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What is Enterprise
Enterprise is one of the most commonly used (and sometimes confusing) terms in business, IT, software development, and business analysis.
This page explains what it actually means in different contexts.
Most common meaning
An enterprise is a large and complex organization.
Typical characteristics:
- Hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of employees
- Multiple departments / business units / divisions
- Operations in multiple locations (cities, countries, regions)
- Many different customers, suppliers, partners
- Complex internal processes
- Multiple legacy and modern IT systems that must work together
- Formal governance, policies, compliance and regulatory requirements
- Usually significant annual revenue (often tens of millions to billions)
Examples of enterprises
- Banks (Commercial Bank, HNB, HSBC, Standard Chartered)
- Telecom operators (Dialog, Mobitel, SLT)
- Conglomerates (John Keells, Hayleys, LOLC)
- Manufacturing & export companies (MAS, Brandix, Hirdaramani)
- Government institutions (Customs, Inland Revenue, Ministry departments)
- Large retailers (Keells, Cargills, Softlogic)
- Airlines, insurance companies, universities, hospitals (large scale)
Not enterprises (usually)
- Small family business
- Startup with 5–40 people
- Single-branch shop / restaurant
- Freelance or micro-business
Software that is designed for large organizations (i.e. for enterprise use).
Common characteristics of enterprise software:
- Supports hundreds or thousands of users simultaneously
- Handles very large data volumes
- High security & compliance requirements
- Can be heavily customized
- Usually very expensive
- Long implementation time (months to years)
- Strong integration capabilities (connects many systems)
- High availability & disaster recovery features
Examples of enterprise software
| Category | Popular examples | Typical users |
|---|---|---|
| ERP | SAP, Oracle NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics | Large companies, manufacturing |
| Core Banking | Temenos, Finacle, Flexcube | Banks |
| CRM | Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics CRM | Sales & marketing teams |
| HR / HCM | Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle HCM | Large organizations |
| Insurance Core | Duck Creek, Majesco, EIS | Insurance companies |
| Supply Chain / Logistics | Oracle SCM, SAP SCM, Manhattan Associates | Manufacturers, distributors |
When people say "enterprise business analysis", "enterprise project", "enterprise architecture", they usually mean:
Work that is done at the scale and complexity of a large organization, not just for one small project, one department or one product.
Examples of enterprise-level activities
- Creating organization-wide capability maps
- Designing company-wide value streams
- Defining enterprise data standards used by all departments
- Building enterprise-wide digital transformation roadmaps
- Designing shared services (e.g. central payment gateway, customer master data)
- Creating business architecture for the whole organization
- Managing portfolio-level change (many projects affecting the same enterprise)
| Term | Means roughly... | Typical scale |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | Large & complex organization | 500–100,000+ employees |
| Enterprise software | Software built for large organizations | Expensive, complex, integrated |
| Enterprise project | Project that affects many parts of the company | Cross-department, long duration |
| Enterprise business analysis | Analysis at organization-wide / strategic level | Strategy, architecture, capabilities |
| Non-enterprise / SMB | Small or medium business | < 250 employees, simpler systems |
Related terms you might see
- SME / SMB = Small and Medium Enterprise / Business
- Enterprise-grade = built to enterprise standards (reliable, secure, scalable)
- Enterprise-ready = almost enterprise-grade, usually used by startups marketing to big companies