In my earlier post titled “Software Products and Platforms”, I discussed key elements that differentiate a Product from a Platform. In this article, we discuss Enterprise Solutions, and how they complement the Products & Platforms.
Software Products target the same or similar user personas, in different Enterprises. And the choice of Software Products that are today available to an Enterprise user is simply exploding. From Productivity Apps to Customer Service Apps, to Finance Apps, to Human Resource Apps, to IT Administration Apps, choices abound in Marketplaces like SalesForce AppExchange, Azure Marketplace, AWS Marketplace, ServiceNow Appstore, and in even more App stores.
Exploring The Enterprise Stack
Now let's see this situation from a different perspective.
From the lens of a large Enterprise, the various Software Products in an Enterprise may look something like this.
This is an Enterprise Stack with different Software Products and Platforms that form its core elements.
Starting from the top layer of the Stack (mostly in lighter shades), one can see Consumers, Suppliers & even Employees interacting with the Enterprise over various touchpoints channels like Websites, Mobile Apps, Chat Bots, IVR etc. Typical Software Products that fall in this layer are Marketing tools (Google Adwords, UnBounce), CRM tools (Zoho, Hubspot), HR tools (Workday, ADP), Finance tools (Quickbooks), Productivity tools (Office 365, Dropbox) etc. These software products in use are mostly used by a group of Business Users or by a large Department. (Sometimes they are also used by an entire Enterprise). Business users of a Department usually evaluate these Software Products with easy trials, before choosing one Software Product that they really like and then refer them to be used in their Workgroups or Departments. This drives the adoption of such Products among Enterprise Users.
Such discussions are fairly independent of Enterprise IT Teams; the Enterprise IT team involvement is requested only when multiple Departments get impacted or when large spends on the software are needed or when Software needs to be configured. IT teams — rather than Departments or Business Teams — often evaluate, decide and manage software like ERPs (like SAP, Dynamics Central etc), CRM (SalesForce Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud etc), Customer Success (SalesForce Service Cloud, ServiceNow etc) and others.
At the other end of the Stack (and mostly in “darker shades” (!)), are Technology Products & Platforms that are extensively used by IT teams. These include Cloud Platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) used by IT Administration Teams to configure, control and manage Hardware Environments, Databases, Networks, etc. The Stack also includes Technology Products used by IT Development teams to develop new Software or to maintain Legacy Softwares or connect Multiple Softwares.
The middle of the Enterprise Stack (mostly in various shades of grey (!!)) is where we find the possibility of both Enterprise user and Business users jointly evaluating, using and managing products found in this layer. The products in this middle Layer are more technical than the average product on the top layer, and yet require business knowledge to make them work well or work at all. Software Products like Machine Learning tools (for example H2O.AI), Integration tools (like Zapier) Intelligent Business Process Management or iBPMS (like Appian, Pega Systems), Robotic Automation tools (UIPath, BluePrism, Automation Anywhere) etc, are part of this layer. But just like the top end of the Stack, here too, any Software Products that majorly impacts the Enterprise is typically led by IT Teams to ensure Architecture, Security, Legal, Technical and other Compliance Requirements are addressed.
[The Enterprise Stack here is simplified of course. New Softwares get launched every day that push the boundaries of these boundaries. (example, SAP launching RPA tool). New sub-categories of Software emerge as well that targets different parts of the Enterprise Stack (for example, an increasingly popular paradigm is Low Code Application Development Platforms like Outsystems, Mendix , Wizergos etc where handwritten software is replaced by system-generated software from simple Drags & Drops or by the use of formula-like tools, instead of an advanced Programming Language)].
The key thing to observe that today, more than ever, the Enterprise IT team are involved in coordinating even more parts of an ever-growing empire of elements of the Enterprise Stack.
The Solution.
The Enterprise Solution is a Software, designed and made almost specifically for THAT Enterprise.
The need for an Enterprise Solution is driven by 3 main purposes:
First, from a business perspective, an Enterprise’s requirements rarely fall into a one-size-fits-all approach, even in those in the same industry. A single large Enterprise can even differ within itself across multiple geographies that it could operate in. Some very large Enterprises can even differ in requirements across the departments or divisions within the same geography. The larger the Enterprise, the larger is the diversity of requirements. Simple Software Products may fail to address such diversities.
Second, from a Technology perspective, what is available as an “Enterprise Software Product”, needs to be additionally customized for THAT Enterprise. While some customizations can be easily accomplished by individual users in an Enterprise (changing user profile photo for example by changing a quick setting), other customizations that impact a larger set of Enterprise users (example: customizations on purchasing workflows, the logic for purchase approvals or declines etc) are far more complex to implement. Transforming a Software Product like an ERP, CRM to an Enterprise Solution can be complex to implement.
Third, from a Techno-Business Perspective, with the proliferation of well-established Software SAAS products that target specific Enterprise personas, there is a need to have multiple different Software to talk to each other to achieve a larger Enterprise objective. Often this cuts across multiple Departments or User Personas, that Software Products cannot address. This is most apparent when users have to hop from one Software to another Software to complete something, or when users have to email, chat with one another with attachments from different Softwares.
For these, and possibly for many other reasons, an Enterprise Solution needs to be developed by the Enterprise IT team to hyper-customize an Enterprise Software, or to connect and orchestrate multiple elements of the Enterprise Stack.
In conclusion, a Software Product aims at similar Problems and similar users across multiple Enterprises. But a single Enterprise Software Solution is a very different approach: it is often the ability to deeply customize and Tailor a Software to a specific Enterprise.
Custom Software Development using Professional IT Service Providers is one option. Low Code Platforms is the other, and one can argue an increasingly better, option to build Enterprise Solutions.
There is a difference between the two, but that's another post!
