Let’s be honest!
Even the best enterprise apps developed by the best developers might fail to cause awful effects on the organization and the end-users. Hence, enterprise applications, regardless of the platform they are built for, demand a lot of heeds.
Being in the enterprise application development for over 12 years now, Softobiz has developed some innovative enterprise applications. Our applications have helped businesses combat the challenges and set benchmarks under their name.
One such enterprise application developed by Softobiz is ClientPoint. It is “an enterprise-level proposal automation platform that streamlines, simplifies, and speeds up the entire sales life-cycle,” as we define it. ClientPoint has proved to be a successful corporate functional application that makes enterprise sales management easier. The application has rendered exceptional results to the small and big organizations, including 30% higher close rates, 95% timesaving in generating proposals while eliminating costly errors, and a 100% increase in the sales.
Building an enterprise application that serves the overall purpose of an organization needs several sincere considerations. The foremost requirement here is to delve in the depths of:
- Purpose of developing the enterprise application.
- Target audience to cater to the needs of
- The user that will be affected indirectly
- Impact of the feature failure on stakeholders, users and the organization itself
- Reconciliation measures in case of severe feature failure.
Do’s of Enterprise Application Development
The success of ClientPoint makes it evident that careful planning and implementation are crucial while developing enterprise applications. We are sharing certain important things we experienced and learned while developing the ClientPoint application.
1. Develop a User-Centric Application
Keep your users’ interest on top while developing an enterprise application. While the purpose of developing an app is essential, you should focus more on the users’ expectations. Though there are several sales pipeline tools available currently, not all of them are efficient enough to serve the needs of organizations. Developers of ClientPoint realized the need of users to have an enterprise application that speed-up their sales flow and make it more interactive while knowing the interest of their clients individually.
Hence, ClientPoint is developed as a feature-rich platform serving multiple needs of its users, including:
- Integration of top CRMs and business management platforms to offer a cross-platform solution.
- Create engaging and interactive content and send it fast.
- Quickly customized online sales experiences.
- Track interactions with prospects in real-time.
With such a clear idea of the users’ needs, ClientPoint makers got a clear roadmap leaving no confusion in developing it.
2. Focus on an Appealing Application Personality (UI/UX)
Building an application for enterprises is a challenge in itself. It involves complex logic that is difficult to implement. But what’s more challenging is presenting the logic that doesn’t perplex the users while using the application. This means the user interface of the enterprise applications should be clear and user-friendly.
UI is the core of any successful application. The UI of your enterprise application must make it easy for users to use. Moreover, not every enterprise application has to be designed in a formal look. Whether it is the color of the application or the language used, it shouldn’t have to be a heavy-duty burden.
The designers of ClientPoint, while designing its UI, made it sure that they come up with a neat and clean app interface. You can see a well-polished white interface with symmetrically placed components and clear instructions. The experience of using ClientPoint is simply fabulous.
Hence, design the UI of your application simple that even the naivest of users would get used to it fast.
3. Keep your Security Standards High
Incorporating the right tools and standards is crucial to ensure all the enterprise data, transaction history, and account details is safe and remain confidential. While the security at an enterprise level begins with access control and securing resource of the application, it is more than that.
Since ClientPoint is a proposal management platform, it was crucial to secure every piece of information. The developers took the following measures to ensure developing a highly secure application:
- Only administrators can set the User Permissions to give them access and editing ability based upon their preferences.
- Zone-wise usage distribution to avoid leakage of information to zonal authorities other than the concerned one.
- SSL Certificates including LetsEncrypt and SSL by Default to protect the sensitive information as it travels across the global computer networks.
- SPF Encryption to prevent sender address forgery.
- PCI compliant E-Signatures – Sertifi and RightSignature.
Never assume that there are no hackers in your organization. Use adequate encryption and other security measures to protect your application from both internal and external breaches.
4. Consider your Apps’ USP Seriously
Enterprise application development is not about developing feature-stuffed applications but making them feature-rich. While adding basic features is inevitable, including certain distinguishable features can make your application stand out. Get into the users’ shoes to choose your feature set. Everything your app has to be according to what interests the end user. This is the prime reason behind ClientPoint’s success. By understanding their target audiences’ interests, the app makers have incorporated exceptional features, including:
- personalized proposal creation,
- real-time analytics & report generation to track user behavior over a specific proposal,
- an automated electronic signature, and
- management through a single simple interface.
Explore the user needs and market and list out features that would add power to the business it is being developed for.
5. Consider Continuous Evaluation, Maintenance & Support
An enterprise application is responsible for the overall functionality of an organization. That means an application after development demands constant upkeep, which can be achieved through continuous testing, maintenance, and support.
It is a myth that testing is done just before launch. Well, in reality, testing should be an ongoing process. The application in development should be tested on multiple devices to dig deeper into issues if any. Moreover, testing security continuously is equally important. You should think about worst-case scenarios and take maintenance measures accordingly.
With ClientPoint, the makers have emphasized the continuous upgrade of their application, which is usually done on a weekly or monthly basis. The team takes measures to test the application and deploy it monthly and even weekly, sometimes. To protect the enterprise data, ClientPoint makes use of GitHub for backup and version control. For other tasks like managing project tasks, scheduling and managing stories are don’t through Azure. Not only this, to facilitate the convenience of using the application, the makers also offer in-person, online, and webinar training. By rendering 24*7 support, the makers ensure the enterprise application works seamlessly without any issue.
A few don’ts to reflect on:
1. Don’t ignore the development platform
Often companies overlook the importance of deciding the development platform for a particular enterprise application. While the decision depends on certain factors, including availability of necessary resources, expertise, user validation, architecture, etc., the success of your enterprise application will revolve around the platform that you build it in. To avoid complications like refactoring or rebuilding applications in the future, it is advisable to make the right choice well in advance.
2. Don’t overlook release options and strategy
Whether to release your enterprise application publicly or privately is an important consideration and should be considered seriously. Consider all the release options available as per your client’s needs and application requirements and create a strategy accordingly to prevent hurdles later.
The Takeaway
Building an enterprise app just because your competitors has one doesn’t make any sense. Instead, enterprise application development can turnaround your business if implemented rightly. This what we have learned from our experience as an enterprise development services provider. Hence, work on understanding the user requirement and aligning it with your development skills. The real game begins when you understand the problem, find the ideal solution and implementing it to benefit the user.
Simply follow the guidelines discussed above, and you will be able to cruise your business with success. Talk to our experts if you need any guidance.
