RIS News Survey - Mobile WFM Comes of Age

If you’re using your Smartphone to handle more of your e-mails and other daily communications, welcome to a growing community. Mobile technology is becoming a driving force of change in managing today’s – and tomorrow’s – workforce.

A RIS News survey, Infor recently sponsored, illuminates just how dramatically mobile tech will revolutionize operations and processes affecting retail employees. Survey respondents say mobile devices will be used by key retail staff members and aimed at locations that will produce clearly measurable, hard-performance results.

For example, the survey found that 84 percent of store managers are expected to use mobile devices as a tool, along with 61 percent of sales-floor personnel and regional managers. The devices will be used for a myriad of workforce functions such as scheduling, training, communicating payroll exceptions like overtime, and even filling an open slot.

Elements of Task Management were determined to be the most strategic uses of mobile devices in workforce management, with two of the top three responses focused on task management related functions. Nearly two thirds of respondents see mobile devices serving to instantly connect a mobile Web portal for communications and information.

The survey found that store associates will use mobile devices to check the status of inventory (87%), to get product specs and data (74%) and to check other stores for merchandise (71%). All of which will ultimately help fuel store sales. A large number of respondents also see store associates using their mobile devices to schedule time off or a performance review, as well as to bid for shifts.

Retailers still voice uncertainties about the benefits of using mobile devices to manage the workforce. Obstacles cited include devices getting lost, stolen or broken (73%) and security concerns (67%). To a lesser extent, many think the benefits don’t justify the cost, the devices detract from other work and they aren’t a core necessity. Still, 43 percent of those surveyed believe workforce management benefits will emerge over time with 27 percent expecting hard, measurable benefits; 23 percent anticipating soft, hard-to-measure benefits; and only 6.7 percent not seeing real benefits emerging at all.

As the capabilities of mobile devices continue to improve and adoption rates increase, new usage patterns will emerge. What is clear is that retailers see the advantages of associates at every level returning to the shop floor and performing historically back-office functions whilst remaining visible and productive. It’s our charge to ensure applications are extensible to cover all these new WFM use cases.

Posted By Owen Brangwyn, WFM Product Manager

Infor and Microsoft at WPC10

Recently, Infor announced that we have selected Microsoft as our preferred technology and tools provider and Windows Azure as the preferred platform for our next generation of cloud-based applications, Infor24. The announcement wasn’t just a big deal for Infor and its customers. Recently, at the 2010 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft’s Bob Muglia shared this exciting news live in front of 14,000 WPC10 attendees at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. Then, Microsoft aired this video live on the big screen.

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Working in Unison: Infor’s Channel Partner Summit 2010

Today marks the start one of my favorite weeks of the year at Infor, our annual Channel Partner Summit. As I’ve said before, our channel partners are critical to the collaborative customer relationships that set Infor apart from other business software vendors. This opportunity to come together face-to-face is essential to fostering a strong channel program and bringing maximum value to our customers.

There has been a lot of attention paid to the success of our channel recruitment drive, but recruiting new partners takes a backseat to the investments that we make in our existing partners. The Channel Partner Summit enables us to build close personal ties with our partners while also providing the education and sales tools that arm them for success. The fact that we have record attendance at this year’s Summit is testament to the value this close relationship brings to our partners.

This has been an exciting year for Infor — the new products and developments we are offering make our partners a lethal force in the mid-market business application space:

• By integrating the rich functionality of Infor's applications with intuitive Microsoft technologies, we provide mid-size businesses with fast and affordable solutions that meet their functionality needs and are simple to use.
• Infor ION services enable companies of all sizes to benefit from the advanced application integration, business process management, and shared data reporting that had previously been available only to large enterprises.
• Infor24 provides customers the option to deploy some of our most popular and robust solutions in the cloud, providing an optimum mix of rich functionality and deployment flexibility.

The Channel Partner Summit gives our partners quality time to meet with Infor development executives to learn best practices to help customers get the most out of their software investment. In addition, our CMO and marketing executives present ways to help partners market their business and grow their customer base and bottom line.

If you are an Infor Channel Partner, I look forward to the opportunity to meet with you personally this week, and if you aren’t an Infor Channel Partner - what are you waiting for?

Posted By Dennis Michalis, Corporate Senior Vice President

Infor Channel Partners: Helping Sustain Relationships with 70,000+ Customers

As companies grow in size, they often lose the personal connection to customers that made them a success in the first place. Over the past several years, Infor has faced this situation as we grew from a relatively small company to the leading provider of business applications for growth-oriented companies.

Our success has come from the collaborative relationships that we foster with our customers. This has always been what differentiated Infor from our competitors, and it is not something we were willing to sacrifice as our company underwent exponential growth.

So how do we do it? How does the leading provider of business applications for the mid-market maintain hands-on relationships with our customer base when that base is more than 70,000 strong?

Our approach was to build a world-class channel partner program that would leverage partners with deep industry-specific experience and extensive knowledge of enterprise applications. We sought to recruit partners that would function as an extension of our direct sales team and professional services organization.

We take great pride in our partners that review and evaluate the specific needs of each perspective customer to recommend the right solutions to manage their operations now and into the future, just like our salesforce. These partners provide unrivaled ongoing support and professional services to be sure that customers are getting the most out of their software investment and achieving the lowest possible cost of ownership.

Attracting more of the right channel partners is critical to our strategy. We continue to undergo a recruitment drive, and have been achieving great success while focusing on quality over quantity. This is easier said than done, of course, but we are attracting the partners we want because of five main principles:

• Our strategy works, and this is why we have grown to become the leading provider of business software for the mid-market in less than 10 years.
• Our customers are happy, and they tell us this personally and by renewing their maintenance contracts at a leading level.
• Our organization listens and works in tandem with our Channel Advisory Council to develop programs that boost channel performance.
• Our partners are armed with the tools and support they need from Infor to succeed.
• Our software is innovative and is best equipped to solve the pain points that mid-market companies face.

Recently we issued a press release that quotes IDC Analyst Albert Pang on how our channel strategy and commitment to our partners is the right approach to driving innovation for our customers’ organizations. Our Chief Strategy Officer, Bruce Richardson, will hold a webinar on April 29th that delves further into the relationship between Infor and its partners. I encourage you to register to attend and offer us your feedback on our program and our strategy here.

Posted By Dennis Michalis, Corporate Senior Vice President

There's No Better Testament than Customer Feedback

The best source of information about the quality of your products and services is your customers, of course.  That’s why I’m so excited about the customer feedback we’re getting from the Infor Flex program.

It’s clear from conversations with our customers that Infor Flex is helping solve real-world business challenges. We are doing that two ways: 1) by giving the customers choice, and; 2) by providing solutions that enable change and growth. This is possible because the software is enabled with Infor’s unique Open SOA (Service Oriented Architecture). It is event-driven and lets users quickly take advantage of innovations.

Such flexibility is especially critical in today’s challenging business environment. That’s certainly the sentiment of Joseph Marcoz, IT director at Mitsubishi Electric Power Products Inc., a leading U.S. supplier of equipment, systems and services to utilities and industrial companies. Through Infor Flex, Mitsubishi Electric is upgrading the Infor ERP SyteLine software it has used since 1997 to version 8.0 from version 6.0 and implementing complementary products such as Infor EAM, Infor PM 10 and Infor Expense Management to extend its functionality.

“We are re-evaluating all of our business processes and streamlining them greatly. We’ll be able to take all the silos of information that exist outside of ERP SyteLine and centralize the data in one location,” Joe explained. “Additionally, Infor Open SOA will give us the opportunity to collect and analyze data outside the walls of traditional ERP systems, giving us the ability to make informed, real-time decisions.”

I was also pleased to hear they are very happy with the customer service they are receiving. Our industry-specific expertise is not accident. It is key in how we create customer-choice and help with execution. “We looked at other systems but ERP SyteLine is a good manufacturing tool that supports our operations very well,” Joe added. “I’m also happy with the support that Infor and its consultants give us. Most of them are from the industry and they’ve lived what we’re experiencing or they’ve worked with other customers who face the same challenges we do.”

We are very different from the Big ERP vendors in what we offer and how we treat our customers , and I think our customers value that. “We’re a mid-sized business and we like that ERP SyteLine isn’t a monster of a system that would get us bogged down in processes. It’s flexible so that we can adapt our processes and systems when necessary to meet any challenge,” he continued.

“Besides,” he said, “I know and have worked with the group of people at Infor that I need to talk with, whether it’s in software, services or consulting. They make things happen.”

Posted By Dennis Michalis, Corporate Senior Vice President

Protect Your Company with a Proactive Approach to Compliance

With so many business cases highlighting the consequences of not having proactive compliance plans, it’s easy to see why many companies are fearful of the topic. Whether it’s out-of-conformance operating procedures or non-compliance with new regulations, the impact can be extremely costly and can do long-term damage to the reputation and viability of an organization.

The most common questions on the subject of regulatory compliance and risk management are:

1) How well can an organization handle being under the government microscope?

2) Is the organization prepared from a business standpoint for a worst-case scenario?

To answer these questions, decision makers must have answers to some other difficult questions: Do we have procedures in place to ensure product compliance? How do we know we are within regulatory guidelines? What new legislation is coming that we need to plan ahead for?

When companies are proactive with risk management and compliance, they can enhance the corporate reputation and create a competitive advantage. One way successful companies have adopted a proactive stance on compliance is by establishing a senior level position responsible for developing and maintaining an enterprise-wide strategy to stay ahead of new requirements. Whether it is an executive vice president of compliance and risk, or a chief compliance officer, manufacturers must make someone accountable for driving the effort.

Manufacturers should expect their compliance chief to be a step ahead of regulators. This can be accomplished by actively managing compliance with the eventual goal of designing compliance into every initiative. Systems and operating procedures play a critical role in achieving this goal. Repeatable and auditable systems and processes improve a company’s ability to mitigate regulatory incidents. These systems and operating procedures allow a company to identify issues, assess the risk and resolve the problem quickly.

There was a recent manual-based compliance/document-based process failure at a major North American food plant. The company’s HACCP program, which was document-based with manual procedures, failed to detect frozen materials that were moved from cold storage to a cool storage area with a temperature above 40F for thawing. The materials were thawing in the cool storage for about 10 hours and at risk for bacteria growth. A quality issue, line down or change in demand caused this material not be used within four hours, but the document and manual process did not detect this HACCP failure. If the material had been used and were contaminated, the company could have had a significant crisis on hand – brand damage, declined consumer trust, reduced sales, and high recall-related costs.

Another way organizations can be proactive with compliance is to adopt software solutions like Infor’s to ensure that compliance and risk management factors are built into the design of products, the business processes, and each department’s business plan. From Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) to sourcing and Supply Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) provide continual feedback and integrated compliance processes to ensure that organizations do it right the first time and every time. With active compliance using these solutions, you get improved brand protection essentially for free. By minimizing costs and reducing risks, how can you afford to ignore the opportunity?

Posted By Rory Granros