Business software is a group of programs and functions that are designed and developed to do specific productive, creative, financial, and daily business work.
Mainly business software is used to automate the business. It helps companies and small business owners to create, promote, sell, market, manage and scale their businesses.
The use of software or automation in business is not just a digital trend, it’s a need and mandatory. It’s because software is designed and processes are created or implemented to increase productivity, reduce operational costs, bring innovation and solve customer problems faster.
Without business software or before the use of computers in business most business operations were manual. But manual business management and operation were not as accurate, productive, fast, flexible, and cheaper as compared to the software.
Also, the speed of production and innovation was slow when most of the business management and development were manual.
But today, you can use business software to operate and manage all types of business operations automatically, faster, and cheaper. That’s why you can see that the speed of innovation and change is much faster than 3 decades ago.
You can see that companies, businesses, and individuals are creating and launching new products, and services every month or week or day. It’s all because of technology, the internet, and the use of business software.
Business software helps to automate repetitive tasks in business with less or no use of human resources. The new resource or labor is software, the internet, and technologies. A single person can manage one and more operations through automation software. And it’s reducing the cost and increasing productivity.
Even to build software you have to use specific software, libraries, programming languages, and frameworks. For example, to create a business website you can use website builder and content management platforms to create a simple business website at the lowest cost.
Business Software is created based on the use and goals of the business. The software development process, technologies, third-party services, frameworks, and programming languages are not only focused, structured or programmed on solving current business problems and complexities but also to solve future problems, challenges, and business vision.
To manage the bills, accounts, stock, sales, purchase, profit and loss statement, cost, tax, liabilities, and many others you can use business accounting software. To create and publish customer-focused videos for branding and marketing on social media you have to use video editing software to make it professional.
Business software can be categorized as per the common business needs such as billing, accounts management, employee management, productivity management, research & development, customer support, business transactions, content creation, marketing, selling, and communication software.
Related Post: Essential all-in-one business software for easy management
Examples of business software programs or applications:
There are thousands of desktops, web, and mobile application software to use in business to automate complex and time-consuming tasks.
But let’s understand the basic examples of business software along with their uses in business. And these types of software are helpful for small businesses
1. Word Processor – Document Writing and Editing Application:
Word Processing, document writing, and editing software applications help to write better business documents, letters, applications, agreements, and reports accurately, faster, and cheaply.
Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and Zoho Writer are popular Word Pressing software examples to use in business.
Read more: Top 3 Productive Uses of Microsoft Word in Business
2. Business data management, visualization, and analysis software:
Business/Employees/Customer Data calculation, analysis, and visualization software make it possible to perform calculations, store, visualize, analyze, and access customers, employees, products, sales, and various other business departments and operational data and information with high speed, flexibility, and accuracy.
Business Data can be stored manually by a data entry operator in software. It can also be automatic to the cloud or accessible for another business branch.
Simple examples are Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and Microsoft Access, in which you can perform millions of business calculations, you can visualize that data and information through charts and diagrams, and after that, you can analyze that to make a good business decision.
To store data each application needs a database. But Excel, google Sheets are good for small and manual data management works.
But these are limited and time-consuming for bigger business applications. That’s why databases such as MySQL Server, Oracle RDBMS, Microsoft SQL Server, and many others are used in business software development processes and in working applications to store, insert, edit, and delete data.
Read more: Importance of Microsoft Excel in Business
3. Accounting, Payroll, Reporting, GST, and Bookkeeping Software:
Accounting, Payroll, reporting, GST, and Bookkeeping Software is a very important parts of the business. It’s very time-consuming, complex, detailed, and data-oriented and also required transparency and a high level of accuracy if you do it manually even through software.
Any misinformation or wrong entry in bookkeeping, tax calculation, income details, and credit or debits will impact the business negatively.
And while doing accounting work on the computer and through you also need a loyal and professional accountant. While most accountants and accounting firms use accounting software to manage business transactions and business accounts of clients.
So, to handle more clients and daily business details it’s important to use the software along with a professional accountant.
Because even if you use accounting software in the business, it’s also very important to do the correct entry. Accounting is not just a calculation, if you enter wrong data or bills then the software will don’t understand if it’s wrong or right.
Software is not responsible for the mistakes in accounts and you can’t claim it. Because data is entered by humans. And the software will do, what you will want to do. The software will not think on its own that you’re right or wrong. It can suggest you or warns you but can’t make a decision on your behalf.
That’s why it’s important to use genuine, original, activated, and authenticated accounting software.
There are various types of accounting software. And it’s not important that you can only use accounting software for business. You can also use Excel for the accounts work. But the use of special accounting software is much better than non-accounting software for business accounts work.
There is various accounting software such as FreshBooks, QuickBooks, Tally Solutions, Logic ERP, Marg ERP, and many others.
4. Branding, Graphic Design, and Digital Content Creation Software:
These types of software are used for logo design, images, videos, banners, advertisements and brochure creation, app icon design, website designs, photo editing, illustrations, animation and to create digital or print media content.
The created content is used to advertise and market business. While digital content creation and publishing are also a business in themselves. Content is uploaded, published, and shared on social media, blogs, YouTube channels, forms, and many other channels for various reasons.
Affinity Designer, Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw, iMovie, open shot, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Illustrator, and many other online graphic design and video editing and creation applications are examples of business branding and marketing content creation software examples.
5. Business Data Storage or Cloud Storage Applications:
In this technology era, business data is playing the most important role in business success and failure. There are various types of meaningful data in business such as:
- Customer product/services inquiry data
- Accounting data
- Employee’s performance data
- Website analytics and reporting data
- Business plans and meeting data
- Business documents/letters/agreements
- Training data
- Tools and software data
- Media coverage data
- Sales data
- Social media marketing data
Data is used to analyze, compare and make good business decisions at the right time. Not only that data (social media content) is also used for marketing and promotion.
But business operations create an endless amount of data. Store that data there are various options such as external storage devices, pen drives, and DVDs etc. are external methods. But these are limited storage devices and are best for professionals.
But for organizations cloud storage platforms are the best option. Business data stored in the cloud/remotely located server will be accessible on mobile/computer anytime and anywhere.
All the business data is password protected and you can assign a role to any team member or manager or project manager with a separate user-id/pass to use this data with anyone. And you can also integrate cloud storage or an online source of data storage with your other business applications.
Every detail of their use and time will be noticed by a cloud storage application. So, by using the cloud storage service application data you will get data privacy, security, accessibility, and flexibility in your business.
IBM Cloud, Google Cloud, Microsoft One Drive, Dropbox, Egnyte, Tresorit, pCloud and various others are top cloud storage service provider examples.
Read more:
What is SaaS Software as a Service? : Basics of SaaS in Cloud Computing
Top 5 reliable cloud storage services for small business
6. Business Data Security and Antivirus Software:
Business data security is very important. Wherever the business data is stored, you must make sure that data is safe and password protected. If data is stored on an office computer hard drive, then make sure it’s virus protected through antivirus software.
Similarly to this, if your business data is on your personal pc at home then make sure it’s safe from kids, viruses, and other damages.
While many small businesses and even many large organizations can also lose the data. It’s good to use data backup and cloud storage tools. Even still after those many companies’ businesses and applications get hacked. But it’s always better to protect the data from hackers and scammers.
Handling small and big data is not an easy task. Even it’s more complicated and time-consuming to monitor, store, and provide secure access, especially for govt. agencies, media, construction, and telecom companies.
But there are many antivirus software, business data backup, and cloud backup software that most of the small and big companies use.
MacAfee, Avast, Norton, and ESET are some of the best antivirus software programs examples to use on business computers.
And for data storage and backup stellar info, wondershare, Acronis, EaseUS todo backup are some good data back-ups and restore software programs examples.
Read more:
Why is it important to install antivirus software on a computer?
So, the above business software application examples are enough to understand what is business software and how it works. But still, there are many other business application programs such as sales tools, marketing automation, SEO Software, CRM Software, business payment processing applications, digital marketing tools, website design software, website builder, communication tools, data analysis, reporting tools, and presentation software.
In conclusion, we can say that business software is the backbone of today’s businesses and organizations. From small businesses to large businesses almost all the business functions, production, operations, and distribution are fully dependent on business software, web application and mobile apps.
In this era, almost all types of businesses are competitive and uncertain. In uncertainty, it’s important to remain confident, and productive, and run a business smartly. That’s why using software in business is important that helps in planning and design, faster decision-making, implementation of the latest technologies, data analysis, customer support, and techniques in supply chain management that will accelerate the growth of the business.
Each software is created for the specific needs and goals of the business. The world is using computers and mobiles and in that, they are using business software as per their needs and desires.
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