Business Software programs are often used to help companies increase or measure their productivity in some manner.
There is a large selection of software programs out there. Some do only one thing, like manage inventory. Other programs combine functions and some of the more complex business software programs are considered to be all-inclusive. This means the programs handle everything from the supply chain, through payroll and management of sales.
Business software is often categorized by business size with specific software programs designed for small, medium and large businesses.
Small or Home Business Software
Small or home business software is often little more than an accounting software package combined with office suites of products such as those found at OpenOffice.org or that are provided by Microsoft Office.
Medium or Small to Medium Business Software
A business in this size range might require a broader range of software options. The assortment of business software would include groupware, accounting, and customer relationship management software. It might also encompass shopping cart software, loan origination software, or outsourcing management software. Medium sized businesses often use field service software, human resources software, and other applications to enhance productivity.
Large Business Software
Large businesses often utilize software applications at an enterprise level. Enterprise software or enterprise application software (EAS) is utilized to solve problems on a business-wide level, rather than a departmental level. Often the software is unique or proprietary. The core of the software might start as a standard offering, but it can be available as a suite of programs with tools that can be used to customize the software to a specific enterprise or business.
This type of business software includes enterprise content management, resource planning, business process management, and product lifecycle management. The applications often offer modules to expand or customize the functionality, or that allow the software to incorporate third-party software features.
Business Software History
The initial and ongoing motivation in creating business software is to allow companies to cut costs, increase profits, or speed time to market. The first automated systems were large mainframe computers that were utilized to replace mainly white-collar jobs. These accounting functions where mostly time-intensive and tedious fact checking jobs like those done to clear bank checks or tracking the number of items used to manufacture a product, or to keep track of what items or parts were in-stock within a warehouse or factory.
The automation of factory accounting was one of the most popular of the first business software programs. This allowed large companies to computerize their ledgers. This included general ledgers, inventory management ledgers, fixed assets, and their accounts receivable and payable ledgers. This led to automating other accounting functions like taxes, health insurance, payroll and other items.
The use of these first computers to replace legions of white-collar laborers was an extremely profitable move. It often took 100 employees to do what one of the new computers could do. And the computers didn’t require time to sleep, nor did the companies have to provide benefits for the computers. Because of this, computers radically altered the white-collar workforce.
Companies like IBM and Hewlett-Packard built on this success by designing other business software solutions. One of these solutions was CAD-CAM Software, which started to replace drafting boards in the early 1980s. Project Management Software, also designed in the 1980s, was so popular that the cost was at $500,000 per copy. Today, Microsoft Project is less than $500 a copy.
Word Processing and Other Business Software Advances
In the beginning, one of the biggest changes in business software had to do with word processing. The typewriter all but vanished in the 1980s as companies shifted to the use of Word Perfect business software. Later, Microsoft Word became the standard for word processing.
Mathematical spreadsheet programs also made a big impact on how businesses managed their companies. The first programs offered were ones like Lotus 1-2-3, and today Microsoft Excel is the leader for this type of program.
Supply chain software revolutionized the 1990s as companies went global. The new software programs allowed businesses to manage their worldwide vendors and enabled them to coordinate and streamline manufacturing.
Internet
The biggest impact on business software is recognized as the globalization of the Internet. With Websites and Email able to supply worldwide commercial interests, today business software is often provided not only on personal computers or company mainframes, but in the Internet “cloud” as virtual software.
Summary
Today business software options are available and utilized by the single person, home entrepreneur all the way to the large, global mega-corporation. The software solution may be located on a laptop, a company’s secured server, or in the Internet cloud. The software may have one function, or many. But the driving factor behind all business software has remained the same throughout the years…to increase or measure a company’s productivity.