Enterprise Application Development: 5 Challenges to Avoid

This article will get you battle-ready by covering the top five challenges of enterprise app development and showing you how to overcome them.

Table of contents

• What is enterprise application development?

• What are the skills required to build an enterprise application?

• Top 5 challenges of enterprise app development (and how to overcome them)

• Rise to the challenge of enterprise applications development

• Frequently asked questions about enterprise applications development

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What is enterprise application development?

Enterprise application development involves creating a platform for your organization that you customize to meet your specific business needs. As a business, your software is your home, and the best way to find your dream house is to build it yourself.

When you choose the specific features and integrations to include in your application, you optimize it to improve your business processes and, more importantly, to have a competitive advantage in the market. You’ll be able to set up automation workflows to enable your team to accomplish their goals faster or allow clients easy access to important information according to their user role.

What’s the difference between an enterprise application and a web application?

With people throwing around both terms all over the internet it’s not surprising to find that some aren’t sure about the differences between the two. If you’re one of them don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone.

Web applications are software solutions that individual users can interact with from any computer or device that is connected to the internet, for example, a custom web app for communications.

Enterprise applications, in contrast, are specially designed for large-scale organizations, with more complex architecture and substantial numbers of simultaneous users.

Google is a great example of a company that offers both web and enterprise applications. Gmail is a single-page web app and mobile app used for emails but Google Workspace is a multi-tool enterprise application for team collaboration.

What are the skills required to build an enterprise application?

Just like Liam Neeson in Taken, you’ll need a very particular set of skills if you want to -save your daughter- make a successful enterprise application. These include:

• Attention to detail. In a project of this size, small but crucial details can easily get lost in the shuffle—so you need to have a keen eye for detail.

• Ability to work with huge amounts of information. On the other hand, you’re going to be handling massive amounts of data which you need to optimize with robust databases and analyzed in real-time.

• Ability to connect with third-party apps / APIs. Your enterprise app needs to have third-party integrations via APIs to plug functionality gaps, so you need people on the team who have the technical know-how to get it done.

• Understanding of cloud computing. Cloud computing, and cloud-based application services, are fast becoming the norm in modern enterprise application development, so make sure your team can adopt these systems.

• UI/UX knowledge. It’s one thing for your app to have dozens of useful features but if they’re hard to use and look like a website from 1998, no end users will want to interact with them. An eye for design and technical UI/UX knowledge is a must.

• Knowledge of Agile. Following methodologies such as Agile continuous improvement will result in a flexible app with increased scalability—but it requires the right knowledge and mindset.

• Project management. The ability to plan, communicate and monitor timelines, milestones, and budgets requires top organizational skills. Familiarity with technologies to automate processes and track projects will also help streamline the development process.

• Communication. With so many moving parts and members of the team, it’s crucial that the goals, milestones, and daily tasks of development are clearly explained and people can effectively communicate with each other when there are potential roadblocks to success.

• QA and performance testing. Quality Assurance (QA) and performance testing in an iterative way throughout the development lifecycle are key to ensuring a bug-free user experience.

 How to upskill on-the-go with team augmentation

It’s unlikely that you and your team have all the skills required for custom enterprise software development. Instead of going through the long-winded, expensive, and often ineffective process of hiring new team members, consider collaborating with a development company like NaNLABS.

We can augment your team to plug skills gaps, helping you to develop a more effective app while upskilling original team members at the same time. We offer an expert squad, 100% dedicated to the project: 

• Your technical leader facilitates your project, ensuring the right architecture and technical processes are in place.

• Your development team works together to refine tasks, develop features and write code, validating the functionality of your product.

• Your UX/UI designer solves usability challenges, creating wireframes, prototypes, and screen designs.

Ready to build your own custom software with a team that cares about you and your processes? We’re not code monkeys, we care about you.

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Facing challenges in enterprise software development is not a matter of if, but when. Let us walk you through five of the most common challenges and how to beat them into the dust.

1. Changeable business needs and environment

Your business and the market it operates in are not static. As time passes things change and cash flows can fluctuate. At the application development level, these changes can lead to expensive mistakes and significant delays.

In order to plan for this you should have a clear understanding of what you want your enterprise application to do, and why, from the start. At the same time, you need to embrace an Agile or Lean perspective and be flexible to the changing tides of business. 

You should build the software with scalability in mind so that it can adapt to your changing needs and you should be mindful of the possible modifications that could shape your project further down the line.

2. Increased security concerns

Enterprise applications require massive databases of sensitive personal information, with this data being accessible to any number of users on the software. This means you’ve not only got to worry about keeping people’s information private on the application but also about potential data hacks from outside, too.

In order to avoid issues with users’ data, be sure to

• Employ the most up-to-date encryption techniques

• Set up hacking detection instruments and alarms

• Use anti-malware technology

• Implement a comprehensive back up strategy

• Establish strict roles and permissions to restrict access to confidential information

• Follow security good practices while developing and releasing the solution

3. Managing large amounts of data

Growing businesses come with reams of data. Storing all that data in large databases can be unwieldy and require sophisticated infrastructure that consumes company resources. If you don’t manage it well, your costs can grow exponentially, your system’s performance can degrade (impacting user experience), and you might miss key analytics metrics.

To help you handle this quantity of data there are options that can help you, like:

• Using cloud storage or a hosting provider that manages and stores your data remotely. Remote data storage provides more mobility, stability, and speed.

• Splitting your architecture into microservices, which means having different databases which are smaller, focused, and easier to maintain. 

Ultimately, which strategy you adopt will come down to what makes the most sense for your business needs and the enterprise solution you’re developing.

4. Tricky third-party integrations

Third-party integration, also referred to as interoperability, is a concern for both stakeholders and end-users. People want to know they can connect their apps with your software solution but getting that to happen isn’t always easy. The complexity and age of your existing solution’s structure can make APIs tricky to implement.

So, if you’re planning third-party integrations you should inform your development team sooner rather than later. It’s critical to discuss the scalability and scope of the solution because they need to test and write code to fully integrate new applications with legacy applications. 

5. Lack of in-house enterprise software development knowledge

Due to their complex development process, not every developer has what it takes to make enterprise solutions. Finding those who do could take a long time with more qualified applicants entering the market every day. Not to mention the costs associated with onboarding new staff or applicants who say they’re committed to the project but leave halfway through.

To overcome this barrier to entry we recommend collaborating with a nearshore development team like NaNLABS. We offer team augmentation services and we’re more than code drones—we take the time to fully integrate with your team to help you make the enterprise application development process as smooth as butter.

Rise to the challenge of enterprise application development

When grappling with something as complex as the enterprise software development process it’s not a case of if you’ll face challenges, but when. Prepare yourself to tackle the following road bumps:

• Changeable Business Needs and Environment

• Increased security concerns

• Managing large amounts of data

• Tricky third-party integrations

But that’s just the beginning. If your team lacks the specialist skills and expertise to address the challenges involved in custom software development, get in touch with an experienced team like NaNLABS to help you tackle them head-on.

Ready to build your own custom software with a team that cares about you and your processes? We’re not code monkeys, we care about you.

Get in touch. We don't byte