About the author
Nikša Demović
Business Development Manager
Enterprise application development refers to software designed to address specific business requirements. These applications meet the strict requirements of business organizations and facilitate complex business operations for multiple users in demanding, dynamic environments.
This includes designing scalable solutions that can process large volumes of data and user interactions with no performance degradation in order to support business growth.
In addition, enterprise-level applications need to be developed with integration capabilities that facilitate seamless integration into your existing systems as well as robust security features that comply with industry regulations.
What are the most common types of Enterprise Applications?
Some common types of enterprise applications you’ve probably heard of or used include:
- Human Resource Management tools,
- Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM),
- Supply Chain Management tools (SCM),
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
These robust applications commonly serve to solve the complex internal business processes of customer-facing and B2B organizations.
Off-the-shelf vs. Custom Enterprise Application Development
As a business, you have two main options for enterprise software – buying off-the-shelf enterprise applications or custom enterprise application development.
The key difference between the two is that off-the-shelf solutions are designed to meet the general needs of a broad range of users in various industries, whereas custom applications are specifically designed to address the unique needs of an individual enterprise.
But the differences go even deeper than that…
Looking at cost, off-the-shelf solutions tend to have a lower price tag, up-front. But licenses, subscriptions, vendor lock-ins, and other hidden fees can drive up the total cost you end up paying for ready-made solutions.
While custom development can seem to be the comparatively higher investment up-front, in the long run it can prove the more cost-effective solution by getting rid of redundant features or updates and modifications from vendors.
In terms of deployment, off-the-shelf solutions are ready-made and you can typically quickly implement and begin using them. But, integration periods can take a while, depending on compatibility with your organization’s technology stack.
With custom development, the software needs to be built from scratch. This process involves detailed planning, coding, testing and refinement based on user feedback, meaning it can take a while before your solution is fully deployed.
However, when working with agile developers, you can implement increments of your solution in sprints. Essentially, this means getting working parts of your application for real-world use every few weeks.
“We were able to deliver a new software version to our users every three weeks and they could see this continuous progress.”
Gero Mosser, Project Lead @ STRABAG
While deploying custom solutions may be slower, it does have the advantage of scalability, which is more limited with off-the-shelf software.
These are just a few of the comparative differences between off-the-shelf and custom software for enterprises. We go into more detail in this blog.
Benefits of Custom Enterprise Application Development
In addition to addressing the specificity of a unique business challenge or challenges, there are several other benefits of developing enterprise applications, including:
1. Gain the competitive edge
By opting for custom enterprise app development, businesses can develop products and features designed to give them a foot up in their market. This versus the same features being made available to generic software users who all have the same advanced features, though none more advanced than those who developed custom applications specifically to address unique business needs.
2. Increased productivity
Streamlining workflows by automating repetitive tasks or gaining access to data in real time can boost productivity across entire organizations. In addition to facilitating faster informed decision making, automation also results in happier, more efficient employees.
3. Better communication and collaboration
Custom enterprise applications can address challenges in communication and collaboration by enabling improved information sharing throughout the organization. By fostering improved communication and collaboration, enterprises can break down silos to enhance information sharing company-wide, thus creating a close-knit workforce.
4. Improved security
Off-the-shelf software comes from larger vendors who, once breached by malicious actors, are treasure troves of sensitive data. However, custom enterprise applications give increased control over data security and user access by setting user roles with specific permissions. This ensures that important data is only available to authorized users, which is critical for enterprises active in regulated industries.
Developing Enterprise Applications
There are a few important building blocks to consider before building enterprise application software.
The first deals with business goals. Namely, whether or not your specific business goals can be achieved with (or without) custom enterprise-grade software.
The next consideration deals with users, namely, who will use these applications and, equally importantly, how will they use them? This step needs to consider UX/UI design to maximize usage company-wide.
Another consideration regarding usability is how many people will use the tool, i.e. can it be scaled across the enterprise and beyond, or will it be restricted to a specific set of users.
After these considerations, the enterprise app development process is broken down into three components:
- Ideation and design: The first step involves identifying which business needs the app solves, and how it will solve them.
- Development: Following inputs from ideation and design, as well as feedback from the next stage, it’s time to build the application.
- Testing: During this stage the application is subjected to testing in various environments for performance and functionality with feedback given to the previous two stages for further refinement.
The process is cyclical, meaning that feedback from subsequent steps can be fed back into previous ones, with the goal of refining the final product.
Do you need an Enterprise-grade Application?
There are some important considerations to make when evaluating whether off-the-shelf or custom solutions are right for your business challenges. This is a brief checklist to help guide you through the process:
- Unique business needs – Your business has very specific requirements that off-the-shelf enterprise applications are unable to fill.
- High maintenance costs – Ongoing and unsustainable costs of maintaining or customizing off-the-shelf software.
- Inefficient processes – Your existing software can’t handle current workloads, is cumbersome or slow, resulting in diminished productivity.
- Manual processes – Ineffective manual processes weighing down your operations, resulting in costly errors and time lost on repetitive tasks.
- Poor customer engagement – Struggling to engage customers over digital channels due to limitations of existing software solutions.
- Competitive pressure – Your competitors are leveraging advanced technologies, creating a rift in the market.
- Difficulty scaling – Existing off-the-shelf solutions can’t support your organization’s growth, i.e. scaling to new locations or growing the workforce.
- Poor UX – Employees are finding it difficult to work with existing software, struggling with use, resulting in low adoption rates and process inefficiencies.
- Integration challenges – Difficulties integrating existing software with legacy or third-party systems, impeding workflow and data sharing.
Any one or more of the common business problems above can help you assess whether it’s time to consider custom enterprise application development. It depends on how critical the challenge is towards achieving strategic goals.
Choosing an Enterprise Application Development Partner
If you’ve decided that a custom enterprise application is the right choice for your business, there are some important questions you need to ask when hiring a development partner.
Here’s a quick list of helpful selection questions that will help you find the right partner:
- Have you developed solutions for our industry before?
- What is your main tech stack?
- What methodology do you use?
- Do you recommend staff augmentation or a dedicated team?
- How will you start my project?
- What project management tools do you use?
- What quality assurance processes do you follow?
- What pricing models do you offer?
- How much will this cost?
- Where are you located?
- Can you provide a portfolio?
You can find the right answers to these questions here.
Enterprise Application Development examples
The goal of enterprise app development is to solve a challenge or set of challenges – and a good example of that is a solution we developed for STRABAG.
STRABAG is a global operator with active construction sites on multiple continents. This presented data challenges for them, specifically a fractured data infrastructure reliant on pooling data from multiple unsynchronized ERPs into Excel sheets to approve even simple requests.
This challenge resulted in several things that custom enterprise applications look to solve, namely:
- Break down silos
- Eliminate bottlenecks
- Improve collaboration and data sharing
- Remove inefficiencies
- Increase productivity
- Streamline operations
You can read more about what went into solving this challenge for STRABAG, or check out our other case studies for further examples.
Summary
Custom enterprise-grade application development is a strategic approach to creating software solutions tailored to address specific business challenges. These robust applications are primarily developed to solve complex internal business processes for both B2C and B2B organizations.
You should consider custom enterprise app development if you require a purpose-built solution to a specific challenge or set of challenges unique to your organization.
Lastly, when selecting a development partner, it’s crucial you consider their experience, industry expertise, and methodologies to ensure that development aligns with your business goals.
Is custom enterprise application development right for you?
If your organization faces unique challenges that off-the-shelf applications can’t solve, or you want to avoid vendor lock-ins and monthly subscription fees associated with ready-made solutions, custom application development could be just right for your business.
