A blogger should usually know all the details about something and the things related to it before making a statement. As a first statement of the blog, first contextual statement, I would like to discuss Enterprise Software, not to define it. Nevertheless, I must provide a brief explanation of Enterprise Software before mentioning its main actors to those landing on our site for the first time through this publication.

Here is that inspirational post on the subject from Plutora’s blog, a Santa Clara, California-based company that sells value stream management software for complex application delivery. Various business needs are met by Enterprise Software, various corporate goals and objectives are accomplished such as managing resources, tracking supply chains, protecting market share, taking better decisions, or communicating with clients.

At least 10 business needs to satisfy

Under the umbrella term of “Enterprise Software”, a wide range of applications are included, such as accounting software, office suites, groupware, human resource management (HRM) systems, outsourcing relationship management, customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), business intelligence (BI) and analytics, business process management (BPM), and information security.

This is the picture painted by Shanhong Liu in June 2021 on a Statista topic about Enterprise Software: eleven clearly definable segments or sub-markets, each with a total revenue of 217 billions of dollars in 2021. By combining Plutora’s and Statista’s perspectives, you should have a clearer picture of Enterprise Software. This is a family of software designed exclusively for businesses, and there are at least ten distinct sub-categories that are either arranged by need or by a specific profession, such as accounting software or human resources software.

Enterprise software illustration: there is a piece of paper with a graph printed on it, a clipboard

Statements based on posts with definitions

Benjamin and I decided to cover these software segments with summary articles based on definitions that are found on reputable sites or articles from expert sources with ample references. When you examine our publications, you will see that they always come to a conclusion with a ranking of the best software in the category. You’ll find a top 10 or a top 30 when the information is available online, like on the site of PC Magazine, a leading IT media for guides, testing and evaluations of technology products and services, and buying advice supported by price comparisons for technology news and trends. In the case that software names couldn’t be found, we put the names of the software companies in the sector instead.

Initially, we did not have a clear idea of what kind of software, brands, and companies to approach in order to meet a specific need that large companies may have, such as a CRM or a system that connects departments within the company and allows them to exchange data more easily, such as an ERP. Several names were familiar to us from our professional experiences, but this editorial exercise allowed us to arrive at this statement. Thus, thanks to these end-of-article rankings, we were able to isolate a repetitive pattern that some Enterprise Software manufacturers have, namely the tendency to align themselves with one sub-market of software and also compete in another, playing on multiple boards at once.

There is a case involving a major player in the computing industry: Microsoft. This also holds true for Zoho, SAP, SAGE and Oracle, putting them in the top 5 of Enterprise Software giants. They are multinational corporations that have grown so large, which have immense resources and could compete in several domains at once. Not surprising? I find this very interesting, especially since we’re in a field like Enterprise Software where, as I mentioned, there are more than ten categories so you have a lot of choice. But if you’re a client company, you know that by choosing one of these major players, you can respond to more than three business needs minimum without changing provider. Obviously this complicates life for smaller players, who can’t play three or four chess games at the same time for instance, who can’t ride more than one wave at once. In addition, Salesforce, created in the early 2000s, is now the undisputed leader of the CRM division.

There is a business team brainstorming on meeting, working on laptop and tablet computer, illustrating a startup

Even so, there is still hope, in my opinion, as certain types of Enterprise Software are not of interest to these heavyweights for the moment; they are not playing there. But they may become present soon enough. In order to expand and diversify, they buy up smaller players and their technology from time to time. It would be ideal for a company to have an all-encompassing software used by its employees with the same brand and a brand solutions expert, the same development, the same approach, the same integration, the same customer service? Suppose a startup wants to enter this world and market its own software to companies. It must first choose the league appropriately, by taking into account who is already playing in it, but then its offer, on top of being sufficiently unique, must meet the needs of companies that have not yet found a satisfactory answer…


Corporate Enterprise Software Statements