Several big companies like Netflix and Amazon have also favored microservice architecture as it adds value to their business and helps with the development, scalability, and continuous delivery of their services. As per a report, 73% of firms using or planning to use microservices see it as extremely beneficial for building next-generation services and applications.

In this blog, we are going to understand microservice architecture and discuss the benefits of microservices architecture in your business.

What is Microservice Architecture?

“A loosely coupled service-oriented architecture with bounded contexts to make sure you break your problem into the right chunks” – Adrian Cockcroft

Microservice Architecture is an architectural approach wherein software applications are built as a collection of loosely coupled services, unlike monolithic software applications. Each microservice can be created independently from the other, which means individual service can function without negatively impacting the others. They can even have their own programming language. These services interact with each other using APIs to solve a larger complex business problem.

Enterprise mobile app developers leverage the capabilities of this architecture, especially for complex applications, and to reduce app development costs.

In short, it is undoubtedly one of the best enterprise architectures in today’s modernized world that supports multiple platforms and devices. Major players like eBay, Netflix, Twitter, and Amazon have already started leveraging this new style of developing applications for some time now.

Why Should You Use Microservice Architecture?

After understanding the microservices software development architecture, let’s dive deep and discuss the advantages of microservice architecture in your next business project. 

1. Increased development speed: Microservices are often small in size, therefore, adding new features to them are usually faster.
   
2. Separate components: Microservice architecture comprises loosely coupled components. These components can easily be developed, replaced, and scaled individually.

3. Application scaling: Microservices based application architecture can offer horizontal scaling within seconds, if they are carefully deployed using Kubernetes, Docker, or other infrastructure. In fact, companies like Netflix, Spotify, Uber, Google have moved from monolithic to microservice architecture because of horizontal scaling. Also, for instance, if one microservice is CPU intensive, it could be implemented in a CPU optimized programming language, while other microservices can be implemented in an interpreted language like Java.
   
4. Change technology stack with ease: Microservice lets agile application development companies to easily change technology stack and avail larger benefits at the same time. There is no hard and fast rule to use a particular stack as there is no dependency.
   
5. Development scaling: As microservice can be developed independently, developer scalability is much better. Why so? Because different agile software developers/teams can work on different codes without bumping into each other’s code. So, agile software development companies can easily hire more developers and scale up agile software development services.
   
6. Easy to understand: In a distributed environment wherein some of the team members are geographically dispersed, microservice architecture can help DevOps team understand the entire functionality of a service as it is not built on a single package. 

But there are challenges, too

Microservice architecture offers a lot of benefits, but you can’t ignore the challenges it comes with. Moving from monolith to microservice means a lot more management complexity – a lot more services created by a lot more teams and deployed in a lot more places. Logging data is more voluminous and can be inconsistent across different services. Moreover, too many alternative languages can make your solution potentially difficult to maintain. A DevOps approach can solve many of the problems, but DevOps adoption has challenges of its own.

Nevertheless, these challenges aren’t stopping businesses from adopting a microservice architecture. As per a survey conducted by IBM, 56% of current non-users are likely or very likely to adopt microservices within the next two years.

How Big Companies Are Using Microservice Architecture to Their Advantage?

As mentioned above, many big industry players like Amazon and Netflix have been using microservice architecture to create microservices-based apps as they bring a whole range of benefits to their organizations. Let’ see how they are making use of this architectural pattern to their advantage:

• Netflix: Netflix shifted from monolithic to microservice architecture. How did it happen? Well, in 2008, a program had a missing semicolon, which brought down Netflix’s website, and it took several hours to recover from it. Around the same time, Netflix also realized that they were finding it hard to scale. While the popularity of Netflix was growing at a rapid rate, the company wasn’t quick enough to build data centers. This limitation started to hamper their growth.

Therefore, in 2009, Netflix steadily moved from monolithic to microservice architecture. The company began its transition to AWS cloud-based microservice architecture. Netflix moved to the microservice architecture by adopting it in December 2011. With this drastic step, Netflix now had hundreds of microservices instead of a giant monolith application that they had earlier. In December 2015, Netflix microservice architecture featured an API gateway that handled 2 billion API requests daily.

• Amazon: Back in the early 2000s as Amazon was growing, it started facing a lot of issues, which were impacting the overall productivity. An ample amount of time was spent on merging developer changes into a master version of the product. However, Amazon was quick to realize that operating like this wasn’t sustainable. So, they decided to move to microservice architecture, where each service is responsible for a single purpose as it is reachable via web service APIs.

Once Amazon moved to microservice architecture, this paved the way to success for Amazon

Now we know how major giants have achieved success in no time with microservice architecture pattern, let’s move on to the best practices to use while implementing this pattern.

How To Implement Microservice Architecture?

You should keep in mind the following practices if you want to implement microservices architecture based applications in your next business project:

• Use RESTful APIs to implement this architecture in the best way possible
• Organize your team around your microservices
• Make sure beforehand whether this architecture will work for you
• Define your microservices carefully
• Invest in high-quality DevOps and application monitoring solutions
• Use Domain-Driven Design to design your microservices
• Plan for data storage for each microservice

Conclusion – Should You Go For Microservice Architecture?

It is true that designing and implementing microservice architecture is not an easy task and needs a paradigm shift compared to monolithic architecture. But despite that, microservice is a very useful and handy tool for the mobile app development process. For large enterprises, microservice architecture is the only way to tackle complexity and to get an edge over the competition. For startups and small businesses, microservices in mobile app development can bring long-term benefits. It is worth mentioning that early adopters of microservice architecture like Amazon, Twitter, and Netflix have amassed massive success with this pattern.  

At Appinventiv, we have helped many small-scale companies, medium-sized businesses, and enterprises to come up with the right architecture pattern. Please spare a minute or two from your valuable time and let us help you to realize the potential that your next architectural project requires with our enterprise software development company in California.

FAQs About Microservice Architecture

Why do we need microservice architecture?

Microservice helps to create more logical applications that run faster, reduce development costs and help scale up.

How microservice architecture works in simple words?

The main idea behind a microservice architecture is that an application using microservices architecture is simpler to build and maintain when they are broken down into small pieces that work seamlessly together. An application built with microservices runs faster without any complexity.

Why should I use microservices?

Microservices make it easy to debug, test, and deploy applications and also allows you to optimize resources. It also allows you to use code from existing libraries instead of reinventing the code.

How do you build a microservice architecture?

For building a microservice architecture, organize your teams the right way and keep communication between services with RESTful APIs. Then divide the data structure and emphasize monitoring to ease microservices testing.

The post Microservice Architecture: A Brief Overview and Its Use appeared first on Appinventiv.

Customers’ behavior is constantly changing and changing with them are business applications and use cases. An instantaneous, user-friendly, omnichannel and secure software has become the expectation of every modern-day customer looking to interact with a brand. 

These changes require businesses to let go of or update their existing software, architecture, or application which keep them from meeting their business objectives and push them a step behind from attaining a competitive edge. Enter legacy software modernization. 

Today, we are diving into some of the key questions that surround legacy enterprise systems modernization, including:

Table of Content

1. What are Legacy Systems and Why Do Companies Still Use Them?
2. What Are The Hidden Costs of Legacy Systems?
3. What Are The Different Legacy Modernization Methods?
4. Why Do Some Legacy System Modernization Processes Fail?
5. How Can Appinventiv Aid Your Modernization Efforts?

What are Legacy Systems and Why Do Companies Still Use Them?

Let us start answering this two-part question by first looking into what is a legacy system and how to identify one. 

Legacy systems is a concept that can be understood as an old piece of software, an incumbent technology, or a system that slows down the organization’s ability to expand, grow, or keep up with the changing market demands. When a system stops having a lack of IT support or stands unable to support the organizational needs, it can be called a legacy system. 

Here’s how you can identify if you have a legacy system in place. 

1. It is no more supported by the vendors
2. It doesn’t get any security updates 
3. It doesn’t integrate with the modern software 
4. You have to find workarounds for the processes
5. You have to wait for it to load, finish, or simply run
6. The maintenance cost is extremely high. 

If there are so many issues with a legacy system, why do companies keep using them? Why are businesses still slow to the adoption of legacy system modernization approaches knowing it’s harming their brand? This brings us to the second part of the question. 

Here are some of the most common concerns that we have heard in our enterprise software development services journey – 

• “Our business processes have been custom-made. They have become fundamental and critical to our business performance.”
• “Updates are too risky, what if the key data gets corrupted or lost?”
• “Our software contains important business rules which are not mentioned in any document”.
• “It is impossible to find a new system that is functionally identical to the legacy systems”. 

Even amidst these concerns, there are entrepreneurs who understand the need to migrate to new-gen softwares, especially to meet their digital transformation objectives.

What Are The Hidden Costs of Legacy Systems?

Maintenance costs

Systems and applications become difficult to manage over time. Every other alteration adds up a level of complexity – these changes over a period of time introduce glitches. It takes very less time for even simple updates to become a time and money consuming task. 

Support costs

With the systems becoming old and outdated, the vendor support also lowers. So if you have been relying on third-party software providers, it will become all the more difficult to keep the software running if they stop providing the support altogether. 

Legacy skillset costs

The upkeep of a legacy system calls for a legacy skillset. Once the employees carrying those skills retire, the talent pool shrinks. What makes it worse is that the market which has now moved to more new-gen technologies and systems curb the demand for legacy skills even further. 

Agility costs 

Most of the legacy systems are difficult to change. So what happens when you have to add in a new feature or application in the business? Here’s what – projects run longer and over budget. You keep encountering roadblocks during the project. Testing new features takes time since it is difficult to measure how well everything fits with the old system. These events tend to up the integration costs as well. 

Up until this point, you must have gathered insights into why legacy system modernization services are necessary (in many ways a prerequisite) for any business looking to invest in enterprise app development. 

We don’t want to get down to the reasons why IT legacy modernization is necessary, since they can be easily compressed into three reasons:

• High business operation cost 
• Lack of ability to maintain a competitive edge
• Encountering challenges in digital transformation adoption 

Besides these, Gartner estimates that every dollar put into innovating digital business through 2020 would call for enterprises spending at least three times that to modernize their legacy application portfolio. 

While it is an expensive affair to update the legacy system, modernizing it also requires enterprises to spend a substantial amount of money. Getting the most out of your spent dollars requires you to carefully consider which software modernization strategy is good for you. “The key is to understand if your problem is caused by technology, architecture or functionality of the application, and how each modernization approach improves those aspects,” says Stefan van der Zijden, Gartner research director. 

But how do you decide that? 

1. By ensuring that the legacy system is actually outdated and not for you anymore 
2. By having a complete understanding of how the different legacy modernization models work. 

What Are The Different Legacy Modernization Methods?

Legacy system modernization techniques, especially ones around older versions of applications, are difficult because they are custom-built in a single monolith style compared to a microservices model. This means that the software – data, network configurations, and security are all tightly coupled with the base infrastructure making it difficult to upgrade any one component. 

Even small updates trigger slow, long regression-testing processes which involve the manual setup of a near-production test environment in addition to configurations, and appropriate data. 

Here are the five ways legacy enterprise applications are generally handled – 

1.  Replatform 

The approach involves the application of minimal changes in the legacy system and then moving them to another platform. Although it does not change the present system’s code function or structure, it allows you to host the applications on a less expensive platform. While re-engineering of projects take time the re-platform approach is fast and designed to keep underlying business logic intact. It means next to negligible impact on the operations of businesses. 

The situations where the approach makes most business sense – 

• There are very few functionalities which have to be modernized 
• There is a business need to move some processes in the system on cloud
• There is a financial crunch in the company

2.  Reface

This software modernization strategy surrounds scraping off some information from your legacy system and adding in a graphical interface. It helps with making your old software look new with some new UI features. The approach makes it unnecessary to procure any new technology, thus saving on the licensing cost. 

The approach is best suited in case where –

• The management team has a strong association with the legacy application. 
• IT teams are highly skilled in the old technology and know the ways to make continuous improvements. 
• Although the software is old, the technology base is modern (e.g. J2EE/Java)

3.  Rebuild 

Here, you build the enterprise legacy system from the ground up. You can consult with your enterprise software development company on whether to rebuild the entire system or simply rebuild the core parts of the software portfolio. The approach, although extreme, offers the greatest returns and best competitive edge. Also, the technology stack is made to be competitive for several years in teh future. 

The approach is chosen when – 

• The present system is unable to support changes demanded by the market. 
• The underlying technology is no longer supported by its vendor
• The present technology is very expensive to license

4.  Extend and Migrate 

This is one of the most well-strategized legacy software update methods. Here you gradually extend your legacy system and introduce new features and modern applications on a milestone basis. This way you get to perform legacy systems updates without replacing them altogether. It is one of the lowest-risk ways to transform the system by moving one component at a time. And since only one component is migrated, the cost of failure and business impact is very low. 

The situations where it suits best – 

• When you are looking to replace the entire system one element at a time. 
• When there are only a few components which contribute to your current business process. 
• When you have to change the current system from batch to real-time
• When there’s a need to modernize the outdated database with a RDMS system.

5.  No System Change

In this approach, businesses adopt a wait and watch behaviour wherein they put modernization of systems on hold till a time when they’ll be able to find the best ROI of the process. This approach helps the company make decisions on the basis of industry changes and transformation.

The situations where the approach suits best – 

• The company modernized in the past and has no immediate need to migrate
• The business is focused on absorbing the change in market or in their customers
• There is a lack of funding availability for modernization. 

The five legacy modernization solutions are common among all the enterprise software modernization process. But however easy they sound in text, there are many challenges that their integration follows. Here are the difficulties that enterprise application development companies encounter.

Why Do Some Legacy System Modernization Processes Fail?

We just explored the risks associated with legacy systems and the different ways they can be overcome, although there are some key reasons which directly affect the results of their modernization process. Here are some of the common reasons why projects’ modernization fail – 

Inefficient business processes

Before beginning a legacy modernization process, it is important to note what the problem is – is it caused by the legacy system or is the business process inefficient? Making new software while ignoring the ineffective business process can be a recipe for failure. 

Making business adopt new software 

Legacy system modernization brings a considerable change to your business. But the thing you have to note is whether the system is adapting your business or is your business adapting it. 

For a successful modernization process, it is important that software should fit into the business process and needs and not the other way round. 

For a software that asks your team to adopt a new process will meet with some dissatisfaction from your employees. Imagine working on a Word document and suddenly being asked to move the writing and editing process first on Google docs and then on a project management tool like Trello. While good for the business in hindsight, the suddenness is bound to baffle you – thus adopt a software that fits in your current processes seamlessly and has the ability to scale over time to help your employees get where you want them. 

Modernizing all at the same time

There are a number of businesses that take modernization as a magic pill that will solve their digital transformation issues overnight. And under this misconception, they replace the legacy system right from its entirety with a new solution. The reality is that a complete replacement of the system forces disruption on not just employees but the customers as well, which is difficult for both classes of stakeholders to adjust with. 

How Can Appinventiv Aid Your Modernization Efforts?

Whether you are looking to re-platform the legacy system or are looking to integrate a new solution in the system or simply want to re-architect the enterprise system, getting help from a skilled enterprise app development company is necessary for both short and long term outcome and success. 

With extensive expertise in handling enterprise-level projects, our in-house software development team carries expertise in legacy modernization. Right from defining goals and establishing scope to integrating systems in your legacy software and working on a milestone-based migration, our team hand-holds you through the entire process. 

Get in touch with us to design your business objective and understand the best route to migrating them into a digital-first software.

The post Are Legacy Systems Holding Back Your Business Growth? appeared first on Appinventiv.

Even amidst the clear need for digital transformation, enterprises are grappling to remain competitive in a world filled with nimble startups. These enterprises were once dependent on their IT models as a key to a competitive edge. Now, however, the same IT cores have made it difficult for them to adopt a new normal centered around flexibility, speed, and efficiency. 

With being nimble now accounted as the only way to survive and scale in the COVID-19 world, enterprises have turned their focus on the development of next gen apps.

Table Of  Content

1. The Need for Next Gen Apps
2. What Does Next generation application development Mean for Enterprises? Speed, Efficiency, and Flexibility
3. Key Transformation Areas for Enterprises
4. The Best ADM Approaches for the Creation of New Normal Enterprise Applications
5. Schedule a Discussion

The Need for Next Gen Apps

Businesses need apps that will be able to adapt to changing demands and scale to meet customers’ and employees’ needs in real-time. An enterprise application development company by building next-gen apps based on business understanding and customers’ requirements gives enterprises a platform to transform digitally. 

Next generation mobile apps and other software help enterprises:

• Lower the time to market when meeting the changes in customers’ needs.
• Lower product complexity by utilizing a cross-platform, scalable ecosystem. 
• Make smarter business decisions through analytics backed insights.

What Does Next Generation Application Development Mean for Enterprises? Speed, Efficiency, and Flexibility 

The need of the business hour for enterprises, as we noted before, is to look for next generation application management services. This new normal in enterprise software revolves around a trio – Efficiency, Speed, and Flexibility.

Speed – Pre-COVID, release cycles came with months-long completion time. Now, with customers’ needs changing by the minute, enterprises don’t have the leverage of taking up months for deployment. There is no guarantee of a problem staying a problem by the end of those months. The new normal enterprise will have to bring in agile methodology in its application development and maintenance process to offer its stakeholders value in real-time. 

Efficiency – The success of every nimble enterprise lies in automation, a well-planned business integration, and the adoption of agile methodologies. And all of this can be achieved through practices like: the integration of AI in mobile apps, re-prioritization of business processes, and weeding out unnecessary feature sets. 

Flexibility – Zero downtime has become a success mantra. But its adoption is a lot easier written or said than done. In order to become truly flexible, enterprises must modernize or replace their outdated applications. However, letting go of the legacy system is one of the biggest digital transformation issues.

What enterprises need is a next generation application maintenance program that would make proper use of the modernization spend while enabling digital transformation.

Before we get down to the nitty-gritty of what that next-gen application would look like, let us look at the areas that enterprises would have to work on to compete within themselves and with the startups flooding in the business ecosystems. 

Key Transformation Areas for Enterprises

The best thing about enterprises is that they understand how COVID-19 would change them – on some grounds, better than their startups’ counterparts.

The speed of automation will expedite

The automation of key processes and routine tasks has remained at the center of business development for some time now. This need for task and process automation is not new. Back in 2017, McKinsey & Company forecasted that 30 percent of key tasks across industries will get automated by 2030. “Before the pandemic, automation was looked upon as a way to boost efficiency while cutting costs,” said H.I. Executive Consulting. “With social distancing directives likely to stay in place for a while, more and more businesses are accelerating their automation efforts in order to reduce close human contact to a minimum, free up employees to manage crisis response and focus on providing essential services.”

The movement towards remote digital service

The new normal for business after covid will be organizations changing their support and service delivery plans to meet the digital reliance of their employees and customers. 

Here are some examples of what a remote digital service looks like. 

The digital-powered Russian bank Tinkoff created a cloud-based call center with several freelance employees. The bank focuses completely on virtual servicing. To date, they have expanded into a team of 14,000 call center operators of which 6,000 of them make an average of 500,000 customer calls every day from homes. The bank’s cost of managing and training operators gets offset by the savings made from rental offices and equipment.

In the telecommunication industry, companies have started launching digital-only offerings that redefine customer experiences and gather considerable attraction. The USP of these services lies in customers signing themselves and moreover with more than 80% of customer-care activities being conducted online. In this digital-first model, online referral act as the biggest source for customer acquisition – estimated to be 15% of the total sales.

The success examples are prevalent across  multiple industries. This has turned remote service into a trend that has a high-profit potential.

Supply Chain Disruption May Continue

Global lockdowns have resulted in a massive scale of supply chain disruption. Back in February, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV stopped production in their Serbia factory for they weren’t able to obtain automobile manufacturing parts from China. 

The majority of the enterprises understand the manufacturing and delivery process of their Tier 1 suppliers while having little visibility on further the line. The business need is to make the supply chain resilient for the post-COVID period. And in order to do that, enterprises would have to:

• develop strong backend infrastructure – possibly by combining blockchain and supply chain processes
• remove the dependency from paper-based processes
• share data with suppliers for gaining manufacturing stages visibility.

Partnerships will become collaborative and lean 

Enterprises can meet the changing partners and vendors’ preferences by shifting to a more collaborative and flexible set of partnerships. These partnerships can be multi-form. Example: An IT consultancy firm could work with remote vendors to decrease their office and travel cost. There can also be enterprises providing agreements with their vendors for long-term opportunities. For example, how Alibaba supports SME suppliers with an extended line of credit.

As a part of the new normal for marketplace, we are seeing partnerships brewing on the basis of an understanding of customer needs, wherein both the partners can mix knowledge and create value. For example, recently, WhatsApp started enabling its customers to directly connect with brands and make purchases through a simplified mobile experience on WhatsApp.

Management systems of a new model

Met with the unsurity of the new reality, enterprises have started looking for ways of adopting virtual management systems in enterprise application development services. 

For effectively responding to a fast-changing environment, businesses will consider making use of advanced analytics tools, automation, and digitalized processes to meet customer demand fluctuations in semi real-time. We can also envision enterprise application development solutions being built on human-technology interactions which would help businesses collect insights for IT-driven productivity rise.

To meet with the changes that a post-COVID world would pose, businesses would have to take a modernized approach – one that would help them become cognitive. While this can be achieved through the creation of new-age technologies backed next generation mobile applications services, it would need enterprises to get back to their legacy systems. 

Here are some of the application development and maintenance approaches that we have been offering to enterprises coming to us seeking digital transformation consultancy. 

The Best ADM Approaches for the Creation of New Normal Enterprise Applications

Optimizing the current IT systems 

Enterprises can optimize their present IT systems with modern approaches and tools to cut costs and heighten efficiency. We advise organizations to make use of AI and automation capabilities for ensuring quality and following DevOps steps to lower the development cycle. 

By deploying new-generation capabilities and features around existing systems enterprises will be able to innovate and keep their competitive edge – even when they are not prepared for complete cloud transformation. They can attain easier access and modification of the legacy systems through the use of technologies like containers, API integrations, and microservices. 

Gather data and convert it into an actionable product in a minimal time range

When we build enterprise applications, we focus on benefiting from cloud-native, digital-first technologies to deliver growth at speed. Deploying speed-focused innovation abilities are generally backed with an MVP, small feedback loop, test-driven development, and a fail-fast approach.

The intent of this approach is to help enterprises take key business decisions and turn them into products that their stakeholders need in as close as real-time. 

Schedule a Discussion

Preparing your business for a post-COVID era can be full of doubts and challenges. The time we are presently operating in is one that we have never witnessed before. But the only way to get out of it as an industry leader is to take the nimble approach and focus on making enterprise mobile app development next-gen. We are here to help. Schedule a consultation with our enterprise-focused team to sail through the unprecedented waters.

The post How Can Enterprises Pilot the New Normal with Next-Gen Applications appeared first on Appinventiv.

The layman tends to mix up enterprise software development and standard software engineering when one is just a subset of the other. 

With that thought, it’s time to cover this still not settled topic around the differences between enterprise software development and standard software development. What makes it all the more important now is that the global enterprise mobility market is poised to be worth $140 billion by 2020.

What Does Enterprise Software Mean?

Breaking down the term would self-define it. An enterprise is a business. Software that is tailored to suit the needs of a business is therefore an enterprise software. While a single software might suffice to process particular tasks, a collection of such software packages is needed to support the day-to-day needs of an organization. This collection formulates an Enterprise System (ES).

The scope of work of enterprise software applications depends on the nature of business. But it is safe to say that the tools are more or less similar in principle. Owing to this reason you would see Software-as-a-Service vendors offer essentially the same platform, with the option to add or subtract features according to the business need. An enterprise software developer is often tasked with creating the following enterprise level software, which also act as reasons to invest in enterprise app development:

• Payment Processing Tool 
• Business Intelligence 
• Human Resource Management 
• Automated Billing System 
• IT Service Management 
• Form Automation 
• Project Management 
• Business process Management

You would notice they require a particular level of enterprise software management to create and operate. Such enterprise software platforms are efficiency-driven and result oriented. 

Software engineering that is concerned with creating a service-focused solution for an organization is called enterprise software engineering. It is limited to a business process or a network of them. 

In tandem with the above-mentioned tools, there are certain characteristics that formulate the base of such solutions as detailed in the following section. 

Features of Enterprise Software Applications

Enterprise software developers must stay disciplined while conceptualizing an enterprise software product. With the purpose of the software clear, enterprise software applications must manifest the following characteristics regardless of their form-factor and design for they can be a strategy to improve the ROI of an enterprise app: 

Performance 

You would either have an in-house IT team working full-time on greasing and oiling your processes or an enterprise application development company in Florida  or any part of USA doing the bit for you. Since you will expend resources you might as well do it right. Performance management has to top your agenda. When the software powering your business delivers continuum, it automatically reduces your spending on maintenance services. 

Ensuring high uptime reflects in the quality of the product meted out to consumers. At the end of the day, the software is a combination of programmable codes which doesn’t run on its own but needs constant monitoring. The only point of concern being, there should be minimal instances of worry as you deputize the functioning of such software. 

Scalability 

Users would continue to pour into the system as you reach new highs and expand your business. If contracting your work to a custom software development services company  in any part of the world, be it an enterprise application development company in Florida or USA, then keep in mind that the architecture insures you against an ever-expanding user count. There should be advance reporting mechanisms baked into the software so effective steps can be undertaken and code inadequacies worked on timely. The enterprise app development company should make it their mission statement to provide the latest technological upgrades as and when needed to scale applications. 

Storage 

As the number of users multiply, so would their data. You would reach a tipping point when in-house data warehouses would not be sufficient to bear the load of your growing data demand. Cloud storage systems have emerged as a reliable alternative to such a problem. You would find many alternatives in the market to outsource this crucial IT section be it end-to-end SaaS vendors or enterprise software development services 

Your technology partner, should you choose to go that way, should have the capability of storing both structured and unstructured data. As we continue to chart the digital economy, support in managing Big Data would be a big plus. 

Security 

User data is the 21st-century equivalent of oil due to which it must be stored securely. An endemic software loophole could cause a data leak wreaking havoc and causing immeasurable damage to your brand reputation. At the same time, the means you rely on to protect you from potential rogue actors must not violate applicable regulatory guidelines. 

One of the enterprise app development myths is that they are hack friendly and thus cannot be trusted with sensitive data. An enterprise app development company can help you fill security gaps provided your business does not have sufficient in-house digital security experts to bank on. Appinventiv has a comprehensive wing of compliance administrators that suits our partners throughout the Americas and beyond. Be it GDPR or other emerging but not yet legalized instructions on such matters, we have a 360-degree approach to keep your enterprise software apps tact and dandy.

Interoperability 

We mentioned earlier that Enterprise Systems (ES) are required to run large scale business processes. As part of such an interconnected software package, it is vital that enterprise applications interoperate without giving you a headache. While laying out a strategy for such projects make sure your developers are aware of the future scope of current and emerging technological trends. 

If you plan to outsource the development, the software application development company must have a long-term view of the state of apps and the experience to make room for 11th-hour client requests. 

Microservices

Coming to the architecture of the software, microservices help mitigate software latency by distributing the workload on to separate functional areas operating in cohesion. You realize the true advantage of microservices when there is a peak in demand. It makes business processes flexible and makes them cope with performance-related issues. 

But not all developers have the aptitude to work with microservices and they are more in favour of monolithic architecture in the comparison between monolithic and microservices. If your IT team lacks such support, consider partnering with an enterprise mobile application development company seriously. 

Difference between Enterprise Software and Consumer-End Software 

Conventionally, software can be of three types depending upon who the end-user is namely: 

Custom – It is designed to meet the requirements of an enterprise, in other words, this is the enterprise software that has been discussed up until now. 

Consumer – It is designed with standalone users like yourself in mind. Smartphone applications such as iTunes, Google Maps etc., can be counted amongst consumer software or consumer apps. 

Personal – Provided an individual has the requisite knowledge to write code, they can design software for personal use. An example could be an automation software to process calculations. 

When people, at large, talk of software, they do so while believing there is no difference between enterprise software and consumer software. You know better now! But to be sure here’s a breakdown of what distinguishes one from the other. 

Target Group 

The first and foremost differentiator is the target user of each group. While consumer apps are targeted towards the masses, enterprise apps are for businesses. Consumer apps are available on app stores while enterprise applications can be subscribed to on a pay-as-you-go basis from third-party vendors. 

As of the first quarter of 2020, there were more than 2.5 million applications on the Google Play Store alone – reason enough to go with an Android app for enterprise needs. Enterprise apps are much less in number, but it is safe to surmise that they enable the production of consumer apps by helping the business machinery work well. With Appinventiv’s enterprise mobile app development services clients can get both, a consumer app as well as an enterprise app. 

Functionalities

Consumer apps are lifestyle driven. Their aim, notwithstanding a few exceptions, is to simplify the choices consumers make in their daily lives. In the digital age, they have come to dictate and monetize every conceivable aspect of human life from leisure to health and more. Each industry defines a category for enterprise mobile app developers to let their creative horses lose and design the next big thing.  

Enterprise apps, on the other hand, are driven by optimizations and profitable business outcomes. Irrespective of their function, they are supposed to hammer down on process inefficiencies and smoothen out possible alternatives to save stakeholder time, resources, and capital.

Types 

Both the consumer as well as enterprise apps can be further categorized into an open and a closed ecosystem. Open apps are those that the public at large can access. This happens, in terms of smart devices, by downloading the application while the enterprise users have to log into the software with an assigned user-ID and password. 

Note that the open and closed supra-category is equally applied to consumers and enterprise apps irrespective of their industrial category. For instance, organizational employees could, at will, log-into an open app such as an internal instant messenger (IM), or learning management system (LMS). A closed app could be a payroll management system. 

Design 

Design is the central axis of consumer end apps around which UI/UX and the navigational features rotate. An immeasurable amount of thought is channeled into finding that secret sauce of aesthetic elements used to grip user attention. Convenience is the key. App developers are driven by UI/UX trends, the 2020 iteration of which suggests developments such as a passwordless future for app logins. 

But there is no such compulsive design thinking to program enterprise apps as they are created to manufacture efficiency. In fact, the more minimalist they are the better as the objective is not to awe the viewer but to resolve queries in minimum time. This is how enterprise software development differs from normal software development. 

Facial Recognition in Consumer Apps

Source

Revenue Generation

Consumer apps generate income through two modes. The first is the subscription mode where users pay a monthly fee to avail app services. In app purchases formulate a component of this mode. The second involves indirect monetization where advertisers pay a fee to reach the user base with targeted advertising. 

In other words, the apps charge businesses for the structured data that can be used to directly promote a relevant service. Take Facebook for instance. The world’s largest social network has legacy business paying ostentatious sums to reach users with
Disney, spending the maximum in the 1st quarter of 2020 (US $213.64 million). 

Enterprise apps also rely on dual modes of income. The first is where B2B clients pay an upfront, lifetime licensing fee for owning the software. The vendor makes all the SLA customizations to the software, following which the latter’s IT team is responsible for the enterprise software management. 

The second method is where enterprise software developers have the room to maneuver and maximise profits. Rather than offering the software for a licensing fee, they can negotiate a deal to have a share of the profits. The condition makes perfect sense as the software is designed to optimise efficiencies and deliver results. This is how a standard software vs enterprise software revenue model works. 

Concluding Thoughts  

Enterprise Software development doesn’t come naturally to all. In cases when it does, vendors limit the span of their services to the macro-economic, B2B sector. But that is not how Appinventiv operates. We offer our partners everything under one roof, be it enterprise application development company in Florida, mobile application development in Asia, or even on-demand development with unprecedented IT solutions that few would conceive. But don’t take our word, see it to believe it.

The post What are Enterprise Apps & What Separates them from Consumer-end Apps? appeared first on Appinventiv.

Only in technological terms, the house is substituted by the software architecture pattern, the residents are replaced by the source code and the floors of the house are replaced by the application architecture layers that an engineer puts in place. 

What Does a Good Enterprise Architecture Signify?

The question is akin to asking, what role does a healthy mind play in the development of your body? It’s interlinked, isn’t it! And so are software processes to the running of an enterprise. It is mission-critical, that IT teams agree on a malleable and adaptable enterprise software design for the following obvious reasons, beside the fact that a sound architecture is how enterprise mobile apps are able to increase ROI.:

• It makes the life of a programmer much easier while debugging the software.
• Project stakeholders such as the management, IT teams as well as the user side will benefit from a finely grained enterprise software architecture that permits code enhancement at advanced stages of the software development process.
• A good software architecture pattern makes implementing the code easy and project coordination a seamless procedure. 

The beauty of software development engineering is that you can integrate multiple architectural patterns within one system for optimization. But it is advisable to choose a pattern for your enterprise, with the help of development companies in your areas.

Now that we know what is enterprise architecture, we’ll pick our top choices for enterprise application architectures so you can cut down on not just immediate but future project costs and use enterprise apps to grow your business.

[Further Read: Explained: Mobile App Architecture – The Basis of App Ecosystem]

Top Software Architecture Patterns

A. Layered Architecture

One of the most common, and efficient, models deployed by enterprises is the Layered Architecture, also called the n-tiered pattern. It packs similar components together in a horizontal manner and is self-independent. What does that mean? 

It implies that the layers of the model are interconnected to each other but not interdependent. Similar components of enterprise application architecture stay at the same level allowing the layers to be separated inadvertently based on the nature of the code. It is this isolation that lends the software layers an independent nature. 

Consider an instance, wherein you’d want to switch from an Oracle database to an SQL. This shift may cause you to upend the database layer but will not have a domino effect on any other layer. 

Evidently, it serves a challenge for an enterprise software architect to create layers that separate from each other. Nevertheless, since the roles of each layer are clearly distinct, it accredits this software development architecture the following qualities:

• This popular  enterprise application architecture is easily maintainable as enterprise software developers with limited, or should we say pertinent, knowledge can be assigned to operate on a single layer.
• You can test changes in layers separately from each other. 
• Upgraded versions of the software can be implemented effortlessly. 

The flow of code is top-down, meaning it enters the presentation layer first and trickles down to the bottom-most layer that is the database layer. Each layer has a designated task based on the nature of the components it preserves. These could be checking the consistency of values within the code or reformatting the code altogether. 

Refactoring – a key way to lower frontend maintenance cost – is a software development process by which developers change the internal shape and size of the code. They do it without affecting its external attributes and can also be carried out in an n-tiered model.

This software development architecture can be customized to add layers to the presentation, business, persistence, and database levels. Such a model is called a Hybrid Layered architecture.

Benefits

• Amongst the various types of software architecture, the layered variant suits enterprises that don’t want to go overboard with experimenting and want to stick to the traditional software architecture design patterns. 
• Testing components becomes relatively easier as inter-dependencies are negligible in this format of software development engineering.
• Considering many software frameworks were built with the backdrop of an n-tiered structure, applications built with them, as a result, happen to be in the layered format as well. 

Potential Drawbacks 

• Larger applications tend to be resource-intensive if based on this format, therefore for such projects, it is advised to overlook the layered pattern. 
• Although the layers are independent, yet the entire version of the software is installed as a single unit. Therefore, even if you update a single layer, you would have to re-install the entire apparatus all over again. 
• Such systems are not scalable due to the coupling between the layers. 

Ideal For

The software layer architecture pattern suits the niche of LOB i.e. Line of Business Applications. These are applications that are essential to the functioning of the business itself. For instance, the accounts department of an organization needs software such as QuickBooks, Xero, Sage or Wave Accounting for keeping financial data. 

Similarly, the marketing team would demand a customer relationship management software slash tool to help them cope with the volume of interactions. In short, applications that do more than just CRUD (create, read, update, and delete) operations are suited to the layered architecture pattern. 

B. Event-Driven Architecture

An event is described as an alteration in the hardware or the software. Event-Driven Architecture has two parts to the working equation i.e. an event producer and an event consumer. Let us understand how this application architecture works:

It all begins with the event producer, who identifies the emergence of an event, and labels the same as a message. 

• The subsequent step involves this event to be broadcasted to an event consumer. 
• The message travels through the respective channels and is interpreted by a centralized event processing platform. 
• This enterprise software architecture is programmed to decide upon the follow-up action to be taken on the event. 
• Once it matches the event to the corresponding response within its directory, it forwards the same to the respective consumer. 

This last step determines the final outcome of the event that has been generated. The brightest example of this pattern can be found on a web page. 

The moment you click a button, the browser interprets the event and surfaces the programmed action, such as video playback, matching the input with the right output. In contrast to the layered architecture, where the code must flow top-down and filter through all the layers, Event-Driven architectures deploy modules that are activated only when an even connected to them is generated.

Benefits

• Among the different types of software architecture, the Event-Driven Architecture is suited to applications that have a tendency to scale. It adds to the response time of the architecture eventually leading to better business outcomes.
• This application software architecture is very adaptable to real-time changes and is suited to asynchronous systems that run on asymmetric data flow.
• They play a huge role in defining how IoT works. They are widely applicable across networks and applications where devices that are part of the Internet of Things (IoT) must exchange information between producers and consumers in real-time.

Potential Drawbacks 

• Developers might face bottlenecks while managing error handling, particularly in cases where multiple modules are responsible for a single event. 
• You must use a recommended software architect tool, to backup the central processing platform. This, to deter the failure of a module to result in system collapse. 
• The operational speed of the entire system could be slowed down if the processing platform is programmed to buffer messages as and when they come. 

Ideal For

Event Driven Architecture, the most popular enterprise software architecture and design, can be deployed for applications that leverage instant data communication that scales on-demand as in the case of website tracking or stream processing.

C. Microkernel Architecture

Many third-party applications, in view of software architecture design best practices, make available software packages as downloadable plug-ins or versions. It is to this particular type that the Microkernel Architecture is most suited, as a result of which it is also called the plug-in architecture pattern. 

With this style, enterprise application development services can add pluggable features to an erstwhile version of the software providing for extensibility. The architecture is formulated of two components, with one part dedicated to the core system and the other to the plug-ins. Minimalism is followed while designing the core of the architecture, that stores just the right proportion of components to render the system effective. 

The most relatable example of the Microkernel Architecture would be any internet browser. You download a version of the application, that is essentially a software, and depending upon the missing functionalities, download and add plug-ins. Enterprise software development services rely on this pattern for designing large scale, complex applications as well. An example of such a business application could be a software for processing insurance claims. 

Benefits

• This design has proven its worth as one being highly flexible. Operational possibilities arising from the capability of plug-ins make reacting to such changes in near real-time critical to sustenance. Such changes can be dealt with in isolation with the core system regaining its stable state, for the most part, therefore requiring less developmental updates over time.
• An enterprise software development company could face a downtime issue at the time of deployment but that can be minimized or altogether avoided by adding plug-in modules to the core dynamically. 
• A custom software development company could test plug-in prototypes in isolation and see for performance issues without affecting the core of the architecture. 
• Microkernel Architecture is most appreciated for maintaining high-performance applications as the software can be customized to include only those capabilities that are needed the most. 

Potential Drawbacks 

• Apps such as those conceptualized by enterprise mobile app development services, have a non-negotiable scope to scale. However, the Microkernel Architecture is grounded on designs of the product and naturally suited to apps that are smaller in size. 
• An enterprise app development company could find the Microkernel pattern rather hard to execute due to the vast number of plug-ins compatible with the core. This calls for drawing out governance contracts, updating plug-in regitaries and so many formalities that the implementation becomes a challenge. 

Ideal For

Microkernel Architecture is best suited for workflow applications in addition to those that need job scheduling. As pointed above, like a web browser, any application that you want to release with just the right amount of specs but want to leave room that can be filled in by installing additional plug-ins can be built with this design pattern. 

D. Microservices Architecture

Microservices are defined as a self-regulating, and independent codebase that can be written and maintained even by a small team of developers. Microservices Architecture consists of such loosely coupled services with each service responsible for the execution of its associated business logic. 

The services are separated from each other based on the nature of their domains and belong to a mini-microservice pool. Enterprise mobile app developers leverage the capabilities of this architecture especially for complex applications. 

Microservices Architecture allows developers to release versions of software thanks to sophisticated automation of software building, testing, and deployment – something that acts as a prime differentiation point between Microservices and Monolithic architecture. 

Benefits

• Since the services are bifurcated into pools, the architecture design pattern makes the system highly fault-tolerant. In other words, the whole software won’t collapse on its head even if some microservices cease to function. 
• An enterprise mobile app development company working on such an architecture for clients can deploy multiple programming languages to build different microservices for their specific purpose. Therefore the technology stack can be kept updated with the latest upgrades in computing. 
• This architecture is a perfect fit for applications that need to scale. Since the services are already independent of each other, they can scale individually rather than overloading the entire system with the need to expand. 
• Services can be integrated into any application depending upon the scope of work. 

Potential Drawbacks 

• Since each service is unique in its ability to contribute to the whole codebase, it could be challenging for an enterprise mobile application development company to interlink all and operate so many distinctive services seamlessly. 
• Developers must define a standard protocol for all services to adhere to. It is important to do so, as the decentralized approach towards coding microservices in multiple languages can pose serious issues while debugging. 
• Each microservice with its limited environment is responsible to maintain the integrity of the data. It is up to the architects of such a system to come up with a universally consistent data integrity protocol, wherever possible. 
• You definitely need the best of breed professionals to design such a system for you as the technology stack keeps changing. 

Ideal For

Use Microservices Architecture for apps in which a specific segment will be used heavily than the others and would need a sporadic burst of scaling. Instead of a standalone application you may also deploy this for a service that provides functionality to other applications of the system. 

E. Space-based Architecture

This type of architecture pattern is designed to overcome high load by splitting up both the processing and the storage between multiple servers. The concept of Tuple Space is the basis of the name of this architecture. This best software architecture consists of two main components – a processing unit and a virtualized middleware. 

The processing unit contains parts of application components, including web-based components and backend business logic. The virtualized-middleware unit includes the elements responsible for data synchronization and request handling. 

The most ideal example of this type of enterprise software architecture is a bidding auction site. The internet users place bids on the site through a browser request. Once the request is received, the site records the bid with a timestamp, updates all the information related to the latest bid, and sends the data back to the browser. 

Benefits

• It is among the most popular software architectures for your app that address the concurrency and scalability issues.
• It is useful for those applications that have unpredictable and variable concurrent user volumes.
• This architecture is beneficial for low-value data that can be lost occasionally without big consequences.

Potential Drawbacks

• Transactional support is difficult with RAM databases.
• It could be challenging to generate enough load to test the system, but testing the individual nodes independently is easy.
• Developing skills to cache data for speed is difficult without corrupting multiple copies 

Ideal For

Use space-based architecture for apps and software that function demanding a constant load of requests along with a large user base. It is also used for apps that are supposed to address scalability and concurrency issues.

F. Client-server architecture 

It is a modern enterprise software architecture with two main components – client and server. The server acts as the producer and client acts as a consumer. This architecture facilitates communication between the client and server, irrespective of whether they are under the same network or not. A client requests specific resources to be fetched from the server in the form of data, content, or files. The server responds to the client requests appropriately by sending over the requested resources.

Client-server architecture is quite flexible as a single server can support multiple clients, or a single client can use multiple servers. 

The best example of this architecture is Email. When a user is looking for a particular email, the server looks into the pool of resources and sends the requested email resource back to the user/client. 

Benefits

• This architecture is highly flexible and supports multiple clients.
• In a client-server network, the data is well protected.
• It offers best management to track and find records of required files. 
• Users of client-server can directly log into a system despite the location or technology of the processors.
• It’s easy to upgrade and relocate a server while the client remains unaffected.
  

Potential Drawbacks

• Servers are usually prone to a single point of failure.
• Server maintenance can be a complex and demanding task.
• Incompatible server capacity can slow down, affecting the performance

Ideal For

IT is ideal for applications that focus on real-time services like telecommunication apps. The applications that require controlled access and offer multiple services for a large number of distributed clients can use this architecture. 

It Does Not End Here 

While the enlisted architectures above definitely signify the most favored design choices for organizational software development, there are plenty of others, equally interesting and perhaps more befitting to your project. At Appinventiv, we have the pedigree to help small scale companies, medium-sized businesses and enterprises come up with state of the art tech solutions. Spare a minute or two and let us help you realize the potential your next architectural project deserves with our enterprise software development company in California.

The post How to Choose the Best Software Architecture for Your Enterprise App? appeared first on Appinventiv.

The engineering of an easy flowing frontend is powered by a much complex backend architecture – something that comes with attached ERP development cost. A cost estimate that is arrived at on the basis of features that are to present in the making of a good ERP system and the market that the system has made for itself.

In this article, we are going to help you understand the different factors that are entailed in the ERP software development cost.

But before we move on to that stage, let us first look into the advantages of Enterprise Resource Planning system that have contributed into the positive outlook of it in the industry.

Why is ERP Important to a Company

The benefits of ERP system goes a lot deeper than simply automating day to day processes of a business. Let us look at some of those perks that make it beneficial to invest in ERP application development both for startups and established business.

Image data source

A. Streamlined Processes

The modern ERP systems are designed to bring all the data together, which ultimately improves the prevalent bottlenecks in the business process, something that single-handedly answers the question – is ERP good for small business?

When your processes get streamlined, you get following benefits at the back of it –

• Centralized Data is Money Efficient

Decentralized data is the main culprit that is known to cause chaos in any company, a situation that clouds businesses with inefficiencies. ERP systems gather the business’s complexity and convert them into easy to understand problems.

• Produces Opportunity for Automation of Workflow

The fact that almost all process of your business is fed in the ERP system helps you weed out the tasks which are repetitive in the product cycle and then automate it.

B. Better Tracing and Control

If your business deals in digital or physical products, the ERP systems can offer an easy approach to track your products. Here’s how the system make it possible –

• Visualizing the Service and Product Movement

One of the primal ERP benefits is seeing how services and products are moving in the pipeline. There are multiple ERP software vendors who offer tools that come with the efficiency of order tracking, revenue tracking, inventory, tracking, and raw material management.

C. Advanced Customer Service

One of the reasons why companies invest in custom ERP development is the change that the software brings to their customer service domain offering.

Here are the two ways your customer service domain is made more efficient through the ERP system.

• Better Aligned Suppliers and Customers

ERP software is known to improve both backend and frontend relation of business i.e. a relation that the company has with both their vendors and customers. An effect of which is streamlined shipping time and better customer experience.

• Prioritized Valuable Customers

The sales related information and data that is collected by the ERP system can be used to identify the repetitive customers – an information that can be used to nurture those clients better and study what strategy worked for them and then using the strategy across other customer silos.  

Factors Affecting How much does it cost to develop and ERP

There are a number of different factors that carries a direct impact on ERP software development cost. It is these factors that differentiate a $75,000 system from a $750,000 ERP.

Let us look at what they are.

The first ERP cost affecting factor is the number of users who will be working around it and the many ways they will be using it. While an ERP is usually expected to have these must-have features –

The more the features you add, the greater would be the overall ERP development cost. So, it is important to first gauge your exact requirement and then invest in a solution that matches those requirements. The right estimation can be one of the main strategies to improve the ROI of your system.

1. Software Add-ins

In order to offer a comprehensive range of services and functionalities to your employees, you will have to several third-party add-ins like Enterprise IMs tool or social media logins or one enabling scanning barcode, etc.

2. Implementation Cost

Adding your ERP system in your legacy system or simply adding a fresh system in the process would require a lot of time and efforts along with resource requirement. We have detailed the implementation process in much detail later in the article, jump there to know more about the process. 

3. Maintenance

Until you are investing in cloud-based ERP solution, your on-premise system will require frequent and timed maintenance to ensure that the product is up and running as expected at all times.

4. Training

Explaining the ERP system to your team inside-out takes a fair amount of training that takes up not just your time but also a percent of your expense share.

5. Customization

Making the ERP system work on the exact model as your business requires some amount of programming from your in-house development or hired best ERP software development company.

6. Upgrades

The moment a new version of your ERP solution is announced, you will have to start planning the upgrade yourself. The last thing that you would want is your system becoming obsolete and inviting issues and bugs.

7. Process Redesign

When a business moves from a legacy system to an ERP system, it calls for a number of process redesign. And the same applies when you move from one ERP system to another, you will still have to bring some redesign to match your business process with software’s.

8. Support

Over the lifetime of the whole ERP system, you will come across a number of issues and bugs that you will have to solve and provide support for, to your system’s users – something that will come with a cost.

9. Technology Additions

The cost of your ERP system will automatically increase with the inclusion of technologies. The more technologies you add in the system, like Enterprise Blockchain or Artificial Intelligence, or even IoT, the greater would be your cost estimate.

10. Resource Requirement

The resources required to handle your entire ERP development, deployment, and implementation also adds on to the cost of the Enterprise Resource Planning system.

Besides the factors that are mentioned above, the pricing model is another thing that decides helps in deciding the cost whether you are going for Custom ERP Development or a Ready-Made solution – Pricing Models.

The Different Pricing Models of ERP Application Development

Commonly there are two main pricing models that are worked around by the ERP software vendors. Knowing these pricing models will help you understand the whole ERP software development cost better and also the cost of ERP implementation.

Here are the two models:

1. On-Premise Enterprise Resource Planning System

This ERP model makes it possible for businesses to host the system on their servers in their premise. This turns out to be a good option for big businesses for they have the necessary infrastructure and the manpower to handle a big ERP system.

There are attached pros and cons to this model like:

Advantage: It brings a well-defined ownership cost along with allowing a permanent license use without any concurrent subscription.

Disadvantage: The upfront implementation cost can be a turn off for SMEs also the infrastructure upgrade that the system could call for, can turn out to be pretty expensive.

2. Cloud-Based Enterprise Resource Planning System

This pricing model, supported by the likes of SAP ERP software and Oracle, etc. is an absolute hit among the small business enterprises – given that cloud-based ERP solution has a dedicated focus on flexibility and growth of a business. The number of ease that the on-cloud ERP system offers is the reason why we chose the model the first time we developed an enterprise system.

But like on-premise ERP system, Cloud-based ERP solution also comes with its fair share of pros and cons for businesses incorporating it.  

Here are them both.

Advantage: The upfront cost is pretty low as compared to the execution and implementation of an on-premise system. Also, the subscription pricing that the model comes with is based on the number of users and transaction volume, which can always be altered depending on how the business is performing.

Disadvantage: For large business size, the subscription costs can be a lot greater than the cost of permanent license that can be utilized in case of an on-premise system. Also, the instant demand spikes can increase the costs under the on-demand agreement, making the management of cost a little too complex over a period of time.  

Now that you must have gotten a fair idea of what pricing model is best suited when looking an answer to how do you set up an ERP system, let us come to one of the main parts of the whole ERP development and deployment process – ERP Implementation. Which also happens to be our last section in the short ERP software development cost pocket guide.

The implementation process of the ERP system as the name suggests is the process of adding the system in the everyday business process – the part that is hands down a very crucial part of the whole process specially when it comes to drawing out the ERP development cost estimation.

ERP Implementation Process and Timeline

The implementation of an ERP system in a business is the one factor that both success and failure of the ERP system ride on. When done right, it can take your business to great heights but when implemented wrong, it can make your otherwise averagely planned processes complex.

And this is the main reason why the step finds itself in the average ERP development cost estimates.

Well, let us look at what the ERP implementation process entails.

A. Find a Team

The first step of the implementation would be to find a team who would handle the whole process with the utmost ease. You will be needing a team of specialist ERP implementation experts for handling the evolution challenges, the data migration, and the whole transitional period.

Now, when you usually look for ERP Software Development in India, you get an implementation team made of:

• Project Managers
• Analysts
• QA Engineer
• Consultants
  

B. Designing of Plan

Before the whole implementation process starts, it is necessary to devise a clear plan to follow in the process to come. Doing this, the ERP manager would be able to foresee the weak link and reveal the core business processes.

The plan that you curate when manufacturing ERP software and implementing the system should include:

• Integration Steps – This should include data migration, schedule, launch activity, analysis, staff migration, and evaluation.
• Complete the Contracts – All the contracts for the new technology, software, and services should all be finalized at this stage.
• Infrastructure upgrades should be planned well in advance.
• Upcoming Challenges and Disruptions should be predicted, including – human, software, hardware, managerial, and communicational.
  

C. Configure ERP System

Out of the complete ERP implementation process, this is the one that is the most time-taking and cost inducing one. Here are the steps that are included in the whole configuration process –

• Analyze the gap between present and supporting application and processes
• Configure parameters which reflect new processes
• Complete the programming part of ERP configuration
• Migrate the data by first cleaning the existing data
• Test the system to deliver needed functionality
• Document the whole functional and the technical information
• Complete the necessary upgrades
  

D. System Deployment

Before the system is made available for everyone in the business to start using, there comes the stage of system deployment. There are a number of things that have to be attended at this stage –

• Staff Training
• The support team will have to be prepared to answer queries
• The system will have to be tested
• The Go Live decision will have to be made by the management.

E. Support and Evaluation of the ERP System

Once the ERP system is made live in the business, the whole process of evaluation and maintenance starts. This ongoing process looks into and takes care of the system to the T, ensuring that it is performing exactly as it was intended to.

This whole implementation process takes different time according to the different business sizes it is going to be deployed in. Usually, this is what the timeframe looks like –

Small Businesses – One to Three Months

Medium Businesses – Three to Six Months

Large Businesses – Six Months to a Year

Now that you must have got a basic idea of what to expect from the development and deployment of an ERP system in your business, it is time to get started. Get in touch with our team of ERP experts, today.

The post Your Guide to Estimating the ERP Software Development Cost appeared first on Appinventiv.

Increasing the Return on Investment (ROI) through enterprise apps is a concern for many businesses that are investing in the digital platform.

While the role that enterprise apps play in growing your business is not unknown to the corporate world of all sizes, there lies a gap in understanding how exactly the ROI for enterprise mobility solutions is calculated and how these mobile apps can increase the ROI of your business. 

Enterprise App Market Overview

At a time when the world is going mobile, the business domain is not left behind too. With the many perks that Enterprise mobility offers, the present situation is that there are a number of companies that are finding themselves getting behind their competition in the absence of an enterprise application. 

This pressing need to introduce technology and mobility to the workforce is something that is now shaping the enterprise mobility market to a phase of constant growth. 

Here’s an infographic showing the state of the enterprise market that is presently operating in the industry – 

The figures that you just saw are the doing of three primal mobility facts:

1. Enterprise Apps Increases Productivity

A survey held by Adobe found that more than 51% of the respondents felt that the biggest advantage of enterprise applications is the scope of high productivity that it brings. And 47% of people felt that not having an enterprise application can make companies lose out on potential sales or new clients.

2. They Drive Growth and Revenue

With enterprise apps, you can measure the time employees devote to particular tasks. You can check what resources are needed to complete KPIs set for the organization and which ones are redundant. This not only increases efficiency but also leads to the growth of the company.

3. The Usage is Continuously Growing

The benefits that enterprise apps are able to attract are directly driving the high usage and adoption of enterprise mobility solutions in businesses across industries. An adoption that is on a constant growth drive. 

Now that we have looked at how the enterprise app market is forming, let us talk a little more about the features of a good enterprise application, the many ways ROI of enterprise apps can be measured, and the ways you can increase the number. 

But before we even move to the strategizing phase of how to increase the ROI of an enterprise app, it is important to understand what makes up for a good high ROI worthy enterprise application which is prepared for the new normal.

Features of an Efficient Enterprise App

Although enterprise apps promise smooth functioning of business processes, there is a lot that should go behind an enterprise application to be termed as efficient.

Let us look at what those features are:

A. Scalability

One of the main features that should be present in an efficient enterprise app is scalability. The enterprise mobility offering that you give should grow as your business grows and even reduce if the team size gets small.  

B. Real-Time Access

One of the main reasons to bring enterprises on mobile is to enable real-time access to information on the move. The whole idea in itself is to make it possible for teams to view, download, upload, and share information in real-time.  

C. Security

An enterprise app will have to function around multiple sensitive data and information on an every time basis and this will require them to be 100% hack-proof with minimal to zero scopes of security breaches. 

D. Heavy Integration

An enterprise app should never work as an individual silo. There should be proper linking with emails, social media, native call functionality, payment modules, etc. In fact, syncing it to other devices can be of great help – an event that has made wearables an important part of the enterprise application development services. Only a proper integration would ensure that the app is able to perform under all conditions. 

E. Instant Conversation

The last big USP of successful enterprise application services is the ease of instant, real-time conversation. Your stakeholders should be given the ease to have real-time conversations with everyone else using the application. 

The above pointers make up for a good enterprise mobile application development and play a contributory role in defining the ROI of an enterprise application. Let us now look at the ways to know the ROI that you are getting before we head into – how to improve ROI.

How to Estimate the ROI of Your Enterprise App

Here we are going to share with you is a process that we follow to help our business mobile app development clients know their apps’ ROI. The ideas to measure ROI for your enterprise apps revolve around a three-step process. 

The first stage is to know the cost you invested in getting it made – an idea of which you will get from revisiting any cost of mobile app development documentation. You will have to look back at the invoice that was generated by the enterprise application development company you partnered with. 

The next stage is to measure the output the enterprise app was able to deliver. And the way to do that is through enlisting KPIs. 

Here are some of the KPIs that can be used to measure the effectiveness:

• Sales number
• Amount of paperwork 
• Response time of field technicians
• Production Cost

Once you have the before and after numbers against these and other KPIs, the time of the last stage comes. 

The last stage of measuring enterprise mobile apps ROI is Calculating the ROI. Doing that will require you to weigh the outcome against the investment made in developing enterprise apps.

Following this will help you to measure the ROI of your enterprise mobility solutions – something that helps businesses and their partnered enterprise mobile app development company set the base to forming strategies for increasing the ROI of an enterprise app. 

Strategies On How Can Enterprise Mobile Apps Increase ROI 

The ways to enhance ROI of enterprise apps can be decided on the basis of how involved you are able to keep your employees with the application. Now, there are multiple ways to achieve that. Ways that can be seen as strategies to increase ROI of an enterprise app.

A. Keep iterating the application

The first part of increasing the ROI of your enterprise application is to make a plan for continuous iteration. Keep monitoring what features are the employees interacting with most and what are their views on it. And upon that information, keep changing the application feature delivery milestone wise – to ensure that all the points highlighted by the employees are well addressed in time. 

In short, you cannot expect your application to be great in the first go. You will have to keep doing A-B testing to ensure that the best of it is received by the employees and the whole company in general. Hoping that it will be good to go at once is one of the biggest myths that surround mobile enterprise application platforms

B. Increase participation from the employees

One of the biggest problems that the enterprise apps face is the lack of participation from employees. It is very common for employees to not show interest in something that expects them to deviate from the legacy system – especially if your workforce is made of Gen X. 

One most effective process that helps increase participation is healthy competition. You can set competition in terms of percent of participation between domains within the company, gamifying the entire experience. 

When you add competition along with a set of really helpful features, the participation count is bound to spike up. 

C. Offer greater speed

Today’s digital-first generation has a sweet spot for speed. Whether it’s about consuming content or interacting with the application, they don’t take low speed lightly. To better the speed and in turn the enterprise mobile ROI, enterprise software developers can try compressing the image size, removing superfluous features that weigh down the application load speed.

D. Work on the app’s UI/UX

Working on the application’s UI and UX can be another primal way to guarantee your app’s acceptance – at least on the grounds of appeal and aesthetics. 

The UI/UX of your app should be engineered in such a way that users are able to easily flow from one screen to another with the utmost ease and zero distractions. 

Also, the design of your enterprise application should be intuitive enough to let the users know where to move, which screen to click next, and what goal to complete on each screen, etc. 

E. Make domain-specific app segments

One of the biggest complaints that enterprise app users commonly have is having multiple features set in one application – sets that most often than not are not designed for a specific team but for all. 

So, mostly a domain’s team ends up viewing and dodging several feature sets that do not even affect their work. So, what helps is having multiple screens within an application, with each screen curated to answer a particular domain instead of all. 

This way, employees will be able to have a quick in and out experience, something that is a must-have in an enterprise app that is supposed to be an enabler and not a roadblock. 

F. Work on the feature set

There are some advanced features that simply increase the chances of your app being valued by the employees. Here are some of them:

Here are some of them:

• Contact Directory
• Meeting Room Booking
• Bug Reporting
• Company Broadcast and Announcement
• Social Media Connect

G. Add an interactive technology

The last strategy that you can apply to make your application interactive is adding technologies that are known to improve the interaction levels within an application. A strategy that seemed to work wonders when we developed our first enterprise application. Technologies like – Artificial Intelligence-powered Chatbots, Augmented and Virtual Reality, etc. 

Such technologies being fun in nature helps the employees connect with your offering at a much deeper level.

H. Strengthen app’s security 

The true ROI of enterprise app development can be calculated by its security strength. Ensuring high security and maintaining zero security breaches is necessary for the development of a loyal customer base for an enterprise. An enterprise app is designed to carry a number of personal business data which if lost can be disastrous for a brand – meaning, unhackable security is not just a must-have feature but also a key mode of bettering the enterprise app’s ROI.

With wise techniques and strategies, one can positively affect the ROI in any business domain. Taking the example of Ikea, Appinventiv with its ERP solution helped Ikea to provide its users with real-time product availability information and make customer onboarding easy while supporting IKEA’s marketing and promotion efforts.

Ending Note

As evident above, the ROI on your enterprise application depends on a series of factors. One crucial aspect is to ensure a smooth user-friendly experience so that no one ever thinks twice before using the application. 

You should also always keep an eye on the features that visitors use the most in the application. This type of monitoring will assist you in better understanding their requirements, which will further help in updating your application as per the latest technology trends.

Preparing your software for future developments could be one of the most effective strategies to have an enterprise application giving maximum ROI. Therefore, it is crucial that you examine the role your enterprise software will play if your company wants to move to the cloud, invest in IoT, or adopt business intelligence tools. 

With this, you now are theoretically prepared to ace your performance goals at the back of your efficiency-powered enterprise mobile app strategy. The only thing left to do now is get started by contacting a reputed enterprise application development company. Get in touch with our team of enterprise app specialists to come on fastrack. 

The post Strategies to Improve the ROI on Your Enterprise Application appeared first on Appinventiv.

Enterprise mobile apps are transforming the working environment of the company. They, unlike business apps, are targeting the employees of the company and providing them with a surplus of options, making it necessary for the organizations to look into Enterprise mobile application development.

But before we jump into the benefits the mobile apps avail to the Enterprises – the one that differentiate enterprise apps from consumer-end solutions, let’s have a look at this data giving a hint of the Enterprise app market:-

• Enterprise mobile market is expected to hit a revenue of $430 billion by the year 2021.
• 4.67% of companies acknowledged that Enterprise mobility solutions are becoming the need of the hour.
• 65% of companies are using 2-5 enterprises apps, while 27% are relying upon 6 or more applications for catering to the needs of the employees.
• 5.66% of companies decided to develop Enterprise apps in the coming 3 years.
• 47% of agencies observed an improvement in internal communication, resulting in better relationships and lower disputes under the roof.
• 59% of workers in America worked beyond their 9-to-5 shift because of Enterprise mobile apps.
• Around 250 hours have been saved per year using Enterprise app, which is nearly equal to 6 additional working days.
• 77% of employers shared that the market for Enterprise apps has grown in the past two years.
• 39% of employees admit that they are using Enterprise mobility solutions due to efficiency potential they have.
• 19.23% of increase has been experienced in terms of customer satisfaction.

With these interesting fact known to you, let’s check the reasons to build Enterprise apps:-

1. Effective Communication

Various companies still rely upon emails and other desk-based means of communications. While these methods sound effective, they act as a barrier in communication when the employees are not at their desk or are into field work, resulting in isolation and disputes.

Enterprise business solutions, in this scenario, reside on their phones and provide them with a chat feature which is faster, easier and more effective than an email. An example of this is IBM launching its video streaming application enhancing workplace communication. It enables them to enjoy communication on the go and the best part, share the information with multiple people in group conversations without undergoing the risk of forgetting to click on the ‘Reply All’ button.

2. Real-time Data Sharing

Unlike the traditional methods that demand staff members to prepare offline records and hunt for getting every single information, the Enterprise apps rely upon the cloud technology and offer quick and comfortable sharing of files and information anytime and anywhere. This encourages organizations to look forward to investing in Enterprise app development.

3. Higher Productivity

One of the benefits of Enterprise app software is that it comes with various handy tools that help them work efficiently. For example, the calendar aids the employees to monitor their work schedule, while the push notification feature provides them with information about the upcoming meeting, project deadlines, and more.

4. Better Employee Involvement

An Enterprise application also helps the management to bring all the workforce on the same platform. It gives the employees an opportunity to freely give their feedback, share relevant information, make an announcement, and much more effortlessly – rather than waiting for their turn or visiting the management personally.

These apps also help organizations to realize the importance of education app in Enterprises and thus, provide the facility to their workforce.

This, as a whole, improves the relations and build effective work culture and productivity, prompting the organization to look ahead towards how to build Enterprise apps.

5. Seamless Record Maintenance

Another reason behind rising Enterprise demand for custom app development is that it gives management an escape from the manual record management process. These apps enable employers to keep an online record of all their employees and retrieve the data easily and anytime based on different factors, such as age, department, contact number, etc. And, in this way, prevent them from going through the hassle of checking each record to find the right employee.

Let me explain this with an example. Suppose, you have a French client and are finding language as a barrier in communication. You need someone to have fluency in the French language immediately.

Now, if you talk about the traditional method, you were supposed to ask every individual to find the right person. Whereas, in the case of Enterprise mobility solutions, you can easily filter the data and contact the candidate with the required skills.

6. Robust Security

One of the prime reasons to invest in Enterprise app development is that it adds security to the process. These apps, by integrating technologies like AI and Blockchain, enable the companies to ensure that their data is safely and securely stored on the cloud.

7. Improved ROI

By providing all these features, the Enterprise mobile apps enable the employees to work seamlessly, effectively and safely, which eventually boosts the ROI.

Now as you know the reasons why invest in Enterprise mobile apps, it’s evident that you must be looking forward to hiring an enterprise mobile application development company in New York and get an app ready.

Taking the same thought forward, let’s see what it takes to hire an enterprise mobile application development company in New York, Florida, Texas, Middle-East and European countries for your enterprise app needs.

1. Experience

The foremost factor to consider to develop Enterprise apps is the experience of the app development company. If the company is highly experienced, it will be well-versed with the challenges and trends of the mobile industry as well as that of yours, implying they will provide you with the best solution as per the market needs.

Whereas, on the flip side, a newbie company might fail to deliver the application at the right time or may serve you with a low-quality product.

2. Platform

The decision of investing in Enterprise Android app development or Enterprise iOS application development or both also depends on the fact that the platform chosen makes a huge difference in the development area, timeline, cost, and the corresponding outcomes. This is because every team has its own level of expertise at tech stack associated with developing an application for Android, iOS or both the platforms individually or using Cross-platform app development approach.

3. Design

Many companies focus completely on the coding part, leaving no time for the design element. An outcome of which is that they fail to gain the attention of the target audience and thus, enjoy higher outcomes from Enterprise business solutions.

So, it is necessary to learn more about the designing skills of the company you are planning to hire before getting into a deal.

4. Portfolio

A portfolio, like a window, can help you to get a comprehensive look into their skills and visualize the type of application you will be served with. So, do not skip this step.

5. Communication

Though often overlooked, the level of communication also makes a difference in the choice. This is because if a mobile app does not connect you throughout the process, you would find it hard to know what and how they are developing your application, what challenges they are facing and how they are mitigating them, and ultimately fail to understand the impact on your application. In the worst scenario, you get delivered an app solution that is entirely different from the idea you shared, implying you need to ask them to invest additional effort and time in return of funds to get the same facilities available. Thus it is safe to opt for the enterprise mobile application development company in New York or other areas around the globe to get a  top-notch application.

6. Security

Considering the level of sensitive data stored/shared/exchanged on the platform and the growing interest of hackers into the mobile data, it is again important to consider an app development team that looks into the mobile app security best practices and strive to deliver a secure experience.

7. App Cost

Last but not least, check how the cost to develop an application is defined at their end – do they provide all the services in a single package or has added a price tag to each service individually. Depending on the answer to this question, check for the company that can deliver the right set of services within your budget.

As covered in this article, Enterprise mobility solutions are becoming an indispensable part of the organization. They are encouraging the enterprises to serve their employees with the right insights and resources, and thus empower them to add more profits to their business.

So, in case you are also an Enterprise, look forward to investing in the process of how to hire the right mobile app development company and introduce Enterprise mobility solutions to your traditional process.

[Also Read: What are Enterprise Apps & What Separates them from Consumer-end Apps?]

The post 7 Reasons You Should Invest in Enterprise Mobility Solutions appeared first on Appinventiv.

In the next 7 minutes, we will find out the answer to this question. But before we move over the deets of our magical expectations from enterprise apps and the reality of their working, we need to dig into the answers to What are Enterprise Apps and what is Enterprise App development?

What Are Enterprise Apps?

As per the definition from Techopedia, An enterprise application or EA is a specially designed (and large) software system platform that operates in a corporate environment like a local, state or federal Government body, a Medium to large business, Schooling systems or districts, non-profit groups, etc.

Though there is no defined set of properties that Enterprise apps or software should have, there are some characteristics which are found common across different enterprise applications, such as:

• Central management
• Scalability
• Robustness
• Business-orientation
• Critical for the vision and mission of the enterprise
• The built-in ability or communicate over interfaces of other enterprise software.

These characteristics are what make an Enterprise app better than normal applications.
And As it can be made out that Enterprise app Development is becoming More evolved in order to become more collaborative and Agile.

Also, it has been made possible due to the prompt adoption of cloud-based technologies. IT sector around the globe is working in a collaborative way to build mobile applications with, both, internal business teams and external agencies that a company depends upon. With the availability of services and solutions through online mode, enterprise software development services in California or anywhere else focus on an approach to business transformation that puts people first.

And when we say “Enterprise App Development”, we are enclosing all the unique requirements there are in order to build an Enterprise app, such as:

• Having multiple users with identical requirements that have to use the same app
• A need for the said application to deliver value consistently and at scale.
• Mammoth reserves of data to manage and integrate (sometimes at multiple levels).
• Following all the above-mentioned conditions along with industry-specific guidelines and strict regulations, for instance, the Financial sector or healthcare.
• Catering to Forever evolving and changing roles and responsibilities.

For all of these reasons combined, there is always a gap being created between what the customers expect and what is being delivered to them. And thus, Enterprise app development is a gargantuan task and people often fail to either understand the customer needs or to deliver them well.
For a better understanding, let us take a trip of the user expectations from Enterprise apps.

How Enterprise App development should work?

An Enterprise App Development task is almost always taken upon by a well-managed enterprise mobile App Development company. And a team is designated for this purpose, wherein, everyone in the team has specific tasks to attend to. And thus, depending upon the role assigned to different people, they end up having a different vision about what the Enterprise mobile app Development process should look like.

This is where the first loophole is created when the vision of the team is not aligned. Nevertheless, whether your role in the team is of a developer, tester or deployer, there are some key values where we can linearly define our visions. So, in the end, we all want the process of Mobile Enterprise app development to be:

User-Focused:

This goes without saying that  Enterprise App Development must be User Centric. Every user expects the mobile apps (Enterprise Applications, here) to provide them with high, consumer-grade usage experience. And besides, the primary intention of all the mobile app developers and designers to build applications that actually get used by as many people as possible and thus help both, their external and internal clients. Only then will they be able to meet their ultimate goals.

Highly secure:

Before the commencement of the Enterprise App development process, the primary question from the client’s side will be raised about the safety and security of the app or in other words, the security of their own data fed into the app.
In the present world, the media reports are filled with the news of security breaches, even in the highest level of company software. In such scenarios, it is crucial for the enterprise app developers to pay attention to safeguarding the valuable user data that is stored in the app.

Integration and connection:

The unique thing about Enterprises is that they use a number of software and applications that can be built independently as the need arises. But, it is one of the main requirement of enterprise app development that every new software or application must be able to seamlessly connect with all the existing data sources. This ensures better user experience and eliminates the extra work for software integrations.

Speed:

With the release plan of 5G technology in the world, it is only obvious that today, digital technology users give utmost priority to the high speed of network and applications. Gone are the days when people were patient enough to watch their web pages load in the dial-up internet service.
And besides, with the ever-rising backlog of data, the developers are more concerned with working on critical projects, rather than writing and rewriting front-end and back-end codes. After all, the business leaders require the updated technologies to be delivered to them as quickly as their business plans need change.

These four characteristics make up the foundation of an ideal enterprise app development process. But as we all can guess, the reality may not always align with our expectations of the ideal scenario. So, let us take a look at how the Enterprise app development actually works.

How Enterprise App development actually works?

There might be a few myths around Enterprise app development that are circling around the world, In all reality, there’s a diametrical difference between the ideal and the real scenario of Enterprise app development. Let us take a look at what the actual process goes like:

Project-Focused:

Even though all the developers and other people involved in Enterprise application development projects are well aware of the need that every app should be made keeping the end-user requirements in mind, too often, the teams working upon mobile app development for Enterprises with all the other enterprise mobility solutions, the reality-check says otherwise. In actuality, the apps are siloed and enterprise ends up on multiple disengaged and stand-alone databases stored in different digital systems which are either impossible to integrate or are an extra burden for the enterprise’s IT team.

Slow:

Yes, even in today’s forever rushing, technologically advanced world, custom enterprise application development is a tough task. Hence the project of enterprise app development ends up taking longer than contracted. Somehow, there are never enough man-hours available for timely delivery.

But of course, the blame can not be put on the app development team alone. Enterprise app development is a big task and there are significant challenges attached to it.

Key challenges in Enterprise application development:

Data Encryption:

One of the biggest challenges faced in the enterprise application development is the proper and secure encryption of sensitive data stored on smartphones. And as mLearning is getting more and more popular at workplaces, the concept of BYOD (Bring your own device) is making it more difficult for app developers to keep the data encrypted.
Nevertheless, encryption and secure containment of data are crucial for enterprise app development because it can save the data from leakage in case of device theft.

Access to data:

Mobile applications for enterprises has a number of challenges which are faced by developers at different degrees. One of the most crucial and common problems is offline access to data. This has become one of the biggest challenges that are faced by the mobile app development companies, especially in big enterprises that see a need for urgent access to data even when there is no connection to any online portal.

Device Fragmentation – BYOD

BYOD is sure the talk of the town but it has shown an equal amount challenge to the developers. The rise in “bring your own device” policies across multiple enterprises, mobile app developers are facing the challenge of accommodating a plethora of mobile devices in their enterprise applications. Previously, developers had to focus on only a few kinds of operating systems and mobile devices which is not the case with BYOD.
This scenario has given rise to the challenge of device fragmentation because of the adoption of “one size fits all” technique for the development of Enterprise mobility solutions.

There are numerous ways to increase the chances of your enterprise app failure, But the good thing is that every challenge has a solution. It might not be the best solution but it can substantially decrease the problem that was being faced initially so as to make matters simpler. For instance, we, at Appinventiv, ensure that these issues don’t show up in your enterprise app dev.

Overcoming the Challenges in Enterprise App development

• There is a major requirement of a strong defence system in place for all the digital devices that comprises data encryption, firewalls for individual applications and at the host and network levels.
• Since the data stored in an enterprise mobile app is highly crucial to the enterprise. Therefore, the use of competent security software in place to make the data secure is required. Along with other data, the privacy of sensitive user data and information is to be protected.
• Web applications and mobile applications which are cloud-based are highly prone to cyber-attacks. Therefore, in order to safeguard the data of this software, the security software must be competent and updated which latest security patches.
• Application vulnerability tests must be held on a periodic basis.
• The environment that includes multiple systems must ensure careful designing keeping in mind the diversity of devices.
• To avoid the problem of device fragmentation, developers must recognize the most common digital system or device in order to make the enterprise mobile app compatible with a maximum of devices.
• A smart link can be established between applications that are using a similar set of data in order to achieve optimization.

Of course, there is a gap being created in the enterprise app development process. The reality of the scenario is much different from the one we expect in reality. However, every loophole can be fixed with careful operations and systems in place. Hence, it is safe to say that even though there is a gap in the app development process, there is enough room for improvement as well.

We, at Appinventiv, as an Enterprise mobile app development company are working towards a standardised procedure to minimise all the possible gap in these processes. But, the roadmap to being a successful app startup company consists of more than just following the SOP.

And we all are aware that the enterprise software development services in California and around the world have created some very intricate and reliable mobile applications for big enterprises which can only be cited as a development in the course if nothing else.

The post Enterprise Application Development: Expectations vs Reality appeared first on Appinventiv.

While still, to a great extent, limited to the business to consumer domain, more and more enterprises are slowly adopting the tool to save on their work time and increase employee productivity.

In this article, we will look into the reasons why enterprises have started looking for a mobile app development company that excels in developing enterprise instant messaging system.

Let’s begin.

Why invest in an Enterprise Instant Messaging System

1. Saves Time

Everybody who has ever been employed knows that irrespective of how the world sings to the tunes of using emails as an easy mode of communication, it is one of the most laidback, extremely low response time mode of communication.

How many times have you sent an email to someone and even though you have marked it as urgent, the reply time is well above 2-3 hours? The number is in thousands for me and I am sure you are on the same train as I am.

By having an Enterprise IM system in place, you can send and get reply to you small queries or one pointer doubts almost instantly.

And then, messaging the question mark symbol would any day seem better on IM platform as compared to email, No?

Another scenario it helps with is this – suppose you sit on the 7th floor and you need to collect a file from someone on the second, one thing that you can do is drop by their seat every one hour not even knowing if they are there or you can send them an email which they would reply to in their convenient time. With IMs though, all you’d have to do is send them a message and check if they are even there and then pay them a visit.

2. Greater Accessibility

Suppose you plan a client meeting for 11 am in your office and the gods are not on your side that day as the traffic is killing it on the road and it’s 10:30 already. And since you will take at least an hour or hour thirty more to reach office, you have two options – email the clients although you know that the chance of them opening their email app when there is less than half an hour left for a crucial meeting to start, is quite slim. Or you can call them, but let’s be honest, you’re pretty irritated and there’s a fair chance it’ll show in your voice.

Now only if you had an IM service, you would have been able to message them that you’ll take more time and it would have reached them much sooner.

It’s not just your conversation with a waiting client that IMs help with, it also helps immensely in streamlining conversations between the in-house and offshore teams. Amidst it all, there is one thing that would take accessibility through your enterprise instant messaging app to the next level – Chatbot Development. Imagine this, you have a platform that has a database of all reports, an IM, and an installed chatbot. Now, you are running really late and you need a report out of the lot, if you had a chatbot facility you could ask it to open a report for you and being your personal assistant, it would. Convenient, isn’t it?

3. Better Quality Control

Written communication is the biggest proof that your business can collect in case of dispute. Since most of the communication both inside the company and with outside parties happen over email, as it’s the process that majority of the businesses usually follow, tracking issues and their status is not difficult.

With Instant messaging still perceived as a more informal way of communication after call, maximum conversations usually happen there as compared to other platforms.

And because of that, chances are that an audit and administrative check of those instant messages would enable companies to garner better information into an issue.

Also, an in-office Enterprise Instant Messaging System gives you a chance to not rely on client side messaging platform to get in depth of an issue.

4. Real time Employee Tracking

One of the most used cases of Enterprise Instant Messaging system is to monitor the whereabouts of an employee.

Most Instant Messaging systems come with an availability status, through which managers can see if the employee is active in his seat or is away and if away then for how long.

By tracking the conversations that the employee is having on the Enterprise Instant Messaging System, managers can identify if someone is passing on crucial, non disclosed information about the brand to outsiders.

So here were the reasons that are taking businesses looking to increase productivity by saving some time here and there towards Enterprise Instant Messaging System. With that clear, let us look into the technology involved in creating a chat based application.

Note that the technological frameworks that go into the development of chat based app would be different than the ones that go into chatbot app development as the latter works more on AI and automatic message creation.

Without further ado, here is what the technological stack, which we use to integrate instant messaging option in an enterprise mobile application, look like –

Technology Stack for Enterprise Instant messaging System

Programming Language – We use either of Erlang, PHP, or Java for developing the server on which the instant messaging platform is based.

For managing media – For allowing and storing to and fro of media, we make use of the high end YAWS web server.

For sending and receiving messages – In case we are developing instant messaging function for Android platform we SMACK framework and when developing for iOS we use XMPP Framework.

For Storing Information – We make use of the Mnesia DB database to store all media documents – messages, files, documents, audio/video, etc. to run and maintain the instant messaging feature in the app.

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