Engineer's day special: Gift of new age enterprise software

By Ranga Pothula, VP Global Centers of Excellence, Infor

Ranga Pothula, Infor

The enterprise software that we know of today has been and is still in the midst of a revolution. Two decades back, the software powering businesses were feature-rich, complicated, unengaging, non-intuitive and could be managed only by a few experts. ‘Beautiful enterprise software’ which was unheard of in the past is a reality today due to the expectations from the millennial generation entering the workforce. This generation has been born into the digital age - banking on internet penetration, smartphone usage, social media and applications that are attractive and user-friendly. Owing to this, the new age workforce, including highly qualified engineers, look forward to a work experience on par with the mobile, social and application experiences they have in their personal lives. Unappealing and unwieldy software is no longer welcome or acceptable; the time is now for usable and beautiful innovations to take over the professional arena as well. Take for instance the manufacturing sector, an engineer in the shop floor would choose consumer-inspired user experience designed to mirror personal technology. This would streamline processes, enhance productivity and when built to suit the industry, would empower each and every employee to complete tasks with last mile functionality. These characteristics in applications are not only what engineers today need, but what they deserve –

Era of on-the-go everything
Mobility has come a long way from just enterprise email and data on the move. Today, we are looking at access and use of applications and services on-the-go to minimize the risk of non-compliance with specifications and improve quality control. In a manufacturing setup, for instance, this would mean attention to unit and component detail to get greater control over versions, high tech components, and fast-changing product specifications. For engineers from the millennial bracket, internet and mobile technology are an integral part of their lives and they consider it as an advantage in a work environment.

Perfect combination of Beauty and Brain
Understanding the present generation employee outlook has led to consumerizing user experience by way of building beautiful applications. But with the changing technology landscape and business environment, challenges continue to expand and it is important to focus on software that looks good and works well – both beauty and brain are key. The perfect amalgamation of the two is bound to have more positive impact on the way all people work, ending the monopoly of select experts.

Smart enterprises
In the wake of new approaches and innovations in the B2B enterprise space, there have been advanced applications of existing technology. With 2.5 quintillion bytes created every day, companies are sitting on a treasure trove of data. Data is exploding at an unprecedented pace. Ninety percent of all of the data in the world was created in just the past two years. Every year from now, that data will double. All these figures and projections point towards the symbiotic relationship of enterprise success and the optimization of data science and its potential. The successful companies of the future will be the ones that turn big data into smart data, and build that data into the core of their businesses for enhanced decision making.

Engineers on Cloud 9
Much has been spoken about the benefits of cloud; in a nutshell, enterprises that adopt cloud are able to streamline processes, and free up capital, while giving the necessary flexibility to meet evolving operational needs. In a recent IDG survey, almost half of all respondents (46%) said deploying cloud-based business applications is essential or very important to their expansion strategy. This can be attributed to the fact that cloud allows for focus on moving business strategy forward, while their cloud vendors take on some of the burden of finding specialized IT skills, meeting compliance requirements, and keeping systems properly maintained and upgraded.

The changing demographics of the workforce, rise of startups with competitive products and services, evolving social platforms and disruption of traditional workplaces (among others) have given enough reasons for large enterprise software companies to step up their game. Engineers form a pivotal part of this ecosystem and are at the receiving end of the application spectrum in many cases. Understanding their needs and expectations will go a long way in defining the success of solutions providers and the future of enterprise software.