Is Infor going to the Mattresses?

HYDERABAD, INDIA: Imagine a boat. Some monks. Some tigers. And an island. Now try some permutation jugglery and see if you can devise a way to ship everyone away from the island to a safe shore but without letting the animals outnumber the humans, lest they kill them on the way. For anyone who has struggled with reasoning exams or sauntered through video games; the puzzle must have sounded like a déjà vu.

Now think of the boat as an Enterprise suite. The monks are those wistfully-hungered-for features and benefits that many customers still only dream of; thanks of course, to the tigers of expensive support, inevitable license fees or proprietary traps around. The puzzle keeps getting murkier every time the boat floats back for ERP vendors. It may seem like a cake walk to solve this mathematics when it's just a game. But when there is economics and Chemistry (organic as well as inorganic) whipped in together, and when someone would like to ‘have the cake and eat it too', it's a rope-walk.

So for decades the big champs have tried to balance the yin with the yang in their own footwork. One tried to pull the weight of the boat with a big overwhelming yacht to tow the packages. The other one tried to try some combinations with earnest. Good thing, it was not shy to make mistakes, drop the tigers out for a while and re-try. At some points it has in fact attempted to make the monks and tigers take turns and swim along.

Sometimes a monk became dinner, sometimes a boat came dangerously close to capsizing with too many people aboard and sometimes the tigers just salivated in vain.

Then a figure approached from across the horizon and soon changed from a vague silhouette to another tough contender in the game. Someone who makes us wonder what if there was a need to create a punch line as witty as ‘we are second but we try harder' for a no.3 in any market? Wouldn't that third player have wisecracked it with a ‘Let them both fight and exhaust themselves first'?

All we are trying to say is that even if it's not a cinch to beat players with big pockets, heavy baskets and long lineage; sometimes all that a market needs is someone who can question the game and change it rebelliously.

That's a clincher and this third boy is serving an iconoclastic opera of sorts with funny-at-the-surface questions: why can't tigers be trained as done in a circus; why can't a monk be given a gun; who says the boat cannot have an extra roof or a bridge to take and pass help to other boats; or does it matter if there is a deer or some beer to distract the beings on board or why can't the boat be repainted or revamped with new furniture?

If it sounds Afflatus, someone out there is already honing in on such unthought-of question marks and doing that with the right mix of imagination and appetite.

It's not only because hearing of Baan, Lawson software, Orbis, Epiphany etc in the same breath as Infor, stirs up the waters here. It's more because, in stark contrast to how ERPs are made, sold and consumed; this company is tossing around words like copywriters, chief creative officer, user-driven design, stylish-sleek-simple suites, a well-chiseled packet for every vertical and a lot more. That too in a matter-of-fact nonchalance to how the biggies have reigned the market.

We are talking about the 3rd largest enterprise applications and Services Company, with 70,000 customers in 194 countries and over $3 billion in revenue globally. Infor has surely made itself a force to reckon with in a market usually imperialized by one or two players. It is also a vendor that puts beauty as a competence - via in-house design agency Hook & Loop on the plate apart from the usual ingredients customers are accustomed with. Its revenues have seen double digit growth in India over the previous three years. Globally Infor hired around 800 engineers in the last year (including many in India spread across development centres in Hyderabad, Pune, Bangalore). Talking of that, in 2012 Infor delivered more than 100 new products, including a number of Infor10 Industry Suites; applications specialized by industry featuring Infor10 ION technology, which uses open standards to integrate Infor and non-Infor applications.

For 2013, Infor has chalked out nearly 300 new products, including Infor 10x and Infor Ming.le, which is an increase of more than 150 per cent over the previous year, as shared by the company.

To top that, Infor also apparently 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, the company's lightweight middleware platform, than in the previous year.

Getting a chance to chat with Charles Phillip, CEO, Infor is a great opportunity to crawl up and sit for a bit on the top of the tree where he is often wedged sharply to scan the island and the game from a new angle.

Interestingly enough, before branching out to this height, Phillips was President of Oracle Corporation and a member of its Board of Directors. Not just that, before an 18-year career on Wall Street, Phillips was a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps in the 2nd Battalion, 10th Marines artillery unit.

In fact, recently in 2012, Phillips was the guest speaker at the Marine Corps' 237th birthday ball for his old unit, after their return from Afghanistan.

So what are we waiting for? Let's open fire.

Hi Charles, how was India this time and what can we interpret this visit spilling into next for the region?

I was here for an all-hands meeting at our Centre in Hyderabad and am happy with the action here. So far 18 per cent of global implementation work is happening here and it can go up to 25 per cent very soon. India is a growing opportunity and we have also translated a set of products in Hindi. We have a team that tends to India side of localization.

While we are on that subject, how easy has it been to give innovation a new twist with Hook & Loop, SoHo etc and taking UI to a new level? Who thinks of a Chief Creative Officer in this industry!

That is a very important and exciting part of our strategy and let me tell you that we are getting tremendous response from our customers. I find it surprising the other way and had my own exclamation marks when I used to see that many business applications are not really usable, and some are even downright hideous on that front. More so, as a new segment of our customers is from a different generation that has been weaned on the likes of Apple etc. Typical ERP vendors are ignoring that truth. I wanted to approach it with a new energy. A lot of our development work in Hyderabad and also components like Ming.le echo that obsession with UI and design. Infor is committed to make enterprise software beautiful and inject a social platform in the mix.

Let's switch to the other extreme. What about the inorganic weight of your portfolio? So many companies actually struggle to stop it from being a baggage or a recyclable junk. How do you address the perception that probably your acquisition spree has been too fast, with too many consolidations and too little integration? Also, what else is on your radar from here on?

If we see something great, yes, we will be opportunistic. We are open to new segments that fit well. Some part of it is unique to our installed base. We also co-exist with some other vendors. Most of our strategy is internally driven R&D as much as we are perceived to be keen on consolidation. Coming to integration parts, we do not want to break and add something. Sometimes the complexity of the product can be overwhelming. We do not want to ruin the components in the hurry to blend everything in. ION is a great piece in our approach. Everyone in this space has made acquisitions. I can say that now that integration issue is behind us and we are doing it better than our rivals. We do not fragment things in the process.

Handshakes happening with companies like Salesforce.com are quite intriguing. Oracle has done that too. Can you help us see Inforce.com from your angle here?

We are getting a lot of co-operation from Salesforce.com and in fact we were the first ones to announce such handshakes. We are excited about that. As to how other vendors are approaching such moves, a lot depends on execution and actual execution can be suspect here. Announcement is one thing but we know how to translate promise into on-ground impact, which others might not.

So how do you intend to stand out in a market that has been plagued with the tough balancing act between earning-from-license-and-support and delivering great value and functionality to customers? What's Flex Upgrade or UpgradeX's role here?

Our differentiation is simple - no generic product for all industries. You cannot optimize with deep functionality on a standard product. Let's face it - automotives and milking chains are two different businesses. We have to think of purpose-built products here and with no last-mile feature additions. There have to be more details and a nuanced approach. We are the only ones right now doing that. Also, we give customers a clear path with upgrades and when customers want to take advantage for next level transition to Cloud etc, we can do that for them and make it integrate seamlessly.

Can you elaborate on your micro-vertical focus?

Well, Infor recognizes the potential and scope for enterprise applications in growing markets, especially with its micro-vertical focused approach to provide solutions that are purpose-built to fit the demanding requirements of different sectors. The biggest growth last year (in descending order) amongst Infor's key industries was in Industrial Manufacturing & Equipment, Automotive, Fashion, High Tech, Hospitality and Food & Beverage. Today Enterprise software is at the forefront of not only driving growth and but also playing a critical role in converging an organizations business strategy and technology adaption. While the business scenario has been changing constantly, the enterprise software has changed very little in terms of being produced once and sold to all industries. So, with this micro-vertical approach, we develop industry-specific applications and suites, engineered for speed, and with an innovative user experience design that is simple, transparent, and elegant. Additionally, we provide flexible deployment options that give customers a choice to run their businesses in the cloud, on-premises, or both.

A new spot that the industry is suddenly facing more than often is that of lawsuits, that too between customers and vendors. From what happened with California Payroll project and SAP, US Airforce and Oracle or Buckley Powder and Infor, what should we be reading in here? Also, any remarks on license audits and customers' posture there?

There have always these issues but we are witnessing some talk and media buzz around them now. In Infor's instance, wherever such isolated cases have happened we have tried to be involved to be at every key step. Misunderstandings do happen. Usually, it's an issue of communication gaps etc. As to audits, we try to make these conversations the right way. It's about business and better asset management when a customer makes any IT decision. They have to look into the matter from a win-win lens. We are trying to do that and customers should look the same way too.

A quick parting question: Do you see room for third-party support guys in this space?

They exist but they have been and will be small since they lack the strength of source code. That puts some question marks when someone is thinking of detailed product support. I would surmise that Cloud can come up with some interesting answers for customers thinking of support avenues.

A word for our readers?

Simple and short - the greatest adoption of technology is happening NOW. You cannot wait for three to four years on this. Applications should evolve with business and deliver when it matters.