Types of Enterprise Systems

Enterprise system are large scale application software which provides supports to its users in terms of execution business processes, reporting, information flows, and data analytics. Generally, it is used by the complex organizations and by large scale organizations as they are required to execute plethora of tasks. Enterprise system consist different package software which helps the companies to perform their operations in an appropriate manner. Enterprise systems are generally of three types i.e. enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, enterprise planning system, and customer relationship management software. It has been considered that enterprise resource planning systems plays vital role in increasing organizational efficiency through which competitive advantage could be attained easily. Although, organizations are also required to adopt numerous other strategies in order to attain competitive advantage.

This report will focus over analysing the effectiveness and significance of enterprise system in the business functionalities. Enterprise systems are one of the most adopted technologies by business enterprises but considering enterprise systems as the only measure for attaining competitive advantage for business enterprises would be bit difficult. In relation with this, three strategies will be discussed which are operated through enterprise system through which organization could attain competitive advantage. With regards to this, two company’s example will be discussed who are already executing their operations through enterprise system.

Competitive advantage could be attained by any organization with the help of making changes in the value chain activities in order to differentiate its products and services from its direct competitors. This could be done by adding unique features, adopting innovative and creative measures as well as by adopting technologies such as enterprise system. Telstra is Corporation Limited is Australia’s largest telecommunications company which is engaged in building and operating telecommunication networks such as market voice, internet access, television network, etc. Company is operating in Australia since a very long time and due to new entrants in the telecommunication market of Australia, Telstra’s position in the market has been affected. In order to recover its lost position as well as enhance their performance, organization has adopted enterprise system in its value chain activities. This strategy has helped the organization to improvise its existing products and services along with introducing new products and services. Primary objective for an organization is to cover the large part of the market area; satisfaction of consumer’s wants and demands, gaining competitive advantage and for the purpose of attainment of these objectives, organization is required to adopt unique measures such as enterprise system (Venkitapathi, et. al., 2018).

With the help of implementation of enterprise system, lot of complex business activities could easily be executed such as making financial statements, annual reports, recording consumer’s data, etc. Along with this, enterprise system also helps the top level management to analyse the consumer’s data, organizational performance and other aspects with just one click. This ultimately helps the organization to execute its functionalities with ease along with gaining positive outcomes (Kraenzel, et. al., 2017). Level of errors, glitches, issues, etc. is also less when an organization performs its operations with enterprise system. Apart from this, there are lot of advantages of using enterprise system at workplace through which organizational performance gets improved and it move towards attainment of its further goals and objectives. Enterprise system encourages other activities in the business such as it enhances the communication level used by business entities through which conversation between organization and its clients gets improved (Nice, et. al., 2014). Employees’ performance could also be tracked with the help of enterprise system and then it could be compared with the set standards and expected performance for identifying the scope of improvement in the employees’ performance. As employees play vital role in organizational success and growth, thus, it is bit important for the organization to adopt unique and effective measures in regular intervals for enhancing employees’ performance, guiding them to follow path as directed by top level management, etc. (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017).

Importance of Enterprise Systems in Business Functionalities

Significance of enterprise system in organizational operations is huge, thus, it is required for the organization to develop effective plans so that it could be executed well enough to accomplish set goals and objectives. Enterprise system encourages innovative and creative measures at workplace through which business functionalities could be performed in relevance with the external business environment, target audience’s demands and wants, etc. (Venkata, et. al., 2017).

Following are some of the strategies whose effectiveness gets increased when they are implemented along with the enterprise system and this ultimately helps the organization to acquire competitive advantage:

It is one of the effective growth and expansion strategy. This strategy is adopted by business entities in order to expand its business in the new markets or in the new areas of existing market (Grady, 2016). With the help of this strategy, organization could easily enhance its performance along with uplifting its revenues, sales, profitability and customer base. Main motive of this strategy is to adopt different sales and promotional channels through which new customer segments could be targeted along with uplifting its performance in the target market (Xia, 2017).

With the help of enterprise system, Telstra could easily uplift its performance along with making changes in its products and services. In relation with the market development and enterprise system, Telstra have gathered all relevant information regarding the new and existing market conditions so that the organizational products and services could be introduced. When organization will launch its existing products and services in the new market accompanied by enterprise system technology, organization will be able to develop its distinctive position in the marketplace which will ultimately help the organization to cover large part of the market share (Malysheva, et. al., 2016). If Telstra would have been followed market development strategy without enterprise system then, organization would have been faced challenges in terms of analysing demands and wants of new customer segments, market conditions, and other aspects which should be determined before introducing new business or new product in the new or in existing markets. However, Telstra has executed market development strategy with the help of enterprise system which has helped the organization to attain its set goals and objectives along with gaining competitive advantage (Cooper, 2017).

As market development strategy is practised for enhancing the market share, customer base, revenues, profitability of the organizations but it also helps the organization to set up its brand image in the target market. Amazon is one of giant player of e-commerce industry and it is serving in more than 188 countries across the globe with more than 12 registered offices in the world. Major reason behind their success is the successful implementation of market development strategy. With the help of market development strategy accompanied by enterprise system, Amazon has become the behemoth of the global e-commerce industry.

This strategy has not only helped the Amazon to expand its business operations in the international e-commerce industry, it has also helped the organization to increase its overall productivity which has helped the organization to attain competitive advantage. Amazon is known as the world’s most customer centric company and due to this; organization has been able to attain adequate customer satisfaction. These attributes have ultimately helped the organization to attain competitive advantage in the global marketplace (Teoh, Yeoh & Zadeh, 2017).

Strategies to Attain Competitive Advantage through Enterprise Systems

This strategy is used for organizational growth and expansion and under this strategy; organization sells totally new products in new markets. This strategy is considered as risky but at the same time, this strategy is effective enough to enhance organizational performance, market share in the new market, customer base, brand value, etc. This strategy is mainly adopted by multinational corporations because every country has its own demands and preferences and multinational corporations provide unique and different products and services as per the market conditions and demands of consumers (Chen, 2017).

 There are several competitors of Telstra in Australian market and every company is engaged in adopting unique and creative measures for differentiating its image from other companies in the market. With regards to this, Telstra has adopted diversification strategy along with the enterprise system so that their products and services could be more effective and efficient from other telecommunication network companies (Laudon & Laudon, 2016). Apart from this, Telstra is diversifying its operational area by introducing new products and services in different parts of the Australia in order to enhance its market share along with the objective of enhancing customer satisfaction. With the help of enterprise system, Telstra has been able to gather all relevant information about the new market conditions, local customer’s preferences, their demands and the type of services offered by existing telecommunication operators in the particular market. This has helped the organization to adopt appropriate measures for making their products and services more effective and efficient so that the set goals could be accomplished in relation with setting up an effective brand image in the new target market along with gaining competitive advantage (Ogutu, Bennett & Olawoyin, 2018).

Amazon has also adopted diversification strategy in order to set up its brand image in the different parts of the globe. With the help of this strategy organization has expanded its business in different parts of the globe. Along with the diversification strategy, organization has also implemented enterprise system in order to accomplish its set goals and objectives. Enterprise system has helped Amazon to gather relevant information about the new market such as the existing online shopping websites operating in that particular market, their product and service offerings, strategies adopted by them and other tactics adopted by them to grab target audience’s attention (Laudon & Laudon, 2015). These attributes have helped the organization to adopt or create appropriate and effective strategies along with making their products and services as per the target audience’s demands and wants. This step has encouraged organization towards attainment of competitive advantage along with expanding its business in new target markets (Laumer, Maier & Weitzel, 2017).

In market penetration strategy, organizations tries to sell their existing products and services in the existing markets only with the adaption of new and effective marketing and promotional campaigns. These campaigns help the organizations to encourage their target audience to purchase their products over competitors’. Apart from marketing and promotional campaigns, organizations also use different tactics such as launching loyalty schemes, reducing prices of the products, introducing new and unique offers, etc. (Srinivasan, Asokkumar & Oracle International Corp, 2016).

Examples of Companies Using Enterprise Systems

Telstra is one of the behemoth players of telecommunication industry in Australia. Apart from Australia, organization is also serving in the other parts of the globe and as telecommunication industry is being saturated; all existing companies are adopting innovative and creative measures for the objective of gaining competitive edge over each other as well as for enhancing their market share. In the influence of enterprise system, organization has adopted market penetration strategy so that they could uplift their brand image in the existing market along with convincing their target customer segments to choose their products and services over its competitors’ (Sundaram, Koeten & Symantec Corp, 2017). Therefore, Telstra has acquired an effective brand image along with enhancing their market share in all the markets where they were already present with the help of market penetration and enterprise system strategy (Cook, 2017).

For growth and development of organization, organization requires adopting unique measures and strategies in order to match up with the trends of market as well as for the objective of enhancing its performance. In relevance to this, Amazon has adopted market penetration strategy for enhancing their market share in the existing markets. For this, organization has adopted the strategy of acquisition under which small and effective players of e-commerce industry of the local market are acquired by the organization to reduce the level of competition as well as for the objective of enhancing its market share in the domestic as well as in international e-commerce industry (Lee & Lee, 2017).

Conclusion

Enterprise system has acquired an effective place in the organizational operations and with regards to this; organizations are required to adopt appropriate strategies and approaches which could be executed along with the enterprise system. This ultimately enhances the organizational performance but as every technology has its own ramifications; it is the duty of management to perform strategic planning in an effective manner so that the desired goals could be accomplished in an effective and in efficient manner. This report as concluded the significance and effectiveness of enterprise system and in order to enhance the organizational performance, it is necessary to maintain the balance between the usages of enterprise system other approaches.

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