What is an Enterprise? Definition and Types List of the Best Software, etc

Ryan Patrick

• 8 min read
What is an Enterprise? Definition and Types List of the Best Software, etc

An enterprise is a legal entity with the right to own businesses. When someone is running a business, we can say they are enterprising. The word enterprise is borrowed from the French word entreprendre, which means to undertake.

For these reasons, most entrepreneurs start enterprises that are associated with risks to make a profit.

  • Exploit ideas: they have a new idea, and by exploring it, they believe they will succeed.
  • Problem-solving: an entrepreneur will identify a problem and get a zeal to solve it
  • Filling the gap: they see a market gap and create a business to fill it.
  • Knowledge-based: others can supply their knowledge, and clients will pay for it.

Incorpuk, in this guide, unfolds all you need to know from an enterprise, from types, and the best enterprise software for your business.

Types of Enterprise

There are different types of enterprises in the UK. What distinguishes these enterprises is their structure and ownership.

Here are the types of enterprises:

1. Sole proprietorship

Sole proprietorships are small companies that form the largest percentage of companies in the UK. They are trade businesses of single retail units.

2. Private Limited Companies (LTD)

These are free enterprises that are legally registered with their own legal identity. These companies have shareholders who have limited liability for enterprise debts. Directors appointed by shareholders oversee LTD company operations.

3. Partnership

A partnership consists of several people who share the enterprise ownership and decision-making. In some partnerships like legal firms, every partner brings their speciality to expand the overall services of the business. Some partnerships also have a hierarchy consisting of junior and senior members.

4. Public limited companies

This set of companies is sometimes confused with LTD. However, the PLCs in shares mean the public can purchase them. They must fulfil specific regulatory and legal requirements concerning the business's financial stability, trading duration, account transparency, and other criteria to achieve this. Selling public shares can be beneficial for raising funds for expansion.

What are the Qualities of a Successful Entrepreneur?

Starting capital and a great idea are insufficient to guarantee a successful enterprise. So many people had resources and ideas but still failed to succeed. To turn these two factors into success, you must develop certain qualities such as:

  1. Passion: Many entrepreneurs believe in and have passion for their products. That passion is vital in the first stages of selling ideas to investors. It keeps them going whenever they face challenges or low economic activity.
  2. Planning: planning is critical if you want your business to succeed. This involves more than just creating a business plan to secure funding. It's about setting clear goals and fig ensuring you achieve them. While plans must adapt to unforeseen circumstances, they should still follow a clear path regarding what you aim to accomplish and when you intend to do so.
  3. Be decisive: If you want success in your enterprise, you must be decisive. While it's ideal to have ample time to consider critical decisions, there will often be moments when you must make firm and swift choices. The ability to do so will be highly beneficial to your enterprise.
  4. Vision: having a vision of what you expect in your enterprise helps achieve long-term goals. Your first plan may cover the first years of your business, but you need a vision to see where your business will be after 10 or more years. When you're visionary, you will consider longer-term goals and opportunities to attract capital when needed.
  5. Self-belief and focus: When starting your enterprise, you must believe in your business idea. How will others believe in your products and purchase them if you don't believe in them yourself? Focusing on short-term and long-term goals is crucial. Monitoring your daily, weekly, and other periodic tasks closely will help you achieve your objectives.

What's an Enterprise Software?

Enterprise software is an enterprise application or program that offers businesses multi-disciplinary solutions for their tasks. As a new entrepreneur, carrying out all business tasks may be daunting, and hiring someone to do the job may be hard for a startup due to financial constraints.

However, you can use enterprise software to play the role at a reasonable price. These tools are designed to accommodate numerous users, offering high scalability and integration capabilities. The enterprise software can provide the following solutions:

  1. Customer relationship management (CRM)
  2. Online payment process
  3. Payroll management
  4. IT service management
  5. Human resource
  6. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
  7. Email marketing
  8. Business intelligence

Examples of Enterprise Software

Customer Relation Management (CRM)

CRM is an essential factor in an enterprise regardless of size. Reviewing customer data helps in making better decisions and tracking customer activities. This tool is crucial in managing and optimising interactions as you build relationships with your prospects.

Here are some Examples:

1. Salesforce

Salesforce offers a cloud solution to acquire, win, and retain customers through various products in its portfolio. These include the following:

  1. Sales and service platform
  2. Ecommerce Solutions
  3. App integrations
  4. Personalised marketing for potential clients

It provides 12 solutions within its Customer 360 suite, each focusing on different aspects of customer management.

2. Business Intelligence

Business intelligence represents the pinnacle of practical data analysis, monitoring, management, and intelligent reporting. BI brings numerous benefits, and software providers have revolutionised the industry by offering various solutions to meet enterprise needs.

Here is an example of BI software:

Datapine

Datapine is an enterprise software company that provides business intelligence solutions to industries and companies worldwide. You can easily connect your data sources and explore various enterprise possibilities, such as:

  1. Data analysis via an advanced SQL mode or drag-and-drop interface
  2. Comprehensive dashboard software
  3. Automated reporting
  4. Numerous sharing options,

This ensures the entire enterprise stays connected. Integrating their solution into your system is straightforward, allowing you to use Datapine as your product and scale its features according to your business needs.

3. Accounting Software

With a market offering accounting software, you no longer need spreadsheets to monitor your financial activities. Accounting software allows you to access functionalities that will help your business manage its finances efficiently and automatically.

You can track day-to-day activities with the accounting software, from revenue management to expenses, accounts payable and receivable, etc.

Example of accounting software

Quickbooks Desktop Enterprise

This desktop-based accounting management tool enables you to handle different tasks. It's a one I all solution that handles:

  1. Order fulfilment
  2. Pricing Automation
  3. Budgeting
  4. Forecasting
  5. Reporting with vast customisable cash flow analysis templates
  6. Item profitability

This software solution allows up to 40 users to access the same account. This is ideal for larger companies since it can track up to one million customers, employees, or items.

The tool also provides five industry-specific editions tailored for:

  1. Retail
  2. Non-profits
  3. Contractors
  4. Manufacturing
  5. Wholesaling

4. Client and User Feedback

Reviewing users' or customers' opinions can improve customer experience since you will know what they want. Using data and analytics to develop a feedback ecosystem enables you to enhance your products and share what you've found across the enterprise.

Example of client and user feedback software,

Mopinion

This user feedback platform helps you to manage digital touchpoints such as mobile, web, and email that help understand customer behaviour. The enterprise application allows you to create customisable feedback forms, such as visual use feedback.

Customising forms depending on user behaviour and demographics provides valuable insights into your site visitors and their progress in your conversation funnel. Mopinion also offers visualization options via customisable dashboards and facilitates easy data import.

5. HR Recruiting

With HR recruiting software solutions, recruiting has become digitalised. HR software is essential for recruiting, connecting, and onboarding potential employees.

Example of HR recruiting software,

iCIMS

iCIMS is a cloud-based HR recruiting solution that provides candidates with an easy process, from application offers to preboarding. This recruitment platform provides many automated workflows, tracking features, and analytics. This shortens the hiring cycle and optimises the human resource department.

iCIMS offers an all-in-one solution for:

  • Candidate relationship management
  • Hiring full package
  • Advanced communications

6. Instant Messaging

Staff communication through instant messaging has recently grown in popularity in companies. Modern enterprise messaging software offers many advantages for company communication and can be integrated into the operating software. Instant messengers provide accurate documentation and quick responses to topics and projects. This results in higher productivity in an enterprise.

Example of an instant messaging solution,

Slack

Slack features communication collaboration and can integrate with several files and tools. It also organizes texts into direct channels. It has different subscription plans to cater to diverse enterprise needs while allowing time-saving teamwork.

Its inbuilt security and compliance software guarantees 11 enterprise-level security features. Slack can also connect with platforms such as OneDrive, Zendesk, Salesforce, and Google Drive, ensuring staff can access several tools from a single location.

7. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

ERP software is a company's platform to manage and connect vital parts of their enterprise. These solutions help companies implement resource planning by blending all critical processes required to run a company with one system. Among the tasks you can integrate with your ERP include:

  1. Manage inventory
  2. Accounting
  3. CRM
  4. Human resource
  5. Advertising

Example of ERP,

Sage

Sage is a cloud-based software with three products:

  1. Sage 100cloud
  2. Sage 300cloud
  3. Sage X3

You can use Sage to control all your enterprise aspects, such as:

  1. Financial management
  2. Production management
  3. Supply chain
  4. Sales

Sage aims to deliver an agile solution for enterprises seeking to grow and manage their data through one enterprise software. They provide a marketplace for connecting with other apps, allowing further scaling of your ERP system.

8. Customer Service

The customer service software offers many ways to manage customer data effectively and deliver an excellent customer experience. Your enterprise needs an effective customer service solution to monitor customer expectations and demands.

Example of customer service software

Zendesk

If you're looking for customer service software that offers customer support, engagement, and sales, Zendesk is ideal. It provides customised features for workflow configuration and support processes in one place.

Zendesk offers tools like:

  • Email marketing
  • Helpdesk
  • Live chat
  • Employee engagement
  • Sales
  • Customer engagement software

Zendesk is a remarkable example of enterprise technology that can manage customer support regardless of team location.

9. Online Payments

Enterprises with customers dispersed around the globe rely on online payment software. As an entrepreneur, you need a payment option that is easy to manage and accessible to you and your customers globally.

An example of an online payment solution,

Stripe

Stripe is among the leading online payment options, with more than 100 functions covering all crucial areas of payment procedures. This online payment solution has set its standard for:

  1. Fraud detection
  2. Smooth payments
  3. Subscription management, etc.

It's user-friendly and offers recurring payment options that many companies may find beneficial. Its small charge fee per payment eliminates the need for significant investments in other payment methods.

10. Payroll Management Software

Payroll management is one of the most vital tasks in the human resource department. When processing payroll, an enterprise must ensure compliance with tax law and other financial requirements. This becomes harder as the business grows and hires more employees.

Enterprise payroll software manages and automates the payroll process while maintaining compliance. This helps HR focus more on other pressing issues.

Example of payroll management software,

Rippling

Rippling is a fully automated payroll information synchronization system that eliminates manual calculation. This pocket-friendly software seamlessly integrates with any other software you need during payroll.

This payment payroll solution provides international payroll features, meaning you can pay your employees whenever you are around the globe. Another benefit of using Rippling is automatic tax filing with necessary legal forms like taxes and employee compensation laws and regulations.

Incorporate Your Company with Incorpuk Today

At Incorpuk, we will help you file accurate information when you register your company through us. We will help you with incorporation articles, a registered office address, and all you may need to register your company in the UK. Contact our team if you need any information; we will gladly assist you.

Final Thought

Your enterprise faces challenges every day. However, your business can operate efficiently and profitably with enterprise software solutions. You can get applications to simplify complexity, software to protect against attacks and infrastructure failures, or a more efficient way to manage your licensing.

You can find various products from software vendors today that are available for purchase under diverse licensing models. Therefore, make intelligent purchasing decisions, reduce payroll spending, speed up the auditing process, manage customer service, and so on. If you have any questions about enterprise and a list of the best software, kindly contact one of our Incorpuk experts here.