Inforum 2013: a CIMdata Commentary

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1 May 2013

CIMdata News

Inforum 2013: a CIMdata Commentary

Key takeaways:

Infor continues to expand its ability to deliver a complete enterprise solution suite based on its ION middleware platform.
Ming.le is a new user interface, which provides a rich user experience for all Infor solutions by combing modern social paradigms and effective integration within business processes.
Infor’s announced acquisition of TDCI, will add a product configurator to their business suites that enable users to better quote and order configured and non-configured products.

CIMdata recently attended Inforʼs Inforum 2013 in Orlando, Florida—a global event with attendees interested in all of Inforʼs business lines. Infor stated that they expected over 6,000 attendees. Overall, we were pleased with the many new solutions announced by Infor and the energy and excitement of the attendees. As Infor continues to build out its enterprise application suite, their installed base is receiving more for their investment in Infor and are responding by adding new business process enabling Infor solutions to their IT environments.

Charles Phillips, Inforʼs CEO, and other Infor executives led a multi-speaker keynote session in which they discussed Infor’s success during 2012 (reached $2.8 billion in revenue and added over 3,000 new customers), their progress in developing and delivering new products and services for the enterprise market, and plans for 2013. They stated that in 2013, Infor plans to introduce nearly 300 new products, including Infor 10x and Infor Ming.le, which is an increase of more than 150% over the previous year. In addition to new products this year, Infor plans to deliver at least twice as many features and enhancements and four times as many integrations to Infor and third-party applications through Infor ION than in the previous year.

The general availability of Infor 10x, is a major step forward in achieving the company’s vision of providing a comprehensive, competitive enterprise business suite. Infor 10x unites a middleware platform featuring social, mobile, analytical, and cloud capabilities with Infor’s suite of solutions. All major applications feature a reinvented HTML5 user experience, the Infor Ming.le collaboration platform, and in-context analytics embedded throughout workflows that are packaged within the Infor ION integration framework.

One of the most interesting announcements at Inforum was Ming.le, a comprehensive platform for social collaboration, business process improvement, and contextual analytics. Infor is embedding Ming.le within key systems like ERP, PLM, Supply Chain Management (SCM), Human Capital Management (HCM), and Enterprise Asset Management (EAM). The objective is to enable employees across all areas of the business to better communicate and collaborate, and follow people, assets and processes relevant to the task at hand. Information such as documents, plans, photos, and videos are maintained in a centralized location with relevant activity captured to allow easy access by those who need it.

Figure 1—An Example of the Ming.le User Experience

Infor stated that Ming.le is designed to extend beyond traditional collaboration tools by connecting users to virtual representations of business objects, machines, and data in addition to colleagues and processes. Identified objects, such as industrial machines and plant equipment, can be linked within the Ming.le solution to provide real-time updates to interested parties across the organization directly through the application. In one Mingl.le demonstration, Infor showed how a worker could track both a maintenance process (e.g., repairing a down HVAC unit) and a link to the specific HVAC unit being maintained. The user received maintenance process status updates and a notification from the asset management system when the HVAC unit came back on line. Users can subscribe to these updates, receiving an alert upon every action and interaction related to the object, with each stored in an auditable trail in the feed.

Infor Ming.le connects structured and unstructured processes, integrating information contained in applications, including HCM, to connect employees to their functions and responsibilities. This enables users throughout the organization to identify pertinent contacts quickly and more easily than was previously possible. Because the platform is integrated to the data in the application, as users interact with Infor Ming.le, a map of the relationships between employees and business objects is created, forming a business social graph. This graph can help improve productivity and collaboration by helping employees identify knowledgeable colleagues to help in specific business situations.

Many solution providers are deploying social networking tools. However, most of them are for basic communication and interpersonal collaboration only. With Ming.le, CIMdata believes that Infor has effectively embedded social collaboration paradigms within business functions—expanding the use and impact of these capabilities that help users gain access to better information and in turn make better decisions. Ming.le should provide users with a more effective and consistent user interaction experience across the Infor application suite tailored to the ways the new generation of workers want to engage.

Infor also announced Infor Sky Vault—a big data initiative that leverages Infor ION, micro-vertical expertise, and dashboards developed by Infor ION BI experts and designed by Hook & Loop, Infor’s in-house design agency. Infor stated that customers using ION can extract transactions as documents formatted in XML and send the data to the cloud for further analytics, helping them obtain meaningful insight to drive faster, better business decisions.

Infor says that Sky Vault is planned to include:

Pre-built, domain-specific business analytics, reporting, and dashboards powered by Infor ION BI that incorporate industry and role best practices built on Infor ION Business Vault
A Cloud-optimized data repository delivered on Amazon Web Services and running on the Amazon Redshift database
Workflow and integration platform with Infor ION to support application interoperability and data transition between on-premise and cloud
XML services from Infor Consulting Services to enable applications via the ‘ION Factory,’ to develop integrations to third-party and custom systems and applications

Infor stated that Sky Vault is planned to launch in the second half of this year with pre-defined content for Sales, Finance, and Production. Additional functional areas and industries will be added in subsequent iterations.

Another interesting announcement at Inforum 2013 was the intention of Infor to acquire TDCI, a provider of product configuration management and guided selling solutions. TDCI solutions include:

TDCI Product Configurator—Provides product or other configuration services to a variety of applications including ERP, CRM, and sales solutions
TDCI Sales Portal—Provides a web portal for sales people and trading partners to quote and order configured and non-configured products
TDCI Flex Suite—Supports generation of 2D drawings, 3D models, photo-realistic images, and dynamic documents

TDCI products are already integrated with many Infor ERP applications, including Infor LN, Infor SyteLine, Infor XA, and Infor Distribution SX.e. This acquisition will enable Infor customers to better respond to customer requests for product options and customizations while enabling Infor to use a single, consistent tool to deliver configuration functionality.

Infor also announced a new learning management solution suite based on their acquisition of CERTPOINT. This will provide Infor an improved ability to deliver teacher-led and self-paced learning classes and training for its expanding suite of products and services.

CIMdata is very positive regarding Infor’s continued expansion of their solution suites and the introduction of new capabilities like Ming.le. With ION as the underlying middleware platform, Infor is delivering a very broad scope of solutions that can work together seamlessly. More importantly, by creating a set of common services and technology, Infor is enabling their customers to continue to leverage their previous Infor investments as they move forward with new solutions and technologies.

Infor is effectively cross-selling their overall product suite within their installed base. This is improving their visibility within the base as well as providing solid references for sales to new customers. As Infor continues to expand the integration of their business solutions and adds new functionality such as Ming.le, we expect Infor to become a more prominent player in the PLM and enterprise application markets.

About CIMdata

CIMdata, an independent worldwide firm, provides strategic management consulting to maximize an enterprise’s ability to design and deliver innovative products and services through the application of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). CIMdata provides world-class knowledge, expertise, and best-practice methods on PLM. CIMdata also offers research, subscription services, publications, and education through international conferences. To learn more about CIMdata’s services, visit our website at http://www.CIMdata.com or contact CIMdata at: 3909 Research Park Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48108, USA. Tel: +1 734.668.9922. Fax: +1 734.668.1957; or at Oogststraat 20, 6004 CV Weert, The Netherlands. Tel: +31 (0) 495.533.666.

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