Big business

Big business involves large-scale corporate-controlled financial or business activities. As a term, it describes activities that run from "huge transactions" to the more general "doing big things". In corporate jargon, the concept is commonly known as enterprise, or activities involving enterprise customers.

The concept first rose in a symbolic sense after 1880 in connection with the combination movement that began in American business at that time. The latter half of the 19th century saw more technological advances and corporate growth in additional sectors, such as petroleum, machinery, chemicals, and electrical equipment (see Second Industrial Revolution).

In the sphere of enterprise software, beyond the functional level, an enterprise edition would emphasize institutional concerns around software security, fault tolerance, geographic redundancy, disaster recovery, dispersed operational collaboration with administrative teams large enough to have internal sub-departments, and multilingual and localized functionality that spans the global marketplace. Procurement, validation and regulatory compliance of large systems at the enterprise scale often involves a multi-year planning cycle.

History

Origin of term

The Oxford English Dictionary identifies the first use of the term, in 1905, to be in The City: The Hope of Democracy, by progressive reformer Frederic C. Howe.

Early 20th century

The automotive industry began modestly in the late-19th century, but grew rapidly following the development of large-scale gasoline production in the early 20th century.

Post-World War II

The relatively stable period of rebuilding after World War II led to new technologies (some of which were spin-offs from the war years) and new businesses.