Three Major Components of Enterprise Computing

Enterprise computing is a complete package of information technology for an enterprise or an organization. It is capable of doing all the information technology (IT) related operations of the organization. Enterprise computing on a whole contains three major components. They are enterprise software, enterprise database and enterprise networking. We will discuss them briefly in this article.

Enterprise software
Enterprise software is the most important component of all three because it is one that performs major functions crucial to the operations of the business. There are many subsystems within enterprise software. The four major subsystems of enterprise software are:

• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) – It is a combination of various software modules. ERP coordinates among all parts of enterprise software, and helps organization in performing operations quickly and efficiently.
• Supply chain management (SCM) – SCM is responsible for producing, storing and supplying the products. It keeps track of inventory and flow of products from organization to customers.
• Customer relationship management (CRM) – CRM describes business and customer relationship. It helps businesses get new customers and retains old customers.
• Business intelligence (BI) – It is a method of organizing raw data to meaningful form and studying the past and present, and predicting future of the business.

Enterprise database

• Organization may contain huge amount of data including sharable data, confidential data, resources and business logic.
• Enterprise data is divided into internal (used within organization) and external (used outside the business also) categories of data based on organizational requirements.
• Enterprise database is critical part of an enterprise. Therefore, it should be maintained well.
• Enterprise data should have following characteristics:
• Scalable – Enterprise data must be flexible and scalable to facilitate frequent changes and requirements that occur in an organization.
• Secured – As enterprise data include critical information, they should be managed through authorized and controlled access.
• Quality – Enterprise data has to follow organizational standards. Enterprise data should be free from error, and there should not be duplication of data.
• Integrated – Enterprise data must be same and consistent across users and systems who use it.

Enterprise network

• Enterprise networking is the backbone of an organization. It connects all the computers and other devices irrespective of their environment across the organization and outside the organization (if required).
• Enterprise network may consists of computers with different operating systems, other electronic devices like printers, scanners, mainframe systems, smartphones, tablets, etc.
• It enables communication among devices, and makes it easier for them to share information, resources and retrieve required information that is on the server or on other enterprise computer.
• Enterprise network increases the performance of the business by enabling communication among all the systems and provides security to them.
• It also eliminates the unwanted, inactive or isolated users in the network.
• Enterprise network sometimes may be a group of LANs (local area networks) or WANs (Wide area networks) depending on the requirements of an organization.

These are the three important components of the enterprise computing. They should be maintained well for proper functioning and growth of the business/enterprise.

How to Choose the Best Business Software?

Business software is used to do complex tasks with ease and in time. It will help businesses to increase productivity by reducing operational costs and saving time. It will also help you track and manage your business.

For any sized businesses, some business software's are common. For some businesses, only some software's are needed. The software you chooses is based on the size and type of the company. So, it is important for any business owner to choose the correct software for their business, otherwise you will not achieve what you want from your business.

However, choosing a right source of software is a frustrating and expense to any business owner. If you select a proper software which suits your business, it will help you manage cash flow, analyze sales and improve efficiency, otherwise it can throw your financial records into a agitation that will cost you both productivity and money.

So before purchasing, plan all the requirements that are needed for your business and then buy the correct software. There are hundreds of products available in an infinite of configurations and technologies. Even some freeware or open source software are also available that will save you money. Look in this category, whether your software is suited for you or not.

For example, if you are looking for a software to help with tracking purchases and incoming profits, you should look into accounting software. For programs that can be used to secure your data and provide safe online transactions, you should look for software designed for security and assistance with online retailers.

Some business software can also help you increase security for your business or company. This can include programs such as anti-virus and firewall software, that can directly protect your data and records, by preventing attacks from other computer users and by keeping your system clean of malicious software.

Once you know the type of business software you need and how you are going to use it for functioning, you should consider how much you can afford to pay for such programs.

Commercial software's are most powerful functions and compatibility among other programs and these software's are quite expensive.

Different Parts of Enterprise Software

Having an enterprise software for a business is very useful. This is because, it is exclusively designed to perform the operations of the business, the accuracy and speed is fast in business operations.

Enterprise software consists of four major subsystems. They are:

1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

• Customer relationship management (CRM) is a method of keeping in contact with the customers.
• Competition in market is so high that it is important for a business not to lose the customers.
• It is important for any business to have customers and provide good service to the customers.
• CRM not only deals with the present clients or customers of the business but also with the people who are willing to become the customers (future customers).
• CRM software stores all the information related to the customers like their names, contact numbers, their times of availability etc.
• CRM system is also useful in promoting the new products to the customers which is an effective way of marketing.
• CRM system also provides services to customers through calls, chats and emails.
• In recent times, companies are setting up the social networking sites for their customers, where it can get feedback from the customers and improve their service to achieve good rankings in the market.

   
2. Supply Chain Management (SCM)

• It is essential for a business to supply their products. Making this known as SCM is essential to the business.
• Operations of the SCM includes the links among the network, list of the customers, suppliers and distributors, inventory, supply etc.
• It deals with all people starting from the suppliers of the raw materials to produce goods to the customers who are using the finished products.
• This system also keep track of the mode of transportation for the client locations which will be quick.
• SCM also handles the warehousing activities. This is also one of the important factor for the business. Warehousing is the intermediate level between the organization and the customer.

3. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

• Among all the four subsystems, ERP is the most crucial and very important system of the enterprise software.
• It integrates all other systems of the enterprise software for better work flow.
• Some small and medium sized companies who cannot afford the software for their business adopt the ERP as it a key system and later integrate additional systems later.
• ERP makes all the computer systems working for the same business to work together which helps to improve productivity and reduces cost to the business.
• It is easy to manage.

4. Business Intelligence (BI)

• BI is like a decision-maker of the business/organization.
• BI is a group of technologies, processes and methodologies which helps process the raw data of the business.
• It generates reports using the data of the business to analyze the past, present and predict future of the business.
• This helps the business to make changes in the operations which helps them develop and stand strong in the competition of the market.
• Earlier BI system was complex, expensive and hard to instal and only large organizations could afford. Now it has been simplified and available to all sizes of companies.

These four parts of enterprise software cover almost all the areas of the business. Thus, for small and medium sized businesses, enterprise software plays a major role in the development of business.

Different Business Enterprise Software Solutions

Business Enterprise Software is vital for the organization to make the manufacturing operations, supply chains, sales, financial management, customer's services very efficient.

Business Process Management(BPM): It promotes the effectiveness, efficiency of the organization's work flow by focusing on all aspects of the organization including the needs of the client that enables in improving the processes quickly and capable of adapting the environmental and technological changes. Business Process Management suite helps in solving the problems for different needs of the customers.

Risk Management: The process of identifying and determining the risks existing in any investment. Risk management software is designed to overcome the risks that are encountered in course of business. Each risk is given a score that determines the priority and how important it is for the organization in allocating resources that will reduce the risk.

Project Management: It is defined as planning, organizing, securing, and managing resources of a project to accomplish a specified task. The process followed in Project Management is defining a project, project plan, execution of the project, project control and project closure.

Service oriented Architecture(SOI): It allows different software services to communicate with each other with a set of design principles.

Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP): To carry out the flow of information between different departments ERP Software in used in organizations.

Document Management System(DMS): It provides the required information by tracking the written documents and images that are being stored by the organization with the help of DMS Software.