development. Some of the vital ones are:
● User-centric design
The whole point behind developing the enterprise app is to make things easier for employees. Hence, it is futile to roll out an app with complicated design functionalities. By creating a feature-rich, user-centric app, the entire employee ecosystem benefits.
● Robust security
Your enterprise app needs to keep malware at bay to fulfill its purpose in the first place. You can leverage numerous security measures like SSL encryption, X-frame options, and Interactive Application Security Testing. This way, you can reduce vulnerabilities and ensure absolute security throughout the organization.
● Make your USPs more appealing
Do not neglect the app’s Unique Selling Propositions (USPs), even though it’s the organization’s internal application. To regularize and draw attention towards your employees, integrate certain unique features or functionalities into your enterprise app.
What are the Challenges Involved in Enterprise Application Development?
Initiating the development of enterprise apps isn’t a walk-in-the-park activity. Startups find it increasingly difficult to allocate funds for enterprise software. Even established conglomerates hesitate to give the nod for enterprise application development due to numerous challenges. These include:
● Dynamic business needs
Organizations need to satisfy the different requirements of multiple stakeholders. One crucial problem is that they should be dynamic. Hence, organizations cannot have a ready-made blueprint as business needs keep changing. It can lead to complications like a conflict of interests and less collaboration among employees of different departments, among other things.
● Integration with different systems
Organizations should integrate the applications across different environments and departments. While employees of a particular unit find the app easy-to-use, some prefer the old-school way or the conventional procedure. As a result, seamless data integration and synchronization can become a huge concern.
● The storage aspect:
As the organization’s size increases, the amount of data stored elevates significantly. Hence, it becomes difficult to store relevant data. Also, accessing data becomes challenging because a considerable portion of it remains unstructured. While cloud hosting can be a reliable option to overcome this challenge, organizations are required to spend more to ensure proper storage.
How Do I Choose the Right Enterprise Application Development Company
To ease organizations’ burden in developing enterprise software, some third-party vendors provide high-quality enterprise application development services at economical prices. While there are numerous mobile app development companies, you need to identify the appropriate ones that align with your business objectives. We’d recommend that you reject those firms that send estimates without discussing the requirements in detail. Here are some tips for selecting the best enterprise application development company:
● Understand your requirements
Ensure that the mobile app development company is entirely flexible in hearing you out and understanding your business needs. If the company can visualize your end-product, you can proceed further.
● Look for testimonials and feedback
Before partnering with the company, read their client testimonials on third-party sites to get a fair idea of how the company operates. This way, you can be more certain that the company can handle the mobile app development based on your requirements.
● Assess the company’s technical expertise
Neither you nor your organization’s employees expect a low-quality enterprise app. It’s worth conducting in-depth discussions with experts from the prospective company to identify their technological prowess. Getting your hands on a previous application that they have developed can come in handy as well.
● Commitment and priority
Assess the company based on different criteria, such as their commitment to delivering the product on time or prioritizing your needs before others. This way, instead of working with a company that focuses on money, you can expect a high-quality product from the vendor.
Do You Need an Enterprise App?
Enterprise application development can be the final piece of your organization’s jigsaw puzzle, steering it towards positive growth and success. You now have all the crucial points that you need to know before developing an enterprise app. In case you’re looking for the best enterprise application development company in town, we at SingleStone can help you out with our end-to-end solutions.If you think mobile app development can help your organization, we’d love to help you. Schedule a meeting with our technical experts and initiate your development today.