The enterprise software solutions space is witnessing some interesting trends. In the previous two decades the emphasis had been on adopting the best business practices and efficient data storage since most organizations were in the process of streamlining their business processes and their IT infrastructure. Today, the expectation from enterprise software solutions is vastly different. Organizations opting for an enterprise solution today place greater emphasis on parameters like deployment model, regulatory compliance and data consolidation. Efficient handling of business processes is taken for granted.
 The most significant direction that the enterprise software solutions market is moving towards is cloud-based offerings. Every player in the fray is jumping onto the bandwagon. Hosted, private cloud, community cloud and public cloud offerings are the order of the day. However, it should be noted that the players who have designed solutions ground up on the principles of SOA and multi-tenancy are in a much better position to offer truly cloud-based offerings. Other enterprise software vendors will need to do the miles of graduating from a “make do†hosted solution to the private cloud and ultimately to a public cloud offering. A discerning buyer of enterprise software solutions today needs to have the ability to differentiate between a hosted solution and a true blue cloud offering. Â
 The ability of the enterprise software vendors to provide ‘opt-in’ features or ‘on demand’ features on a flexible pricing model is also being measured by organizations evaluating such software.
 Organizations that have made significant investments in IT infrastructure and resources still prefer the on-premise model for their enterprise software deployment. A key parameter for them is the availability of a business process platform that can be leveraged by the organization’s IT bandwidth to develop ancillary or collaborative solutions around the ERP. Thus, their solution is flexible and adaptive to business or compliance related changes.
 Another trend in the market is the increasing role of mobile computing as an integral part of the enterprise software offering. Open architecture and the web have been key facilitators in this process.
-Contributed by Ashok Dash
