Why does enterprise software so often solve the wrong problems really well?

A lot of enterprise systems are incredibly well-built — scalable, secure, compliant, and technically impressive.
Yet when you talk to the people using them every day, the response is often frustration, workarounds, or indifference.

It feels like these systems optimize for everything except actual usefulness.

Some thoughts that keep coming up for me:

• Requirements often freeze too early, long before teams understand the real problem
• Success is defined by approvals and sign-offs, not by behavior change
• Software gets designed around organizational structure instead of real workflows
• The cost of change becomes so high that bad decisions just get locked in

So the software works exactly as designed — but the design itself misses the point.

Genuine questions:

• Is this a process failure, a culture problem, or just the reality of large organizations?
• Can enterprise software ever stay aligned with real needs over time?
• What’s one decision early in a project that almost guarantees low value later?

Would really like to hear perspectives from people who’ve built, bought, or lived with enterprise systems.