business software
All organizations use software, but what are the different types of business software?
At the highest level, Business Software can be defined as any computer program that helps a business in achieving its tactical or strategic aims. This is regardless of the size of the business or the nature of the business. Businesses range in size from one-person operations right up to multi-national conglomerates with thousands of employees, and there is software available to help every one of these depending on their requirements.
In this article we will look at the high level types of business software that exist, and identify which types of business they are most appropriate for.
Accounting Software – essential business software for any organization
Every business, no matter the size, has a requirement to manage their accounts. This can be as simple as keeping a basic income and outgoings ledger to a full accounting department that handles all of the finance for the organization, and produces its financial reports. There is business software available that ranges from simple small business accounting right up to enterprise accounting to support all sizes of organization.
Accounting software is usually stand alone, though it can have interfaces to the other types of business software mentioned below, particularly payment processing software. As well as financial tracking and reporting it also allows the company to register and track its physical assets.
Operational Software
This type of business software enables a business to carry out its day to day operations. For certain well defined business niches this could be a commercially available business software package, whereas for other more specialized businesses it could be a custom written software program or package. (The term package generally just means a collection of programs).
Also included under the heading of Operational Software is the standard business software found in every organization that facilitates general business activity. This type of software is often called “Office Suites” and covers functions such as email, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and simple database applications.
All of these types of software can be considered as tactical solutions as they allow the organization to achieve its day to day and short term goals.
Strategic Software
For a company to achieve its longer term or strategic goals it often has to invest in a different type of business software. There is often a large investment in time, resources and money required to implement this type of software, but the results can often fundamentally change and improve the fortunes of the organization.
A common type of strategic software which many companies are investing in is Customer Relationship Management or CRM software. This allows a company to define how it interacts with its customers in a very precise fashion in order to maximize the benefits of the customer-supplier relationship for both parties.
Other types of strategic software include Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Project Planning, Business Process Management, Supply Chain Management, Workflow Management and Enterprise Data Analysis systems.
Increasingly there has also been a rise in Change Management software which allows companies to plan out the changes required when companies are bought, sold or streamlined into other organizations.
Payment Processing Software
Most organizations have the requirement to be able to process payments electronically, either by the internet or by other means. Payment Processing software allows payments to be taken quickly and securely. It can be built into other software packages or exist as a standalone systems in its own right.
The organization will usually have a sponsoring bank and the bank may provide a payment processing gateway system in order for the transactions to be made under the security of their processing systems.
This is a very high level assessment of the different types of business software. Other articles and posts within www.adcotech.com go into the subjects in much more detail.
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