Business software

Enterprise software is from the English acquired, used in particular for marketing purposes term ( Business Software ) with changing, blurred importance. In general, enterprise software any type of application software in business or other organizations in use. Partial enterprise software is generalizing said for business software. The opposite of enterprise software is software for the private sector. A sharp separation is not possible, because for example the large office applications such as word processing, spreadsheets and databases are used for both private and business.

• 2.1 Standard software
• 2.2 Individual Software
• 2.3 Best of Breed

Types of enterprise software

Business management applications

The following classification shows only the focus, not a sharp demarcation because the subjects overlap each other and are available in various software packages, a more or less strong integration and overlap.

Materials Management

Materials management systems - also known as the commercial enterprise resource planning systems - are used commonly, material inventory management of Lagerzu disposals and inventory, auditing and inventory management for consumption-based planning, purchasing or procurement. In manufacturing companies, it is part of the production planning and control systems (PPS). Amounts of material have a material value, according to the rule set and value treated in parallel. About the prices, the material economy is intertwined with the business, about the values ​​with the financial industry.

A partial function of Materials Management System from cover for the procurement of goods and services over the internet. They are called New German "E -procurement " or electronic procurement. Materials management is an integral part of PPS systems, ERP and logistics systems. Sub-functions of materials management cover purchase systems, warehouse management and order picking systems.

Human Resources

The topics that cover systems for personnel management are the responsibilities of personnel administration, personnel time recording and evaluation, wage and salary administration, processing of tax, social or labor tasks, travel expense accounting, human resources planning and development. Information sources from the personnel data offer so-called human resource information systems. Human Resources is also under the same major term Human Resource Management ( HR) aware.

Finance and Business

The accounting with financial accounting and cost accounting were very early examples of computer applications that tabulating and accounting machines were replaced in the 1960s and 1970s. Today belong to this application circuit under the general term Controlling: financial accounting, balance sheet and income statement, accounts payable, accounts receivable, fixed asset accounting, revenue and cost type accounting, general accounting, cost accounting and financial reporting support.

Absatzwirtschaft

To Absatzwirtschaft include sales and marketing. Sales software supports selling in the detection of orders, pricing and discounts. After examination of the accounting availability of items ordered and examination of the creditworthiness of the customer delivery, shipping and invoicing is done. Especially in this area, there are many special forms, which led to many industry-specific solutions: different distribution channels, different products ( gum vs. machine tool. ), Etc.

As a tool for sales and marketing, customer relationship management software for managing customer relationships is. These include: management of customer contacts, campaign management, sales opportunity management, sales process management, order management, letters and e -mails.

Production planning and control

For software packages for production planning and control includes parts of the marketing industry, in particular the customer order management, large parts of the material economy, but especially the core functions of managing the design and production data, needs assessments, manufacturing and capacity planning and shop floor control.

Initially ( before 1970 ) consisted only of PPS material planning ( MRP). After 1970 it was supplemented by the scheduling and capacity planning. In Germany in the early 70s Termikon for example, was initiated by the VDMA due to the increasing demand for computerized methods for scheduling and capacity planning as the first German-speaking developed scheduling and capacity planning system. The MRP II craze began about 1980. MRP II is in the core material, scheduling and capacity planning, however, supplemented by upstream planning stages and expanded to include the consideration of other resources, such as to the required capital, as in the approach has been designed in COPICS IBM 1970.

Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management is built on the logistics that focuses its attention on the material flows to and from suppliers and customers. The boundaries of the company be exceeded by the integration of customers and suppliers in the production planning and control. Value added is the mating process, which starts with the raw material suppliers and ends with the customer.

Enterprise Resource Planning

Enterprise Resource Planning systems as a marketing term include depending on the provider, all software has to offer, the respective manufacturer, ranging from materials management through manufacturing, finance and accounting, human resources, sales to research and development.

Technical Applications

The Technical applications include the letters " CA" ( for " computer-aided " ) commencing software systems that are used in the technical areas of the company. Therefore we also speak of "C " techniques or " CAx software systems ". In the term CAE (Computer Aided Engineering), these "C " techniques for engineers are summarized.

This rather remarkable engineering skills -oriented applications are not isolated events but are in operation simultaneously receiver and supplier of information of business applications in the enterprise.

CAFM - Computer-based infrastructure management

CAFM ( Computer Aided Facility Management ) systems are used for planning, administration and management of buildings, equipment and facilities (facilities ).

CAD - computer -aided design

CAD (Computer Aided Design ) systems are used for the conception, design and detailing (in the form of a technical drawing ) of products. CAD requires data from PPC systems, including sales orders, work plans, material and BOM data, information about resources. It provides data to PPS systems, such as bills of materials, information for costing, technical documentation and of course drawings.

CAP - Computer-Aided Process Planning

CAP (Computer Aided Planning) includes work planning for conventional machining and NC machines. Under certain circumstances, it receives data directly from CAD systems. Result of the work plan is the plan of work, which is intended for production planning and production.

CAM - Computer Aided Manufacturing

CAM ( Computer Aided Manufacturing) is a very broad term, corresponding there is software for various tasks of automation and manufacturing flexibility. DNC (Distributed Numerical Control ) for controlling machine tools, handling systems and robots. At CAM include automated storage and transport systems.

CAQ - Computer-aided quality assurance

CAQ (Computer -aided quality assurance ) starts with the computer-aided planning of the audit procedures. It accompanies the flow of material from the test in the incoming goods to production to testing the finished product. Assistive are automated facilities such as analysis instruments, meters and sensors.

More "C " techniques

They are mentioned here only to indicate the abundance of different tasks for enterprise software in the technical field: CAR Computer Aided Robotics - computer -assisted robotic applications, CAI Computer Aided Inspection - Computer-aided maintenance, CAT Computer Aided Testing - computer -aided testing, EDM Engineering Data Management - Product Data Management.

Information and management systems

These systems include, inter alia, project planning systems, management information systems ( MIS) and simulation systems. Management information systems access to databases of the individual operating system or you can find the required data by data mining in data collections that are fed from various sources, mostly from a data warehouse.

Support across the operational processes

Workflow management systems ( WfM ) specify and monitor the cross-sectoral coordination of workflows in enterprises. Groupware supports cooperation in groups.

To business process management, enterprise content management, content management, document management, electronic archiving, information lifecycle management, etc. has now developed its own "science".

Project management software with network techniques for planning and controlling large projects.

Word processing, spreadsheets, databases on personal computers, presentation software, and e- mail programs now play a significant role in businesses of all sizes.

Software Selection

Basically, many decisions have to be very carefully considered in the selection of business software. In extreme cases, the success of the company can be compromised, such as when employees no longer have access to the needed data fast enough. You can roughly be divided into three areas, all of which have advantages and disadvantages, the selection strategy.

Standard software

A standard software is purchased and, if necessary, adapted to the needs of the customer.

Individual Software

The software is created according to the individual needs of the customer.

Best of Breed

The final best-of- breed strategy relies on the use of multiple industry solutions for various areas and the use of a system integrator to connect these parts. Origin of the name is the idea that in each area the respective "best" solution to be selected, what with an overarching solution often can not be achieved.

The use of heterogeneous systems is, however, associated with disadvantages in practice:

• Maintenance costs of the individual systems
• System-specific expertise to support the user
• Administration costs of the server farm
• Costs (up to 80 % of the IT budget )
• Interface problems

Outsourcing

Often the operation of the enterprise software is outsourced: Man tasked a company to take care of the entire process, ie to operate hardware to perform Operations, select software, procure, implement, maintain and adapt. The performance of the contracted company are defined by SLAs.