I wrote last week that I was looking forward to getting an update on Infor’s verticals – hospitality, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, retail and others. At Inforum in Washington this week, I only got a detailed briefing about the Retail vertical.
So, in the couple of days I spent at Inforum this week I kept thinking this is just a financial and HR vendor which has contemporary technology. And at every corner, I would pick up a nuance.
Like Coleman, introduced last year as its digital assistant is now also an entry into RPA world.
Its CRM group does not get the visibility of Salesforce or Microsoft or ServiceNow but in a breakout I learned about their CPQ, next-best offer and other capabilities.
The Retail group opened my eyes to how Infor is learning to cross-sell across its many, often confusing, units. Over 50% of its GT Nexus network revenues now come from retailers. They also leverage Predictix, its demand forecasting engine. Similarly many leverage its horizontal financials and hcm capabilities. Pilot Flying J presented to analysts how it is using Infor products to run its chain of truck stops.
Koch Industries (an investor and customer) shared their asset management story. Infor has long had some large, complex customers for its EAM like JPL and CERN. Add Koch portfolio credentials and you are talking some heavy iron.
Talking of HCM, while Infor does not get as much attention in the HCM space behind the Big 3 cloud players – Workday, SAP SuccessFactors and Oracle, it has a sizable presence in its Lawson and other customer bases. And its Talent Sciences group allows Infor to hold its own against all the data science and machine learning that is increasingly reshaping the world of Talent analytics
While they may not have much to show in terms of what I call “books of record” like retail merchandising and hospitality reservations, Infor does have plenty of industry level features.
Ashley Hart, the new CMO shared with analysts the running start she has made – moving advertising dollars from hub to private airports, sponsoring key tennis and golf stars, improving digital presence and measurement and new commercials. I think it is smart that Infor is targeting the executive buyer.
I think as big a challenge for her will be to help customers and prospects navigate the Infor maze. I tried to find the TV commercial launched this week to share with a colleague. I Googled for it, I searched YouTube, I looked at several places on the Infor site. I finally asked their chat group and they could not find it online either. They told me they would try and email me a link. (update - Sharon Sulc of Infor provided me the video below)
I bent the ears of several Infor execs this week about developing more industry capabilities. Honestly, before they add even more capabilities, I think they would do better to organize and share what they already have.
I look forward to peeling this onion some more.
