The advancement of technology has made it a prerequisite and imperative for any enterprise or business entity to develop software that can help run the organization. While not all software is developed in-house, even when experts are brought in to handle enterprise application development, it is often very challenging for developers to achieve the organization’s specific requirements.
Taking notes that enterprise applications cater to organizational needs rather than individual needs, developers often have to consider a macro approach to development to address the entity’s requirements briefly. As highlighted below, there are nine specific challenges developers of enterprise applications face.
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- Changing of Business Landscape and Dynamics
As noted above, enterprise applications serve the needs of organizations and business entities rather than individuals. Business is highly dynamic and is likely to change with either customer requirements, changes in the market, or regulatory requirements. As such, enterprise applications need to adapt to the changes as they come. Developing enterprise applications that are malleable to change is highly challenging, considering that many changes in the business landscape are unpredictable. As such, any entity charged with the task of developing enterprise applications should structure its applications in a way that the applications can be amenable to change.
- Legacy Software and Systems
Legacy systems and software pose another of the most concerning challenges with enterprise software development. Legacy systems and software are the systems that any specific organization or business is accustomed to by virtue of repeated and long-term usage. These kinds of software pose a significant challenge concerning enterprise software development since they are not always versatile or amenable to change.
At times, a developer would have to overhaul the entire framework upon which a specific business is built to introduce enterprise software. This poses a specific challenge about how easy it will be to create the requisite applications and software.
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- Interoperability and Integration with Third-Party Systems
Businesses do not operate in isolation from other entities. As such, any business requires interaction with third parties to thrive. When developing enterprise applications and software, it can become very challenging to develop software that can interact with other third parties without having the authorization of said third parties through the provision of API. In such contexts, development becomes challenging as developers have to create a framework for third-party interoperability without the facilities to do so.
- Costs
Enterprise application development costs are often very high, considering the detailed research and hands-on development required. At times, such costs may impede the entire enterprise application development process, especially where the costs were not envisaged early. In such instances, developers may need the requisite budgetary allocation to meet clients ‘ requirements.
- Time
Closely associated with the challenge posed by costs is the challenge related to the time spent in development. With enough funds to dedicate to the development process, it may become easier to meet the client’s requirements at the expected time. Additionally, considering that development requires a lot of skill, concentration, and dedication, time could be a significant challenge if adequate plans are not made in advance.
- Lack of Expertise
Enterprise application development requires a lot of expertise. For this reason, many organizations and corporate entities outsource enterprise application development to experts. However, assessing the expertise of prospective enterprise application developers could be a very daunting task for laypersons without the requisite expertise to identify experts in software development. In the long run, organizations could suffer a significant challenge while outsourcing software development since they cannot ascertain the expertise of the specific developers.
- Security
As technology continues to advance, so does crime to technology. According to statistics, there were at least 270 cybercrime attacks on any organization or company in 2021. This indicates an increase of approximately 31% from the figure in 2020. Security can pose a significant challenge to enterprise application developers since they are expected to create a framework that cannot be susceptible to hacking or intrusion by unauthorized personnel.
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- Data Processing
Data is the backbone of any organization in the modern age. However, the requirements for data processing continue to grow as the years go by. In fact, the amount of data processed globally in the financial sector will have risen by at least 700% in 2022. Therefore, developers must anticipate the requirements regarding data processing by incorporating different techniques of big data processing during the enterprise application development framework. Failure to do so will result in instances of downtime after the release of the applications.
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- Accurate Determination of Client Requirements
Determining the client’s requirements in enterprise application development is integral to developing the exact application. However, clients may need help to accurately determine what they need, thereby posing a challenge to any developer to create a system that would satisfy the requirements of any organization. As such, developers should always anticipate situations where clients need to be more forthcoming with their requirements and are in a position to suggest various recommendations to the clients.
Wrapping Up
Considering the importance of enterprise applications in the modern business landscape, any organization responsible for enterprise application development must consider the nine challenges illustrated above and develop strategies for overcoming them. Failure to do so would be prejudicial to the interests of. Any enterprise developer would also compromise the quality submitted to clients.
