Enterprise System: Advantages, Integration, and Architectural Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Enterprise Systems, detailing their advantages and role in modern business operations. It begins by defining Enterprise Information Systems and highlighting key benefits such as focused IT costs, total visibility, improved reporting, complete customization, enhanced efficiency, and superior customer service. The report then delves into the role of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in system integration, comparing on-premise, cloud, and postmodern ERP approaches. Finally, it examines various ERP architectures, including Three-Tier, Web-Based, and Service-Oriented architectures, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses. The report offers insights into how these systems can improve business processes and overall organizational performance.

Running head: ENTERPRISE SYSTEM
Enterprise System
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Principle Advantages from Enterprise System:...............................................................................2
Focused IT Costs:........................................................................................................................2
Total Visibility:............................................................................................................................3
Improved Process for Reporting and Planning:...........................................................................3
Complete Customization:............................................................................................................3
Improved Efficiency:...................................................................................................................4
Customer Service:........................................................................................................................4
Role of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems in System Integration:..........................................4
On-Premise ERP:.........................................................................................................................5
Cloud ERP:..................................................................................................................................5
Postmodern ERP:.........................................................................................................................5
Various types of ERP Architecture:................................................................................................6
Three-Tier Architecture:..............................................................................................................6
Web Based Architecture:.............................................................................................................7
Service-Oriented Architecture:....................................................................................................7
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................8
References:......................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction:
An enterprise information system is a specific type of information system which is
mainly used for improving the functions of the enterprise business process (Shen, Chen & Wang,
2016). It means the enterprise information system is capable of providing high quality services
and can deal with large amount of data.
The enterprise information system can be very much useful in different types of sector as
it provides various of benefits. The enterprise system actually provides a technology platform
which assists the organizations to integrate and coordinate their existing process of business (Efe,
2016). The enterprise system is mainly used with the association of customer relationship
management and supply chain management so that processes regarding business can be
automated. This type of system also ensures that information can be shared over all of the
management and functional levels.
In this report various aspects of this enterprise system will be discussed. There are several
of advantages of using the enterprise system. In this aspect the principal advantages from the
enterprise system will be evaluated in this report. Also, the role of enterprise resource planning
in the system integration will be also discussed. Comparison of three types of ERP architectures
will be also done in this report and their strengths and weaknesses will be analysed.
Principle Advantages from Enterprise System:
In the current aspect there are various of advantages which are provided by the enterprise
systems. In this aspect there are several of principle advantages which are provided by the
enterprise system that is also recognized as the enterprise resource planning system (Hoisington,
2017). In the following section the main principle advantage of the enterprise system is
discussed.
Focused IT Costs:
One of the main benefits of employing the enterprise system is proper focus on the IT
related costs. ERP is actually a large investment but it can effectively unify the IT related costs
and improve the efficiency of the organization (Zhang et al., 2016). Instead of spending a large
amount of money and resources for multiple of systems, all the resources and money can be

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invested in the enterprise resource system. As in this case investment is only done on the
enterprise systems, the overall cost in this case is also reduced. Also, as a single system is used in
this context training requirements of the end-users is also reduced. In this way, the overall
procedure becomes very much easy.
Total Visibility:
The current enterprise system is capable of allowing total access which is important in the
business process. In this aspect, the enterprise system makes the data easily accessible from each
of the department and in this way proper visibility is created within the organization through the
enterprise system (Kim et al., 2019). Management of organizational inventory can be done
effectively and the functionality of the organization can be managed precisely by utilization of
the enterprise system.
Also, the enterprise system creates a centralized type of database system. In this way, all
the tasks of the organization can be completed in a streamline process. In this way collaboration
among the departments can be improved and which will improve the performance of the
organization.
Improved Process for Reporting and Planning:
One of the major advantages of enterprise system is the improved insight. By the
utilization of enterprise system among all the department within the organization a unified type
of reporting system can be developed each and every process of the organization (Shao, Feng &
Hu, 2016). Also, as this system will be having a single type of source of data, useful report can
be generated very easily. In this aspect, functionality across each of the department can be also
analysed and compared without any type of issues.
Complete Customization:
The current enterprise systems are totally modular and it is one of the major advantages
of ERP systems. Currently, most of the ERP systems offers various of applications which can be
tied together as per the need of business. Within the ERP suite most of the applications are
designed in such a way that it can work individually and can be also integrated with some other
ERP suite applications (Nwankpa, 2019). In this way, the organization get the freedom of
choosing their own required system or combination of different system which will fulfil their

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needs. In this way, organization also save their unnecessary costs. For this reason, it is one of the
main principle advantage of enterprise system.
Improved Efficiency:
Previously it has been assessed that enterprise system is capable of minimising IT and
training related costs by reducing the overall effort and time that is given by the workforce for
performing the daily activities. Thus, if the enterprise system is implemented in a proper fashion
then it will be able to effectively reduce the repetitive manual process. In this way, errors in the
working process can be reduced (Ali & Miller, 2017) and also with that most of the working
resources can be freed which can be used in other sector of the organization. Through this way
organizational efficiency can be improved.
Customer Service:
For all types of organization, it is very much important to provide appropriate customer
services to the customers so that customer satisfaction can be achieved. Again, in this case the
enterprise system can be employed for ensuring the customer satisfaction as the client of the
organization also receives the benefits from these enterprise systems (Hill & Brierley, 2017). By
the implementation of the enterprise systems all the client related information can be centralised
and streamlined and due to this factor sales team of the organization will be able to focus on
maintaining and building relationship with the customers, instead of just maintaining the
spreadsheets. As the organization will be able to treat their customers in an effective way, they
will be able to achieve better acquisition and retention of the customers which is extremely
important for the overall growth of the business. For this reason, customer service is another
principle advantage of enterprise system.
Role of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems in System Integration:
In the context of engineering the process of system integration is considered as process of
bringing sub-system components together within a single system. In this process it is also
ensured that all the subsystem which are combined together is capable of functioning as a whole
system together. Also, the system integration is considered as the steps for linking dissimilar
types computing system together functionally and physically so that it can act as a whole system.

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For the businesses, in many of the cases, system integration might be required due to the
business requirements. Thus, in such of the events it is important to properly perform the process
of system integration so that it can be ensured that business processes remain functional in an
optimal way. In this aspect, for the process of proper system integration the enterprise resource
planning system plays a vital role. In the following section the role of ERP system for system
integration process is discussed.
On-Premise ERP:
One of the main benefits that is provided by the enterprise resource planning system for
system integration process is the on-premise ERP. A traditional on-premise ERP system is
implemented locally within environment of the organization (Vera et al., 2019). The on-premise
ERP provides several of benefits for the system integration process which includes easier
modification of the integrated system, appropriate control over the system and a heavy security
for the integrated system.
Cloud ERP:
The cloud ERP is another solution which can be used in this context for a successful
system integration process. The cloud-based ERP system is hosted by a third-party cloud
computing platform. There are several of benefits regarding utilization of cloud ERP for system
integration which are crucial in this context (Muslmani et al. 2018). Here, by using the cloud
ERP for the system integration a huge amount of cost can be saved. Also, this cloud ERP
provides better accessibility over the integrated system. Also, stability of the system is also
ensued through this type of system integration process. In this way the enterprise resource
planning system plays a crucial role for system integration.
Postmodern ERP:
Among various types of enterprise resource planning system both on-premise ERP and
the cloud ERP plays an important role for the system integration process and that has been
already assessed in the above section. With these two types of ERP system the postmodern ERP
system also plays an important role in the process of system integration. In the postmodern ERP
system actually both of the cloud ERP and on-premise ERP the system is combined and a hybrid
model is created (Sternad et al., 2019). Considering the postmodern ERP strategy, there are
currently two types of strategy which are the administrative ERP strategy and the other one is the

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operational ERP strategy. Both of the ERP strategies provide proper flexibility and agility to the
process of system integration. By providing appropriate agility and flexibility the postmodern
ERP plays an important role in the system, integration.
Various types of ERP Architecture:
Considering the architecture of enterprise systems, there are mainly three types of
architectures which are the three-tier architecture, web-based architecture and service-oriented
architecture. It is very much important to properly understand the architecture of the system. One
of the crucial reasons behind this is that the system architecture assists in managing and
implementing teams to recognize the components and the feature of an enterprise system. Also,
through the architecture of the ERP system visual presentation of the interface of the complex
system of operating system, database and networking can be created. Also, through the
architecture of the ERP system various of requirements of the organization can be fulfilled
(Harwood, 2017). These requirements can include training requirements, system infrastructure
requirements and the change management requirements. The three type of architecture which are
mentioned here are having different types of weaknesses and strength. In the following section
these architectures are discussed compared with each other.
Three-Tier Architecture:
The Three-Tier architecture is actually the scale up version of the client/server Two-Tier
architecture. This architecture is having total three layers which are the presentation layer,
database layer and the application layer. The Three-Tier architecture is a client which does not
directly communicate with the database. This is because, there is a layer which carries out the
logic for the business that introduced. Within this architecture, the presentation layer is
associated with data browsing and providing a user-friendly UI (Nanda & Hansen, 2016). This
allows users to have a comparatively weak machine. In the application layer, data get retrieved
and transferred to the database server that is located within database layer. In application layer,
also the logic and rules regarding business are implemented. While compared with the other two
architecture the main strength of the three-tier architecture is that it is capable of improving the
customer related service as the customers are able to access the same database with different
types of interfaces. The main weakness of the three-tier architecture is that it requires a vast

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amount of money and time for the development of this architecture as it is comparatively new
and quite complicated for the configuration.
Web Based Architecture:
Another important architecture is the web-based architecture. The main goal of the web-
based architecture is allowing the remote users to provide the access of enterprise resource
planning system (Goodyear, 2017). The web-based architecture is having two types of layers
which are the database layer and the application layer. In this case, the presentation layer is
divided into two parts which are the web browser and the web services. Here, it supports
mobility of the devices by the utilization of internet. Many of the institutions avoids the web-
based architecture as accessing the resources outside region of the organization might not be
requirement for the organization. Currently the remote access to resources of organization might
not be a requirement but with the current growth of most of the organization remote access to the
organizational resources outside of the organization might become a necessary in the future for
which the web-based architecture is one of the important solutions. A web enabled architecture
can be considered as an architecture which originally not based on the web, rather than additional
demands included in this which made it web-enabled. Here, it will surely limit the remote
capabilities and functionalities. In this case also, some strengths and weakness are associated
with the web-based architecture. The main strength in this aspect is that it provides a flexible
type of access to the resources and a secure type of login procedure. The main weakness of the
web-based architecture is that the UI in this type of case is a complete mess. Also, the browser
technology is limited after some certain point which is a big issue for the web-based architecture.
Service-Oriented Architecture:
The service-oriented architecture is quite different from both of the web-based
architecture and three-tier architecture. The service-oriented architecture is currently not based
on any certain networking technique or technology. The service-oriented architecture which is
also know as the SOA is typical type of architecture that is considered as an approach utilized for
the creation of an architecture will be based on utilization of the services, irrespective of
methodologies used for the networking purpose (Erl, 2016). As there will be an overall growth
for the institutes, the overall number of services also need to be increased. This task will not be
possible with a single type of system. Thus, system for each of the services need to be

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implemented. Here, the SOA architecture helps the organizations to modify their existing ERP
system easily and effectively. This architecture also encourages to reuse the existing services.
Here, the concept of SOA is based on XML, which is a way of describing the data. The SOA
helps to provide standardize messages and establishes a proper communication. In this case for
the service-oriented architecture the advantage of it is that all the services in the service-oriented
architecture are re-usable in nature. Also, another advantage in this case is that services in this
aspect can be maintained easily (Tan et al., 2016). The main disadvantage of the service-oriented
architecture compared with the other architecture is that SOA is not appropriate for the GUI
based applications. Also, the applications which needs a high amount of data exchange, becomes
unnecessarily complex. Also, the applications which is having the need of asynchronous
communication is also not suitable with SOA.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion it can be concluded that enterprise resource planning system
or the ERP systems are crucial in the business perspective as this helps to improve the efficiency
of the overall business process. Also, proper flow of the business process can be achieved
through the ERP system implementation. In this report, first, the principal advantages of from the
enterprise system has been evaluated and discussed. Several of advantages has been assessed
from there which includes total visibility, focused IT costs and improved efficiency. In the
following section of this report, the important role of the enterprise resource planning for the
system integration process has been discussed. In this aspect three types of ERP have been
identified which can be used for the process of system integration. In the further section of this
report, important architectures regarding the ERP system has been evaluated. The main three
architecture that has been discussed in this report are the three-tier architecture, service-oriented
architecture and the web-based architecture. Advantages and weaknesses of using these ERP
system architectures is also discussed in this report.

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