Adopting an enterprise application is a key business decision as well as a technology decision. Do you agree? Why or why not? Who should make this decision?

Enterprise Application can be a complex or very complex application or software for above average sized businesses across function and different levels of management. Examples are S.A.P., Finnacle, Oracle and so on. It functions as solution, client interface, storage, real time activities, supports forecasting, budgeting, sets production, sales et cetra all towards driving efficiency. According to Sholler,Daniel enterprise application can transcend internal processes and connectivity to include connection of systems outside the enterprise.

The decision to choose what enterprise application to use in a business is key to its processing and output style, hence despite the fact that enterprise applications are technology based, its adoption is jointly a business and technology decision.

The enterprise application is a system put in place in response to needs of the business needs of the organisation be it a production, manufacturing, sales, retail, service entity. The technology finds an enterprise solution touching most if not all areas of the business including but not limited to human resources, sales, IT, finance, and so on.

I once worked in a consulting firm that handled a cooperative client, inefficiency was rife in the system and we were brought on board to install a system to get the cooperative to run seamlessly. A mind map was created to find out requirements from end to end that is from the point of marketing to revenue collection to create a balance between meeting internal needs and providing best customer experience. At the end of the exercise, the needs of the business unit was frontal to the enterprise application choice balanced by the available skillsets in the organization's IT. The application was Finacoop which allowed staff in the field to put in orders immediately, this cut wait time for customers and allowed back office more time to process, put out products.

Reference

Sholler, Daniel (1999), Priority on architecture, Pages 108-                 111 https://search.proquest.com/docview/229104666?accountid=34773