TestProNews Q1 - 2005
Understanding Enterprise Solutions
Different types of enterprise systems are at work, giving companies a competitive
advantage in areas including customer management, product management, supply chain
management, and test data management. Although each enterprise system has a unique
purpose, all enterprise systems share the similar capabilities of data capture,
secure data storage, data organization, data access and data reporting. (Figure
1) Enterprise systems perform these functions securely and simultaneously throughout
all groups in a company, and often distribute the information safely around the
world through networking and Internet technologies.
Enterprise systems are easily understood by examining one of the first and most
widely used enterprise system - the customer relationship management (CRM) system.
With CRM, sales representatives capture customer data by entering information into
a database via a user interface specific to sales data. The database is structured
and optimized specifically for customer data including contact information, title,
job responsibility, and product interest and communication history. This CRM data
is used by sales to track interaction with the customer. Sales management can easily
access customer data from the CRM system, perform analysis, aggregate information
and generate trend reports across many customers and accounts. The CRM system data
capture, storage, access, and reporting can all occur at multiple locations around
the world.
Figure 1: Enterprise systems provide the capabilities of data capture, secure data storage, data organization, data access and data reporting throughout an organization. |
Today's leading companies deploy enterprise systems in all areas of their company.
Similar to CRM systems, other enterprise systems are available to acquire, organize,
access, analyze and report on other types of data throughout your company. Product
lifecycle management (PLM) systems help companies conceptualize, design, build,
and service products from cradle to grave. Supply chain management (SCM) systems
track resource availability for global manufacturing.
Test data management (TDM) systems
connect isolated test stations into the enterprise to provide information from test
data to improve product designs, lower costs, and improve time to market. (Figure
2)
Figure 2: A test data management system delivers comparable benefits to the design and manufacturing test organization as do other enterprise solutions that are used throughout an organization. |
CRM, PLM, SCM, and TDM enterprise systems deliver information to managers so that
they are able to make critical business decisions to improve their company's products,
services and processes.
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