Enterprise Applications - Research Paper Example

Enterprise Applications Affiliation) Enterprise Applications A watershed is being experienced in the business environment as consumers have turned their attention from technologies that do not add value to their relationships with the various businesses and their experiences. As such, technological applications are expected to support real, innovative, and measurable enterprise goals. As such, enterprise applications are business applications that add corporate value to the business (Parsons, 2015).

In the contemporary business setting, enterprise applications have become scalable, complex, component-based, distributed, and mission-critical. Such applications are deployed on various platforms within a business, across corporate networks, the internet, or intranets. Some of the major enterprise applications in the business environment include Supply Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). To start with, supply chain management (SCM) information flow management among and between the supply chain stages with the view of maximizing profitability and supply chain effectiveness (Laudon & Laudon, 2015).

In this case, the supply chain includes all the parties that are either indirectly or directly involved in the purchase of raw materials or products. Unlike in the past where organizations were more focused on quality improvements and manufacturing, a shift has been experienced in the current corporate world towards influencing SCM to include suppliers and customers. Thus, organizations are expected to embrace technologies that would have an effective impact on the management of the supply chains.

Virtually seamless links of information between and within organizations form an essential part of integrated supply chains. The major role of Information Technology (IT) in the supply chain is thus to establish tight process and information linkages or create integrations between organizational functions (Parsons, 2015). Technological advances made in the recent past have made integrated SCM possible. SCM is driven by various factors including visibility, consumer behavior, speed, and competition.

Visibility refers to having a clear view of all the areas of the supply chain, up and down (Laudon & Laudon, 2015). Changes in consumer behavior are also evident in the market environment as consumer demands have increased, and so has the need for organizations to respond to such needs faster and effectively by enhancing the supply chain. Demand planning software could be used in this case to generate forecasts of consumer demands using forecasting techniques and statistical tools. The effectiveness and efficiency of the supply chain provide firms with competitive advantages.

Such effectiveness can be enhanced through various applications such as supply chain planning (SCP) software and supply chain execution (SCE) software. In terms of speed, besides the effectiveness and efficiency of the service that is given to customers, information concerning issues such as product availability, order status, invoices, and delivery schedules has become of great significance to the customer service experience (Laudon & Laudon, 2015). Another common Enterprise Application in the present-day business environment is the customer relationship management (CRM).

This involves proper management of all the aspects related to the customer-organization relationship with the view of increasing customer retention, loyalty, and the profitability of the organization (Parsons, 2015). The main elements of the CRM include Customer Service Center Management, sales force automation, and marketing automation. As such, some of the technologies that can be effective in supporting CRM include self-service, Password Reset Via Email, 24x7 support, and automated voice response phone systems (AVR’s) (Laudon & Laudon, 2015).

Lastly, the enterprise resource planning (ERP) is also an important Enterprise Application in the corporate environment. This integrates all organizational functions and departments into one IT system, allowing employees to make informed decisions that are based on information from all the business operations of the enterprise (Laudon & Laudon, 2015). The ERP is made up of Extended and Core components. In this case, the ‘Core’ components refer to the traditional components that are majorly directed towards internal operations while the ‘Extended’ components refer to additional components that are focused on the external operations of the business (Parsons, 2015).

References Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2015). Management Iinformation Systems: Managing the Digital (14th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Parsons, J. J. (2015). New Perspectives on Computer Concepts 2016, Comprehensive. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.