Discover how DHL Group increased connectivity across the enterprise and automated multiple processes end-to-end
Today's enterprises rely on numerous technologies to support their business operations. As complexity increases and the demand for efficiency grows, the need for custom applications that cannot be purchased off the shelf becomes essential. Enterprise application development can address this gap, enhancing collaboration, improving customer service, and boosting productivity across the organization. This allows businesses to advance innovation and stay competitive.
However, many leaders we speak with face a common challenge: they struggle to deliver new enterprise applications at the speed and scale their business requires. So, what is causing this issue, and how can you accelerate the process within your organization?
Enterprise application development refers to creating custom applications designed to manage business operations. Enterprise applications can rid your organization of siloed data and bring people, applications, robots, and information together in a user-friendly interface. The most effective enterprise applications orchestrate end-to-end business processes, increasing visibility, ensuring compliance, and boosting efficiency.
Benefits of enterprise application development
Enterprise application development enables organizations to build apps that: - Simplify and unify infrastructure for more efficient processes, accelerating outcomes and reducing costs. - Build better connections between people, applications, robots, processes, and information. - Standardize operations to establish clear, consistent operating guidelines and provide reporting to track performance.
Enterprise applications are:
Easy to configure to your specific business goals
Developers can create workflows, dashboards and integrations with other tools to align with business processes and objectives.
Highly secure and reliable to protect essential data
Robust security protocols are implemented to safeguard sensitive business data from cyber threats and unauthorized access.
Always available so you don’t have to deal with downtime
High availability ensures uninterrupted access to applications and data and reduces the risk of productivity losses due to system outages.
Cloud-native and scalable with ease
Businesses can scale their application usage up or down based on demand without significant infrastructure investments.
Mobile and accessible from any location
Enterprise apps provide full functionality across devices so users can stay connected and productive wherever they are.
Quick to deploy, update, and change based on your needs
Enterprise applications support rapid deployment and easy updates, allowing businesses to implement new features and functionalities quickly.
Intuitive for straightforward business-wide adoption
User-friendly interfaces reduce the learning curve for new users, enabling them to build confidence in the software quickly.
Vendor master data management
Knowing vendors is essential for keeping track of spend and fulfilment. Global courier company DHL Group went from Excel spreadsheets and emails to a vendor master data management portal that standardized the process and ensured correctness of data and compliance to the process standard prior to handing off to the ERP system.
Customer service
Meeting customer expectations is key to winning and retaining customers and competing with other players in the market. Financial services provider Old Mutual wanted to expand to better meet customer needs but were faced with the financial barrier of a lengthy training process for their staff. They overcame this by creating a standardized front-end platform that contained information on over 500 product variations to help their staff deliver superior service to their customers.
Approvals
It’s not uncommon for approvals to get stuck with one of the reviewers. Japanese printer and copier manufacturer Kyocera needed to tackle slow turnaround times within their approvals process that were losing them business. They created an application that digitized the approvals process and integrated with their SAP system, increasing visibility for decision makers and resulting in an 85% reduction in approval times and enabling them to win more large contracts.
Insurance claims
Time is of the essence when it comes to resolving insurance claims. Universal Group, the leading insurer in the Dominican Republic, wanted to increase productivity, reduce operating costs and bring greater transparency to their vehicle insurance claims process. The team created a solution that provides full visibility to claims processers and customers, streamlines the parts ordering process and delivered improved productivity and cost savings.
Order management
The speed and accuracy of order fulfilment is key to satisfied customers and a positive brand reputation. Dutch radiator manufacturer, NRF, needed to fix gaps and inefficiencies in their order management process that was resulting in employees having to carry out manual admin work. They created a system that eliminated gaps in the process and provide a single point of reference for all product orders halving the lead time.
Employee onboarding
Providing a positive onboarding experience sets new employees up for success. OCS Group, a global facilities management maintenance services company deal with a high-volume of short-term contracts therefore efficient onboarding is key. They created a solution that combined multiple data entry points into a single form resulting in a 93% reduction in time to create a new employee ID.
Developers are in short supply
Companies are struggling to hire top tech talent. According to estimates by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, American companies will face a 1.2 million shortfall in developers by 2026. This talent deficit will continue to slow the pace of enterprise application development.
There’s a spiralling IT backlog
App development is also being delayed by a backlog of IT projects. In a report last year, The Economist Intelligence Unit found the average backlog for planned IT projects was between 3-12 months. Delays of this scale leave businesses perpetually on the backfoot, because they’re unable to fully invest in solutions they need right now.
Project requirements are often unclear and changing
Ever-changing requirements are part and parcel of enterprise app development. Projects may need to be adapted (or scrapped) due to a myriad of reasons, from new market demands to regulatory updates. App development can also be hindered if leadership teams are vague about the goal or problem they’re looking to solve.
An enterprise application development platform is a software solution that facilitates the development and deployment of enterprise apps within an organization.
Key enterprise application development platform features include:
Composability
Reusable components allow professional developers and citizen developers to build apps quickly.
Security
Built-in security and governance features ensure data is handled securely and that applications comply with industry regulations and company policies.
Scalability
Enterprise apps need to be capable of handling large volumes of data and users.
Integration
Integrating with other business systems is key to connecting people and information across the organization.
Reporting and analytics
The ability to collect, analyze and visualize data enables organizations to gain insights into operational performance and make data-driven decisions on improvement opportunities.
Create a fusion team
Fusion teams have become a smart solution to the tech talent shortage. By combining the domain expertise of business users, and the technical expertise of IT, fusion teams allow organizations to build enterprise apps faster — and in direct response to a clearly articulated goal from end users. Low-code platforms are fundamental to this process, as they allow both technical and non-technical users to collaborate on app development in a single place, maximizing resources and speeding up time-to-value.
Establish your own Centre of Excellence (CoE)
A CoE involves creating a team of experts that are responsible for providing best practices, support and momentum around a specific area of focus. Applied to enterprise app development, a CoE can help you overcome technological bottlenecks, reduce production costs, and experiment with different ways of working to increase efficiency.
Orchestrate systems
In contrast to automation (which generally refers to automating a single task), orchestration involves the automation of multiple tasks. IT teams can use orchestration to automate all of the processes and workflows behind their applications centrally. This coordinated approach can help to reduce security risks, lower costs and speed up cycle times.
Modern enterprises risk getting left behind if their software development cycle is slow and siloed. A low-code platform can help solve that problem by allowing technical and non-technical teams to collaborate on app development, all in one place, enabling them to build and deploy enterprise applications that deliver real value for your business, fast.
See what you can build with Bizagi.
What is an enterprise application?
An enterprise application is a software used in large organizations to support and integrate complex business processes, operations, and data.
What are the different types of enterprise applications?
Types of enterprise applications include: - Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) - Supply Chain Management (SCM) - Business Intelligence (BI)
What is enterprise application integration?
Enterprise application integration is the process of connecting multiple business systems to enable data sharing and process orchestration across the enterprise.
