Article & Journal Resources

Posted by: Ashish Ghoda

It is critical for any organizations and IT professionals to develop systems that can transform organizations Information Technology Center from Cost Center to Profit Making Center delivering maximum business values and customer satisfaction.

In the first part of the article we will discuss about the Business Enabled Applications and how to implement them. In the second part of the article we will be discussing about the 3 Ps (Be Professional, Be Positive and Be Practical) require to implement Business Enabled Applications.

What is Business Enabled Application?

Business Enabled Applications are Information Technology Driven Applications that implies a balanced approach among customers requirements,organization strategies, business values and quality standards.

The following is a simple formula of the Business Enabled Applications:

Balanced Requirements Implementation + Balanced Quality Standards + In Time Delivery + Under Budget = Business Enabled Applications

Business Enabled Applications tend to drive organizations towards profit. Proper alignment of Business Enabled Applications with organizations strategies ultimately helps organizations to transform Information Technology Center from Cost Center to Profit Making Center.

Features of Business Enabled Applications

Business Enabled Applications mainly focus on both angles of the business – Customers and Organization Strategies i.e. stakeholders. The Fig 1 demonstrates user-centric and business driven key features of Business Enabled Applications.

Figure 1: Key Features of Business Enabled Applications



User-Centric Key Features of Business Enabled Applications

User-centric applications are focused on mainly three factors – Users, Users and Users. Users are empowered to
configure services and feature sets of applications very easily based on their needs.

* Easy to Understand

Users should be able to understand the application without any major training and can easily make it a part of their day-to-day life cycle. Simplicity is a key for success. Simplified and consistent applications are more usable and are more accepted by the end users.

* Easy to Customize

In this global market space it is very critical that applications and services are developed considering different cultures, geographies, users’ requirements and business processes. If user can customize the applications/services based on their needs, applications become more usable and user can operate without any problems.

* Flexible

If application is based upon loosely coupled services and generic and open technology platform; the applications will be more flexible and will enable users to customize based on their requirements. These types of application can easily adopt changes in business processes, requirements and advancement in technology.

* Seamless Integration

All services and features of an application should be integrated in a fashion that end users feel a seamless flow of features and services across the application. Seamless integrated services and features of the application improve the usability of the application.

* Well Performing and Stable

Applications are usable only when the performance of the application is acceptable to end users and they are errors free. A balanced approach utilizing right technology and features at right time makes the application well performing, stable and easy to maintain.

Business driven applications are focused on mainly three factors – Organization Strategies, Quality and Cost. The following are business driven key features of Business Enabled Applications.

* Quality Services

Consistent delivery of high-quality products is a key factor to remain top in the market. Every organization has to focus on three areas to deliver consistent high-quality products and services:

1. Quality of the products

Stability, Scalability, Usability, High Performance and Maintainability are key components to measure and monitor the quality of products and services.

2. Quality of the (customer) services

Organizations need to grow loyal customers. The Customer centric support and maintenance model is essential to keep customers happy and thus loyal to the products.

3. Quality of the organizational processes and standards

Standard and unified organizational processes and standards are required to implement quality products and services. Organizations have to keep their eyes open and rather than having orthodox processes and standards, should be adjustable enough to meet current market challenges.

* Business Processes Streamline

In order to achieve maximum benefits from IT products and IT centers, organizational business processes need to be streamlined and accommodate to adopt required changes to support globalization, advancement in the Information Technology and requirements from the stakeholders and customers. Innovative approach will certainly bring success towards streamlining business processes.

* Agile and Cohesive IT Model

Traditional IT/software model does not suite today’s agile environment where there is daily advancements in the Information Technology, continuously changing customer’s requirements and expectation of faster, better and cheaper products delivering high business values. Organizations have to implement an optimized, diversified, agile and cohesive IT organization model that can facilitate global and virtual environment and provide a flexible service oriented technology platform to adopt changes in the technology and customer requirements.

* Regulatory Policies Compliance

One of the key organization components to stay out of the trouble is to follow regulatory policies and rules. Implement processes and define standards to continue monitor and measure regulatory policies like document retention and also adjust organization IT model to incorporate them within IT products.

* Return on Investment

The return on Information Technology investment cannot only be measured by the returned profit. There are various factors that can impact the ROI of the Information Technology. Along with the financial profit, the ROI is also measured against the gain in the productivity, efficiency and business values, improved customer confidence and satisfaction and ease to implement changes based on regulatory policies, advancement in technology and changes in customer needs.