Infor – Now Led by Oracle Alumni

Posted by admin on January 4, 2011 under ERP Software | Be the First to Comment

We have been watching with interest the new executive management changes at Infor. As you may know, Charles Phillips (former Oracle President) has moved into the CEO position at Infor. Last month, he named three former Oracle employees to join him at Infor. So, is Infor going to be the next Oracle?

Like Oracle, Infor has acquired a LOT of software applications over the years. However, their strategy has been quite different. Oracle has tried to integrate their systems buying “best of breed” systems like Hyperion (Reporting/Budgeting),  Siebel (CRM), GLog (Supply Chain), etc., and integrating them to their ERP solutions. Their acquisition of competitive ERP products(Enterprise Business Suite (EBS), PeopleSoft (PS), and JD Edwards (JDE)) was more opportunistic to gain marketshare by buying up competitor’s customers. Even so, they have spent a lot of money doing a form of integration with their ERP systems  by developing the next generation Fusion ERP product that will most likely eventually replace EBS, PS, and JDE. (Please note that Fusion was built from the ground up and is not an upgrade of the other products).

On the other hand, Infor has taken the Sage model of acquiring lots of different products and selling them individually. Will they continue to maintain separate software lines, or will they try to consolidate their development on a few software solutions? My guess is that they will start to focus on their most successful solutions like Syteline and others that they can build on.

Other challenges the new executive team will face include:

1. Mid-Market Application Sales – The new executive team will need to understand the mid-market better than Oracle. Oracle is more focused on tier 1 companies, while Infor’s install base is overwhelmingly mid-market. There is a completely different sales cycle and methodology for selling software to these companies. 

2. Software Development – Whereas Microsoft (Windows and Office) and Oracle (Database) have cash cows that allow them to put a lot of money into the development of their ERP products, Infor is focused on applications and does not have the luxury of a separate cash cow. 

3. Software Product Strategy - They need to decide if they will focus their strategy on a few of their products and try to move customers over to those systems, or continue to develop all of their software as separate products. Which ones will get the most development dollars? 

Infor has some great software products that SoftResources recommends to customers where they fit. We will be interested to watch how Infor develops their product strategy with the new executive team.