Infor Workspace: Work Without Leaving the Comfort of “Home”

On March 31, 2011 Infor announced Infor Workspace, calling it a new “consumer grade user interface designed to revolutionize the experience of doing business using enterprise applications.” Built on Microsoft SharePoint with significant investment, Infor Workspace delivers the next generation user experience by blending a common user interface across a mix of enterprise applications, web services  and business intelligence.  The role-based user experience is akin to setting up a home base of operations from which a business user can comfortably operate all day long, without ever leaving “home.” More than a portal, and more than just a common look and feel for Infor’s products, its power lies in further blurring the boundaries of applications and carrying context between applications of all types.

Boundaries are blurring

For the past several years the lines have been blurring between Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and other enterprise applications to the extent that it has become very difficult to determine where ERP ends and these other applications begin. This is particularly significant in any discussion of Infor, due to the company’s voracious appetite for acquisition. Over the years Infor has collected quite a variety of ERP solutions as well as complementary products that expand its footprint beyond the usual confines of traditional ERP. These acquisitions have put applications such as Supply Chain Management (SCM), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and others into the Infor portfolio.

While this provided Infor with a more complete solution along with up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, there is never a silver bullet that turns different applications into a single cohesive solution that allows data and processes to flow smoothly between applications. That takes time and effort.  

Now these boundaries are blurring even further. Think about it. As a business professional you spend time in enterprise applications that run and support your business; you spend time using desktop tools, time on your own Intranet and you spend time out on the Internet. Lines between your business and personal life are also beginning to blur as the data and applications you use as a consumer also start to permeate your consciousness and re-set expectations, particularly those of younger folks fresh from college or business school.

More than a beauty contest

While Infor Workspace gives a common look and feel and a single sign on to potentially a vast array of disparate applications, it is more than just a portal. While how an application looks and feels is more important than ever, the real value of tools such as Infor Workspace are in providing visibility and ease of use and in fueling productivity. While top of the list of goals for ERP (and many other enterprise applications) is providing added visibility to the business, most companies today still lack a clear line of sight from quote to cash, and many individuals in those companies waste precious time searching for data on a regular basis. In this quest for information and knowledge, it is less important to know exactly where the information is coming from and more important to be able to easily carry information from one of these applications to another. This is what is meant by “context.”

Let’s take one example. One of your sales representatives might be using sales force automation tools available from your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. This is where he has all his contacts, including an address. Now he is preparing to visit the prospect or customer and needs to plan his day around this visit, so he needs to know how long it will take to get there; he needs directions and he might also want to determine if he might be able to combine this call with a visit to another prospect or customer. No problem, he just opens a browser where he probably has Yahoo!Maps or Mapquest or Google Maps bookmarked. Then he grabs the address from CRM and copies and pastes it into the navigational application to get driving directions. This probably takes two or three steps because the address is contained in several different fields in the application that must all be strung together in the navigation application. And he better not forget to put that appointment in his calendar.

Fast forward now to Infor Workspace. Instead of multiple copy and paste steps, right from the customer record, he can click on a button to open up Google Maps and the destination location is automatically filled in from the CRM application.

In this case the sales rep doesn’t know or care if his directions are coming from an internal business application or an application he is accessing via the Internet. What’s important is that the customer and address was carried over automatically without having to find, copy and paste.

Or what about when that prospect is not within driving distance? He will need to determine the closest airport, then visit the company’s approved travel site and then search for other prospects and customers in close range. And he also needs to get approval (online?) from his manager for his travel.

It’s about context

This may seem like a trivial example to those who operate on the bleeding edge of technology, but there are plenty of business professionals out there, including some Infor customers, who have yet to apply these efficiency and productivity steps to their everyday work experience. If one individual can save a few key strokes every day, how much time and effort can a sales force of 100 individuals, or 1000, save in a day, a month or a year? Then think of other ways to save time and key strokes. What about currency or time zone conversion? How many other small tasks are you doing every day that quickly and quietly suck up minutes that, when added together, turn into hours. How many different applications do you typically have open at any one time of the day?

Exception management

In addition to the mapping, currency and time conversion tools that are available, Infor Workspace also provides automatic alert management tools that monitor the status of tasks in relation to promised completion or established service level agreements and alert users to exceptions. Event management tools that alert decision makers when conditions or activities occur or fail to occur have been around for more than a decade. Yet adoption rates and implementation of these types of tools are still very low. Building these tools into the application is certainly one way of encouraging more exception management.

But the real value of alerts is dependent on the level of intelligence available in the data. Infor has added certain charts and alerts as standard fare, but if the customer wants to build their own Business Intelligence they do need to buy those tools from Infor.

Another factor that impacts adoption of alerts and event management is the question of where and how these alerts are delivered. As the workforce becomes increasingly mobile, just delivering these on your standard desktop or laptop is not sufficient. An application running in a standard browser, which is a prerequisite for Infor Workspace, generally allows it to also run on an iPad. Today Infor Workspace is available on an iPad, but Infor admits it still needs to do some work on the touch and feel aspect of the interaction since some of the standard icons are quite small.

Underlying architecture

Infor has made use of its ION integration technology as well as Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Reporting Services. As noted above, applications will have to be browser-enabled in order to take advantage of Infor Workspace.

While most of Infor’s key go-forward products are browser-enabled, this will leave some of the legacy applications out of the picture. That is not necessarily a bad thing. While giving customers choice is good, encouraging them to stay on old, outdated technology is empowering them to remain underserved by technology and innovation. One of Infor’s goals is to get customers on the latest and greatest versions of their applications without having the customer incur a huge cost. For existing Infor customers Workspace is available through their annual maintenance agreement and Infor has tried to minimize the cost and impact of upgrading through means such as pre-built migration kits.

Recommendations and Key Takeaways

Infor Workspace provides a new paradigm and a new experience for Infor customers. It is more than a portal, it is a work space (hence the name), customizable by role and by individual, bringing together the power of internal and web-based applications. Existing Infor customers should explore the possibilities that unfold in implementing Infor Workspace along with applications they already own.

What about expanding beyond current products implemented? Because many of the solutions besides ERP have been acquired by Infor , current customers may not have perceived significant value in purchasing those complementary solutions from Infor. Now with a consistent look and feel, the benefits of a single sign on and “in context” business intelligence, they may want to think again.

For prospects of Infor currently considering a purchase, fully explore the application under consideration but also look carefully at how Infor Workspace can continue to expand the scope of the implementation, without adding extra cost.

NetSuite has arrived on the scene of ERP in Manufacturing

When I first “met” NetSuite about 5 years ago I have to admit I didn’t really consider it an ERP vendor. Of course that was back when I had a more narrow view of ERP and thought that if a vendor didn’t have MRP then it didn’t have ERP. I’ve since gotten over that and for several years now I have defined ERP as an integrated suite of modules that provide the transactional system of record for a business. Not every type of business needs MRP to form that basis. Of course most ERP solutions offer much more than that, so this is really my base line definition.

Back in 2006 I viewed CRM and eCommerce as NetSuite’s strengths even though it did provide a suite that extended beyond these modules.  But since then it has officially entered the realm of ERP in my book. Its Home page on its website (www.netsuite.com) labels it as “The #1 Cloud ERP / Financials Software Suite” and further describes its solution as “full-featured financials / accounting, CRM, inventory, and ecommerce software—all in a single system.” So in a way, it is still down-playing the ERP moniker in favour of “suite” and its historically strong suit: CRM and eCommerce, packaged with financials.

Also back in 2006, NetSuite did not target manufacturers. Without a true Bill of Material and MRP all it could address was some level of assembly or very light manufacturing. That has now changed, although not all as a result of organic development. Some of the manufacturing functionality NetSuite offers now comes from a partner, Rootstock. Rootstock Software is a certified NetSuite Solution Provider specializing in the manufacturing industry with heavy focus on the NetSuite Manufacturing Edition solution. While its website claims, “NetSuite Manufacturing Edition is the only cloud-based integrated business suite for manufacturing”, I think they are missing a few other players, with Plex Systems being at the top of that list. Plex has been offering a complete SaaS ERP solution for manufacturing for more than 10 years. Other more traditional ERP players (Epicor, Infor, QAD, SAP) also have cloud based offerings for manufacturers and even more have arrived on the scene with hosted cloud models.

But what I find very interesting is that some of NetSuite’s key customer successes were achieved without the use of Rootstock functionality.  I just listened in to a webcast sponsored by NetSuite and featuring 2 manufacturers using NetSuite and both purchases pre-date the partnership with Rootstock.

Schaeffer Oil prides itself on being “the oldest oil company you never heard of.” With 30,000 customers, it processes 90,000 orders a year using NetSuite and has achieved the following results:

·         Reduced its IT spend by $100,000 in the first 6 months

·         Reduced cycle time of order processing from 3 days to 1.5

·         Reduced backorders by 25%

·         Processed 25% more orders with 15% less staff

·         Improved communication and visibility

GLI Pool Products is a manufacturer and distributor of custom and specialty products for the swimming pool industry. It was founded in 2006 with the purchase of assets from a much larger Canadian company and in doing so inherited an ERP solution, but none of the influence over its continued development.  Ultimately they replaced that inherited solution with NetSuite. GLI has bucked the downward trend in construction related businesses and attribute much of their success to the use of NetSuite. They achieved lower material and operational costs while improving flexibility – a key consideration as they no longer wanted to live in “used-ta-land.” They could no longer be productive and profitable doing things the way they used to do things.

So while the addition of Rootstock functionality really just took effect in mid-2010, NetSuite has been quietly amassing quite a collection of manufacturers in its installed base for quite some time. This is particularly notable since NetSuite is not known for its “quiet” marketing tactics. With the addition of a couple of relatively new names to the NetSuite roster (Roman Bukary and Ranga Bodla) charged with promoting NetSuite in Manufacturing and Distribution, perhaps this will change.

Epicor University: Do we really need education and training?

Last week (March 15, 2011) Epicor announced the launch of a new university for its customers, partners and employees. Epicor University was created to address the challenge of delivering consistent high-quality training worldwide, and to expand the range of Epicor’s education deliverables. It also offers certification programs for Epicor’s partner channel. With the introduction of the university concept, all content, materials, and training is developed by a dedicated centralized team.

The primary objective is to provide customers with resources and tools to help them realize the greatest benefit from their enterprise software investment while allowing individuals to learn in the way they learn best. Epicor already offers a lot of resources, from embedded courses within their ERP system, to user guides, classroom courses and certifications, to an online help system that gets down to individual fields help and technical reference guides. According to Epicor, there are more than one hundred embedded courses associated with Epicor 9 and over 100 virtual or classroom courses available, 2,500 pages of content and graphics in Epicor technical guides, and 74,000 fields defined in Epicor 9 Field Help.

So why is a University needed? After all, user interfaces have become so much more intuitive and software has become easier to use. Navigation through an enterprise application is no longer cumbersome and confusing. And when was the last time you read the instructions for any kind of software anyway? If you can’t figure it out easily it just doesn’t get used.  

Exactly! That’s one of the reasons that education and training often gets ignored. Sure the user interface is intuitive. Sure it is easy to navigate through the various functions. But these are potentially complex business processes that are being modeled through an ERP. Are those business processes efficient? Are they standardized and repeatable? Do they produce a clean audit trail? Can they be easily audited? Do they put you in a position of competitive strength or hold you back from realizing your full potential? Most importantly, are you getting the most value out of your investment? Why do you think one company fails miserably while another succeeds beyond all expectations while they both use the same software?

Most every software company on the planet is working to enable self-service training and support. That makes sense. Like any other type of company today, most are attempting to grow while also reducing or constraining costs. The software business itself is very scalable. Create one piece of software and sell it dozens or hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of times. But services don’t necessarily scale as easily. Sure, you can make it more scalable by creating user guides and online on demand training courses. But there is a certain element of education and consulting that happens one person, one hour or day at a time. And even the very best software can be underutilized, used incorrectly or used to model inefficient and incomplete processes.

So kudos to Epicor for bringing education and training back into the spotlight. Are you getting the maximum value possible from your ERP?

Have you heard of the "he-recovery?"

While I mostly keep up with news online, once in a while I like to be nostalgic and watch world news on TV. Last night I managed to catch the news on ABC and learned a new term – the “he-recovery.” As Diane Sawyer said, “The race is on for jobs” and men are definitely winning over women. While during the recession men lost twice as many jobs as women, now the tables are turned. According to ABC, of the 1.3 million jobs gained in the recovery, 1.1 million (that’s 90%) have gone to men and 113,000 (10%) to women.

Why is that?

Some of it has to do with the kind of jobs that have been created through stimulus efforts… think construction and transportation in which women only make up a small percentage of the workforce (13% women in construction and 5% in transportation – also according to ABC). But even in retail, which has traditionally been dominated by female workers, men have gained 100,000 jobs while women have lost 100,000. Others that were interviewed in the segment last night also hypothesized that men were given more jobs because they needed them more as the traditional breadwinner of the family. Yet women are the chief breadwinners of 40% of households in the US. Hmmmm.

I’ve officially been in the workforce for 36 years, and I had summer and part time jobs (sometimes more than one) while I was in school for 7 years before that.  During that time I would venture to say that I’ve seen it all.  I’ve been associated with some male-dominated environments, and others that are not so much. My first job out of college was working for a manufacturing company. There were plenty of women, but one other woman and I were the only two that were salaried and managers. Later I worked for a software company started by a woman who was then the president and CEO. I had plenty of women peers but I carried the title of Manufacturing Consultant (or a Manager of that same position) and I looked about 18 years old (I was in my 30’s). I knew when I went into a company for the first time I had about 37 seconds to prove my credibility or they would write me off. Nobody wrote me off.

I went to college in the early 70’s, during the height of the feminist movement, but I have never been much of a feminist. I always just concentrated on getting the job done and expected to be paid fairly for it.  But I have also worked for companies where I experienced a glass ceiling in spite of the fact that I am damn good at what I do. This tended to be where the “old boys’ network” was firmly in place, but I have experienced a “young boys’ network” as well. Same result, but it hurt more.

The bottom line is there is still a gender gap. A different ABC news segment also reported that the amount women earn (as compared to men) had increased by two cents over the past year. That’s the good news. The bad news is that means women (in aggregate) still earn $.81 for every $1 earned by men in similar positions in spite of the fact that women are now as well-educated as men. There is always speculation about why that is. Men tend not to interrupt careers for babies, but then fewer and fewer women today do any more. Some point to personality differences, but let’s face it, women are not all alike just as men are not all alike.

I do however think that women in general need to be assertive, not aggressive and younger women need more female role models and mentors. I’ve done my part through the years in working for corporations mentoring both men and women. As I start my own company, I start down a new and different path – one that by definition has no ceiling at all, glass or otherwise. Any women out there in need of coaching and support, give me a shout (cindy@mintjutras.com) .

For those that would like to listen to the ABC news segment….

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/economic-covery-race-jobs-women-men-gender-byass-jobs-economy-13189214

Summary from SAP Insider Keynote (SCM, MFG, PLM, Procurement)

Competing in the “Networked Normal” : A Pathway to Growth through Innovation and Collaboration

SAP EVP Richard Campione began his keynote this morning at the SAP Insider Event today with an interesting statistic: 85% of executives expect complexity to grow significantly. Interesting, but hardly surprising given the setting. This event co-locates several conferences: Logistics and Supply Chain Management 2011, Manufacturing 2011, PLM 2011 and Procurement and Materials Management 2011. Professionals in attendance are all focused on getting product to market and to customers. Given the global nature of business today, the speed of change and the proliferation of data and data sources, increased complexity is the natural result. And yet even with this growing complexity, customers’ expectation of speed and responsiveness is not diminished. In fact, it is only intensified.

Mr Campione also opened with a bit of history. Two years ago at this event there was talk of a recession and even a depression. Strategies were all about cash preservation and survival. A year ago, there was a fair amount of optimism and talk of recovery. Sentiment was … companies could once more invest, but the overriding theme was to invest in order to save. This year, 2011 is a “new beginning” and suggested that a good place to start was in looking at the problem as one of managing from “idea to delivery.” Again, nothing new or surprising, but the holistic approach to supporting this (complete) process was impressive.

Mr Campione also characterized 2011 as a year of crisis and hope. Crisis certainly needed no explanation given the recent uprisings and events in the Middle East, combined with the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Given the disaster in the Pacific, it seemed quite apropos to show his audience the Chinese symbol for crisis, which is actually represented by combining the symbol for danger with that of opportunity. He encouraged his audience to seize the opportunity to learn from leaders. These leaders operate better within business networks. They innovate faster, capturing 25% of revenues from new products, compared to others who only generate 5%. They reduce inventory, citing instances of as much as 55% reduction in days’ supply. And they manage risk. What better backdrop for the need for proactive risk management than the efforts to avert a pending nuclear crisis?

All this is very relevant to the global environment, but how do we really relate this to how SAP products can help businesses “run better?” To summarize, it is all about operating better, collaborating better and deciding better. Given the proliferation of data bombarding us from all angles, it is about turning fast into real real-time. In SAP parlance, this means more (mobile) devices, more applications and more analytics.

More devices equate to more mobile devices, and this was the primary reason SAP bought Sybase – for its mobility platform. There are a lot of different applications along the path from idea to delivery and Mr Campione emphasized the need for these to be "consumable, ready to deploy, packaged applications." "Consumable" is a word I have been emphasizing to ERP vendors for the past several years, so this was music to my ears.

SAP brought an entertaining duo on stage to demonstrate a scenario that took us from

·         consensus planning, to…

·         the identification of “killer features,” to…

·         engaging the right people, to…

·         readying the supply chain, to…

·         analysing the process and the results

This demo scenario started with SAP Event Insight, then turned to Stream Work, followed by SAP Sales On Demand and finally the BI element of Business Analytics. Implied behind the scenes were PLM, ERP and manufacturing execution including sourcing and procurement. It touched on ideation, sales and operations planning and on the innovation SAP had delivered within the last 12 months, including the following:

·         Mobility

·         Stream Work

·         Business ByDesign

·         BI 4.0

·         Innovations 2010

·         HANA (in memory)

·         Netweaver 7.3

If you missed this keynote and yet feel the urgency to address many of these challenges, including the need to eliminate dual entry in multiple systems, the need for improved visibility, better integrated quality management, and lower inventory and operating costs, take the time to get a demo. If you are running solutions that are not using the latest and greatest technology, you may be pleasantly surprised. And remember how fast that technology is changing!

Infor announces hiring plans along with Q3 software license growth of 17%

This morning  Infor announced it will expand its engineering organization by hiring approximately 400 additional software developers and plans to add significantly more new features and releases this year than ever before.  Reinforcing, the strategy shift away from building middleware, all these new hires will be focused on building business applications.

This signals an increase in investment in product development under the leadership of the new management team put in place by Charles Phillips who took over as CEO, bumping Jim Schaper to chairman of the board.  Infor also announced license growth of 17% and increased cash operating margins of 24% (which includes Infor and Softbrands Q3FY11 results over Q3 of Fiscal Year 2010). Infor added 400 net new customers last quarter. This is an important statistic since we have witnessed slowed growth of ERP solution providers, coupled with the downturn in the economy over the last two plus years. Indeed, Infor’s customer count has hovered around 70,000 for the past five years, ever since the acquisition of SSA Global, Systems Union and Extensity in August 2006. Since then, new customer growth has compensated for attrition, but has not moved the needle significantly.

New releases, standards based integration through Infor’s new ION platform, and planned changes to a new and universal user interface are all necessary components in order for Infor to break out this year and grow that number, especially if it wants to grow organically, as well as through acquisition. This announcement comes just days after the new of the proposed bid to acquire Lawson by Infor and its major investor Golden Gate Capital. Clearly Infor management wants to send the message that while acquisitions are likely in the near future, organic growth is also important.  

Epicor Manufacturing Express Edition Up Close and Personal

I sat in on a webcast hosted by Epicor today on Epicor Manufacturing Express Edition, complete with a demo of the product. Epicor had pre-briefed me on its Express Edition back in August 2009 and then again when it was released in May 2010. For those of you not familiar with this Express Edition, here’s a very quick summary….

Epicor Manufacturing Express Edition is a simplified version of Epicor 9, developed specifically for job shops and discrete manufacturers and delivered only using a SaaS model. But Epicor is quick to point out that SaaS is a delivery model, not a product. The product itself is Epicor 9, simplified. By “simplified” I mean that Epicor has hidden selected bits of functionality in order to remove some of the complexity inherent in a comprehensive enterprise-level ERP solution… hidden and not actually removed. Built-in best practices are also layered on top of the software and templates and even a chart of accounts can be delivered right out of the box. The target go-live date is 20-30 days after installation.

Epicor Express includes CRM, product management, production management, materials management, financial management and built in business intelligence. Data migration tools can be included in the Express Start package or not, including the ability to import data from QuickBooks. Customers also have the option of using Sage Peachtree for accounting and financials and Epicor Express for CRM and production management.

Because Epicor Express is derived from Epicor 9, as companies grow (needing more features and functions), there is a good chance the features are already included in Epicor 9. In some cases those hidden features can be turned back on, allowing the customer to remain in a SaaS environment. But generally speaking, if you outgrow the Express Edition, you will likely be moving to another edition of Epicor 9 (Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition) and an on-premise environment or a hosted environment. But this hosted environment can include managed services, allowing customers to continue to avoid investing in their own IT infrastructure and staff. It is an evolutionary (and not revolutionary) path.

While I was quite familiar with the strategy and Epicor’s roll-out, until today I had not seen a "public" demo of the product. There were a few thoughts that struck me as I watched.

1.       The person doing the demo was a “Territory Manager,” which I interpreted it to be a sales function. This tells me two things: the Epicor sales folks know a thing or two about the needs of their prospects and clients (the demo was real and credible and did not appear to be “canned”) and you don’t need to be a product specialist to use the system. No offense to sales, but they typically have much more of a business development orientation than a deep product orientation.

2.       The system is relatively easy to navigate, which lessens the need for training. There is just one potential downside to that. As solutions become easier to navigate, customers make the mistake of thinking they don’t need any training. My experience tells me that users of ERP solutions still need to be trained procedurally, as much from a business perspective as a system perspective. Without some level of training, business processes get mucked up and users never take full advantage of the solution.

3.       And finally, I thought, “My, how far things have come since my days of doing demos.”  In the mid-to-late 1980’s my best demos were the ones where my hands never touched the keyboard. Of course most of those demos were done in the ERP vendors’ offices or via a dial-up modem. But in those days, you really needed to memorize all the various codes (since there were few, if any lookups); you spent as much time navigating the hierarchical menu structure as you did demonstrating “real” work. You spent far more time putting data into the system than you did showing how to retrieve it. Because getting data out was pretty hard, and usually ugly. This demonstration featured a series of what Epicor called “minute of your day type features” and I would venture to say in the old days, those “minutes” would have been hours.

Part of Epicor’s “pitch” is the level of experience it brings to small manufacturers. Founded in 1984, Epicor’s been around since back when I was doing demos. Today they are a public company with about $440 million in annual revenue, 2700 employees and more than 20,000 customers. In defining the simplified version of Epicor 9 that forms the basis of Epicor Manufacturing Express Edition, of course the company will draw on the experience it has gained in dealing with small manufacturers, perhaps many of them still running older Epicor products such as Vista, which over time has merged with Vantage and then morphed into Epicor 9. The only question I have is, how many of those Vista customers are still operating back in the world I knew when I was doing demos? What will it take to get them to venture into the 21^st century? Perhaps Epicor Manufacturing Express Edition will lead them out of the darkness.