Enterprise Computing

What Enterprise Computing?

Enterprise Computing encompasses all of the information technologies that connect a business internally and to its customers and business partners.From its early MRP and accounting system roots, enterprise computing has evolved to include operations management, human resource management, sales force automation, customer-relationship management, business intelligence, and supply-chain management.An enterprise application (EA) is an information system that links two or more business processes and that share a common data library. Enterprise computing entails the use of one or more enterprise applications.

Virtually all of the Fortune 1000 use enterprise applications; typically from the big names in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). But while enterprise application adoption started with these big firms in the 1990’s, the use of enterprise applications is now common among all but the smallest businesses, with the overall market for enterprise applications exceeding $30 billion dollars annually.alton College manages and operates the infrastructure that supports the database storage and maintains and manages the server and datasets within the college. The current configuration of this data mining/data warehousing server contains multiple months of Point of Sale (POS) transactions from Sam’s Club stores and Dillard’s department stores.

Many university business programs now include at least some elements of enterprise computing education in their curriculum. Students who have the opportunity to complete enterprise application projects gain insight into how information helps organizations to create competitive advantages and see the larger picture of information as a strategic asset. Students are able to take advantage of the shortage of information workers with enterprise application knowledge and experience to secure a wide variety of high paying jobs with both the firms that use enterprise systems and the consulting firms that help deploy and maintain those systems.

Many of the larger ERP companies have academic programs that provide software and other resources to faculty. Some of these early programs were complex and costly, but it is now possible to provide an enterprise computing experience to students without a huge investment in infrastructure and curriculum development.

How is the Academic Community using Enterprise Computing?

The first approach is to offer one or more projects within a traditional business course in which student use an enterprise application. In these projects students use the part of the enterprise application that relates to the course i.e., accounting students might enter transaction data and then run reports, or an operations management student will schedule manufacturing based on the input of orders into the system. Some makers of enterprise application software provide real life data sets to faculty along with their software giving students a very realistic project experience, particularly in the area of reporting and business analytics.

The second approach is to create an entire course or even a track of courses around a particular enterprise system application. This approach is often used when there is a strong local demand in the job market for students with experience using a particular application.

The Basics of Business Intelligence

Some schools offer certificates in using a particular application that students can mention in their resumes to enhance their employability.

A third approach is to use an enterprise application as infrastructure for business simulation. For example, Clemson University offers an operations management course in which students are assigned to manage various parts of a simulated furniture business all being run from a live enterprise application. Each semester the incoming class of students inherit the ongoing business from the previous class. Inputs such as shop orders and deliveries are made daily by the course teaching assistants.

What are the hardware and software requirements for using an enterprise application in a course?

Depending on the particular software application, some enterprise applications require a client - server installation with a dedicated server. Other applications will use a web service delivered via browser with a dedicated application server. Smaller enterprise applications, particularly those targeted to the small and medium-sized businesses can be installed as a stand-alone application on a single PC, and optionally be shared out to other PCs.

The easiest way to provide an enterprise application experience to students is to adopt a textbook that comes bundled with EA software and datasets for students to install on their own computers. Textbooks are currently available in accounting, finance, human resource management, and operations management that come with projects, software and data for students to use. Generally the instructor will give demonstrations in class, and then students will complete the project on their own out of class.

Another approach that is commonly used is to install the enterprise software on lab computers. This method is particularly useful when more than one course is offered using the software, or when the instructor wishes an entire class to use a shared database in order to provide a more realistic experience. This approach is also used when a school wishes to provide training in a particular application that is not currently covered in existing textbooks

A third approach is to use a hosted service. With a hosted service, a school and/or students pay a fee to another institution to gain access to the application and data via the Internet. Depending on the service, students may get access to not only the application, but curriculum and project content as well. Sales and Marketing programs have greatly benefited from the use of hosted Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications that have recently become available via the Internet.

How can I learn more?

Microsoft Enterprise Computing Resources