Tech Insights on Enterprise Web Development from an Expert IT Provider

Enterprise web development is the key to the successful growth and prosperity of your brand. In today's digital world, a solid online presence guarantees that your company will keep up with the ever-changing demands of your customers. A robust enterprise website will allow you to optimize business processes, simplify data analysis, utilize powerful marketing tools, and gain a competitive advantage.

As an IT provider with over 11 years of experience in web software development, we at Cleveroad are ready to share critical insights about enterprise website development, including key functionality to implement and cost estimates.

Key takeaways:

• Enterprise websites are designed to handle increased user traffic, content expansion, and advanced l functionalities without the need for significant overhauls
• Enterprise web software development involves a number of essential steps on the part of both the business and the software provider's team
• An enterprise website should be focused on the user, providing a seamless user experience and encouraging them to come back

Enterprise web development refers to the process of creating and maintaining large-scale websites and web applications specifically tailored to the needs of big organizations and corporations. These websites are robust, feature-rich, and designed to handle high volumes of traffic and data. They serve as a vital digital gateway for large companies to interact with their customers, partners, and employees.

Enterprise web solutions provide businesses with various benefits, including:

Scalability. Enterprise websites are designed to grow with your business. They can handle increased user traffic, content expansion, and additional functionalities without significant overhauls.

Customization. Enterprises have unique requirements, and generic websites often fall short. Enterprise web development allows for customized solutions that cater to your specific needs.

Data management. Large organizations deal with substantial data. Enterprise websites are equipped to manage, store, and retrieve extensive data efficiently and securely.

Data security. Data breaches can be catastrophic for large companies. Enterprise web development focuses on robust security measures to protect sensitive information.

Integration with other corporate systems. Large enterprises often rely on multiple software systems. Enterprise website development facilitates integration with various tools, ensuring seamless data flow and improving productivity.

Regulatory compliance. Enterprises must adhere to industry-specific regulations and standards. Enterprise websites are built to meet compliance requirements, reducing legal risks.

Content management. Managing and updating content across large websites can be complex. Enterprise web development incorporates user-friendly content management systems to simplify this process.

So why do the Enterprises need a website?

Enterprise websites act as the face of the company in the digital realm, serving various purposes:

When choosing between traditional and enterprise web solutions, it is important to clearly understand their main differences.

1. Enterprise websites often have a more complex structure and extensive functionality. They may include internal employee portals, customized content management systems (CMS), and complex integrations with other enterprise systems and tools. Compared to enterprise websites, traditional web solutions may not have complex features like back-end systems or user portals. They most often serve to provide basic information and contacts.
2. Businesses typically place a high priority on security and access control. Enterprise web development is focused on protecting sensitive data as required by industry and regional regulations, employee authentication mechanisms, and guest access. Traditional websites typically use a limited set of features to protect data.
3. Enterprises need websites that can handle high traffic volumes and scale as needed. They may also require high performance to provide fast access to information. Traditional websites usually provide information about the company, its products, or services. They may include a basic information set and do not handle large amounts of data.

Thus, enterprise websites and standard websites differ in scale, complexity, security, and functionality saturation to meet the needs of large corporations and broader audiences, respectively.

Before enterprise web software development, you need to consider a number of important factors that directly affect the quality and success of your website. Let's take a look at the main points to consider:

Mobile enterprise web solutions are critical today as mobile devices are increasingly used for everyday and work-related tasks. MarketSplash research shows that as of 2023, 65.57% of website traffic comes from mobile devices, significantly higher than the 32.47% of desktop visits. Therefore, your website must adapt to different screen sizes, ensuring a seamless and user-friendly experience across devices.

To achieve this effect, it is worth turning to responsive enterprise web design, which uses flexible layouts and CSS media queries to adjust content for various screens automatically. Elements like navigation menus, images, and text should resize and reformat appropriately. Web enterprise applications will provide you with advantages over your competitors and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

UI/UX design is extremely important for an enterprise website, as it ensures user satisfaction and attracts them, giving you a competitive advantage. The User Interface (UI) focuses on the website's visual elements, like buttons, colors, and layouts, while the User Experience (UX) involves how users interact with the site. A well-designed UI/UX enhances user satisfaction and engagement. Baynard & EMarketer's "Comprehensive Guide to the ROI of UX" shows that 88% of online customers won't return to a website with a bad user experience.

UI/UX design services include creating an intuitive and visually appealing interface for a quality and attractive enterprise web design. It may consist of easy-to-use navigation, clear calls to action, and optimized page layouts to create a positive user experience.

Security is paramount, especially for enterprise websites handling sensitive data, since cyberattacks and data breaches can have severe consequences, from loss of trust to legal issues.

Robust security measures may include:

• Implementing SSL encryption for data transmission
• Regular security audits
• Keeping software and plugins up-to-date
• Firewalls
• Intrusion detection systems
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Different industries have specific regulations, such as GDPR for data privacy or HIPAA for healthcare. Regulatory compliance enables your website to adhere to these standards, preventing legal complications. To ensure your website complies with all necessary regional and industry-specific regulations, partner with experienced enterprise web developers. Make sure they have expertise in building industry-specific software solutions that meet all regulatory requirements.

SEO is vital to increasing an enterprise website's visibility in search engine results, driving organic traffic, and achieving online business objectives. Enterprise-level SEO requires ongoing efforts, monitoring, and adjustments to remain competitive. Working with experienced SEO professionals or agencies with expertise in handling large-scale websites is advisable. Additionally, regularly updateyour Internet marketing strategy to align with changing search engine algorithms and transformations in user behavior.

Effective analytics and reporting are pivotal for enterprise web development. Implementing robust web analytics tools enables tracking user behavior, conversion rates, and other vital metrics. Customized dashboards provide a holistic view of the website's performance, facilitating informed decision-making. Deep-diving into e-commerce insights and user behavior patterns empowers data-driven strategies. Goal tracking ensures alignment with business objectives. Real-time monitoring detects emerging trends for swift responses. Moreover, data privacy compliance is indispensable to gain valuable insights.

Data backup and recovery form a critical part of enterprise web development. A robust system for data backup is essential to prevent data loss in case of unforeseen disasters, cyberattacks, or hardware failures. A well-structured backup strategy ensures that valuable information, user data, and content remain secure. Effective recovery mechanisms are equally crucial for swiftly restoring the website in case of downtime or data corruption. This proactive approach guarantees business continuity and safeguards the integrity of the enterprise's web presence.

Enterprise web software development consists of two main stages: the business part and the technical component. Each of them, in turn, is divided into several consecutive steps that ensure the quality and reliability of your solution. Let's look at the enterprise website development process step by step.

Before starting enterprise web software development, you should pass some preparatory steps.

Analyze product requirements

First and foremost, determine why you need enterprise web software development. Identify the specific problems, challenges, and requirements you want to solve or improve. This step will help you focus your product on real business goals and ensure business development.

Plan the budget

Budget planning for enterprise web development involves several steps. Estimate the project's total cost, considering developer fees, equipment purchases, licenses, and other charges. Select a funding source, whether the company's internal budget, investments, or loans, and create reserves in the budget for contingencies. Develop a schedule for disbursements and keep a close eye on expenditures, making necessary adjustments to ensure financial discipline and successful project completion.

Search for an experienced vendor

For enterprise web design, you don't need to build an in-house team as it involves additional operational costs such as rent, hardware, etc. You can collaborate with outsourced web developers to optimize your budget. Outsourcing web development will allow you to reduce the time and cost of hiring all the necessary specialists. Moreover, you can access talent and technology worldwide without being limited to your city or region. When choosing a web provider, ensure that the vendor you select has experience and reputation in enterprise web development. Check out their portfolio, and read customer reviews on platforms like Clutch to evaluate vendor’s expertise.

Organize staff training

After software development, train your staff to utilize the new tools effectively. Training employees will allow them to understand and use the program, which will increase productivity and improve the integration of the new solution into the enterprise's business processes.

The primary phase of the enterprise website development process begins once you have found and contacted a software vendor. We will tell you about its sequence and nuances in the example of our Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

Solution Design stage

The first stage of enterprise web development involves working closely with the Solution Design team consisting of the Solution Architect, Business Analysts, and designers. The team defines your business goals and objectives that you want to solve by creating an enterprise website. Based on this data, we draw up the scope, create a high-level feature list, and sketch a solution architecture. We also consider all your additional requirements, such as development timelinesим, budget constraints, collaboration preferences, etc. We create a product cost estimate and form a proposal based on all incoming data.

Discovery Phase

This phase details the previously gathered requirements, allowing the team to translate them into a clear development plan. Specialists refine, make, or update the system architecture and detail and, if necessary, complement the list of features. We will also discuss the required third-party integrations with you. Based on the detailed requirements, we create a Software Architecture Document. Designers at the Discovery stage work closely with you to create a prototype design based on your needs. After your approval, the UI/UX team creates a design concept and UX map.

Analyzing security measures and compliance with industry regulations are also essential during the product Discovery phase. It provides a detailed understanding of the technical aspects and the legal and regulatory requirements specific to your industry. This is important to ensure sensitive data is protected, and compliance is maintained, helping avoid potential legal and reputational issues.

Upon completion of the Discovery Phase, the team prepares a detailed estimate of your enterprise web development costs and timeline. Ultimately, we sign a development contract if you agree with the numbers and conditions.

Development and testing

During this enterprise website development stage, programmers create the functionality of your website. Frontend developers create the visual part of the website, ensuring it is adaptive and mobile-friendly to provide a good experience on all devices. Backend developers work on the website's server side, ensuring its functionality and security.

QA engineers run a series of tests to ensure the website works properly and is bug-free and secure. These include functionality, compatibility, security, performance testing, and stress testing to ensure the site can handle high traffic.

An essential part of enterprise web development is integration with other enterprise software systems such as:

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
• Warehouse Management System (WMS)
• HR systems and others

Seamless integration enables efficient management of data and business processes.

Solution deployment

When your enterprise web development is completed, our team of experts takes all the necessary steps to ensure a smooth deployment to your business environment. We provide comprehensive support from the installation and customization process, ensuring that your website performs to your expectations. We also help you prepare the server hardware to ensure optimal performance.

In addition, we ensure the security of your website by monitoring its performance and updates. Our team helps set up performance monitoring and tracking to ensure your website runs efficiently. Within our DevOps services, we provide regular backups and recovery plans to protect you from data loss.

Support and maintenance

Due to solution complexity, enterprise websites may require continued cooperation with a tech provider. Support and maintenance services ensure the product's long-term sustainability and successful use. This process includes developing and releasing patches and updates that fix bugs, detecting security vulnerabilities, implementing new features, security compliance, and more.

Enterprise website development requires appropriate and advanced technologies to enable you to create a platform that meets your business needs and individual functional and non-functional requirements.

Cleveroad software engineers prepared a preliminary set of tools and technologies used for enterprise web development:

Programming languages are the primary tools for building client and server-side websites, ensuring their operation and functionality. Some of the most commonly used ones for successful enterprise web development include:

• JavaScript
• Python
• Java
• PHP
• C#

Enterprise web development frameworks play a crucial role by providing out-of-the-box tools, libraries, and frameworks that greatly simplify and speed up web app creation.

Enterprise web developers can use one of these frameworks:

• Angular
• React
• Ruby on Rails
• ASP.NET
• node.js
• Django
• Flask
• Spring

Frameworks enable standardized development, offer high security and code quality, and provide many out-of-the-box solutions for everyday tasks such as user authentication, data processing, and more.

Databases for enterprise websites are critical because they enable storing, organizing, and quickly accessing the vast amounts of data created and processed as part of corporate activities. To create enterprise web solutions, developers can use:

• MySQL
• MsSQL
• PostgreSQL
• MongoDB
• Oracle Database

Databases allow websites to store information about customers, products, services, orders, and other critical aspects of the business. They also provide secure and efficient data management and recovery tools in case of failure or loss.

Please note that the technology stack can vary depending on your individual business needs and the experience of your software provider.

The cost of enterprise website development can vary depending on a large number of factors and your requirements. Let's look at the main cost-driving factors in detail.

First of all, you should pay attention to functionality. The more features enterprise web solutions contain, the more expensive the development will be. For example, creating a full-fledged solution will cost more than building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that includes only the basic necessary features.

To implement this functionality, you will need the following team members:

• Solution Architect
• Business Analysts
• UI/UX designers
• Developers
• QA engineers
• DevOps

Thus, to calculate the final cost of enterprise web development, it is necessary to multiply the hourly rate of a specialist by the number of hours spent. Software development time estimation is affected by several factors:

• The number and complexity of features. The more functionalities need to be realized, and the more complex they are, the more time will be required for development.
• Design. A more complex design with more pages and visual elements takes more time but provides a better user experience.
• Architecture complexity. If a product's architecture is complex, it can increase the time required to develop and test it. A simple and efficient architecture usually requires less effort.
• Security. Securing a product requires additional effort, including security audits, vulnerability testing, and implementing security measures.
• Compliance. Compliance with laws and regulations can take time to research and implement the appropriate requirements into the product.
• Degree of integration. If the product must integrate with other systems or third-party services, developing and testing appropriate interfaces may require additional time.

Our specialists calculated the approximate development time for key enterprise website features:

Keep in mind that this calculation only considers the development time of the basic functionality but does not include the work time of other specialists, such as business analysts, solution architects, and others. Their time and the cost of their work are calculated separately. You can contact our experts for an exact detailed cost estimate of full-fledged enterprise website development.

No less critical variable is the hourly rate of specialists. It can vary significantly depending on the region you choose to cooperate with. We have collected hourly rates from the most popular outsourcing regions, based on which we can understand the cost of enterprise website development in each:

A robust enterprise website is key to successfully growing and scaling your enterprise and improving your services. To go through all the development steps successfully, you need an experienced IT partner with expertise in web development and building enterprise-scale solutions. Cleveroad is ready to provide you with assistance in enterprise web development.

Cleveroad is a web development company located in Central Europe, Estonia. Since 2011, we have been helping enterprises and large companies to digitize business processes and improve service delivery by creating reliable, scalable web solutions. Our team has built expertise in various domains, such as Healthcare, Logistics, Media, Retail, Travel, FinTech, etc.

Cleveroad's web development services enable our clients to get highly scalable solutions according to their business needs and processes. Our web engineers use time-proven languages and frameworks, and store data in secure databases. Among the web solutions our team provides are:

1. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs): Deliver native-app-like features, offline accessibility, and easy installation on various home screens.

2. Single-Page Applications (SPAs): Ensure rapid, responsive experiences without page reloads or long waiting times.

3. Responsive Applications: Optimize the mobile user experience and save resources by eliminating the need for separate iOS or Android app versions.

4. Legacy Web App Modernization: Enhance efficiency through software restructuring, cloud migration, new feature integration, and modern UI design updates.

To demonstrate our experience in enterprise website development, here are some of our clients’ success stories:

The first of our cases is the modernization of a Multi-functional Digital Educational Platform for DJs for the UK-based company. The solution includes an iOS app, web application, and Admin Panel. Our team was challenged to extend the platform's functionality, improve the user experience for existing users, and add a new value stream by creating a professional Hub and distributing subscriptions. As a result of transforming the legacy solution, we successfully migrated the customer's clients to the new platform and implemented DJ Hub functionality and subscription options. Created from scratch, the functional admin panel allowed the customer to simplify platform management.

For another of our clients, DeFi Company from the US, we built a Video on Demand Platform for NFT Artists to link digital artists and their fans and buyers. Our team faced the challenge of developing a web-based NFT marketplace and building an interconnected system with the client’s Decentralized Data Cloud (DDC) solutions, media converter, and a fan platform for NFT creation and sharing. As a result, our client received an NFT web application connected to the existing DDC Platform, supporting placing, viewing, and paying for media content as part of a multicomponent solution.

Another of our clients, a Singaporean enterprise, approached us to create a Web Platform for Tourists for Searching Travel Activities. The customer r needed our help to build a web solution from scratch, allowing travelers to search for activities and properties. The platform must include sophisticated functionality to calculate the Personal Value (PV) score and offer personalized recommendations. As a result, we built a custom web platform that included rich functionality for all categories of users, providing the client with a competitive advantage and making the platform attractive for hospitality and activity providers.