Industry Strategy Brochure
Infor’s
Industry Strategy
What’s the challenge?
Every industry is unique
At Infor®, we understand that making tires is
different than processing milk. Processing milk
is different from manufacturing apparel, and
both are dramatically different from caring for
sick patients.
The results speak
for themselves
Infor currently serves:
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19 of the top 20 aerospace companies
Through our work with over 73,000 customers
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12 of the top 13 high tech companies
around the globe, we know first-hand that a
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10 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies
one-size-fits-all—or even a one-size-fits-most—
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84 of the top 100 automotive suppliers
approach doesn’t generate the competitive
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23 of the top 50 largest public US hospitals
differentiation that today’s dynamic marketplaces
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31 of the top 50 industrial distributors
demand. That’s why we have an unwavering
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26 of the top 35 global retailers
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5 of the top 9 brewers
commitment to delivering purpose-built
solutions with deep industry-specific capabilities
built in, not bolted on. Proven through decades
of practical application and continually enhanced
with the latest innovations, these solutions give
customers like you functionality designed to
meet your specific needs, without requiring
extensive customization and excessive costs.
Infor Industry Strategy Brochure
1
Why Infor? Our guiding principles
The goal of Infor’s industry strategy can be boiled down to focus, choice, and value. What makes the
approach practical and compelling is that it has been purpose-built to accommodate two inevitable
realities—heterogeneity and continuous change.
Each industry has unique business processes.
Consider smaller versus larger firms or
those that operate locally versus those that
operate globally. Meanwhile, every business is
challenged with managing diverse technology
platforms that need to work together to
support the whole business. Finally, strategic
imperatives one year often look completely
different the following, as companies face
ever-evolving macroeconomic forces and
internal business mandates.
Infor’s technology strategy and our delivery
The result is technology that can power your
business by providing:
1. Functional capabilities so dramatically better
and different that they can reinvent the way
businesses operate
2. New capabilities that can be added
more seamlessly and cost effectively than
ever before
3. The opportunity to be on a “forever modern”
path that results in systems that drive
your business forward, rather than limiting
your opportunities
approach have been carefully devised to
realize, accommodate, and capitalize on these
dynamics, allowing for the addition of focused
capabilities to existing systems or larger
platforms that underpin the entire operation.
This flexibility also extends to the ability to
deploy systems on-premise or in the cloud.
Infor Industry Strategy Brochure
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How do we deliver? Our four architectural tenets
Infor’s micro-vertical strategy is the culmination of years of ongoing investment in innovation, millions
of hours of development time, and deep industry knowledge that can only be acquired by walking far
more than a mile in a customer’s shoes. Our product architecture eschews the traditional monolithic
approach that attempts to meet the needs of all sectors with a single solution and instead is designed
to support purpose-built platforms. Developed for specific industries, these platforms deliver a flexible,
comprehensive menu of services that companies can select to suit the unique needs of their operation—
large or small, local or global. Infor’s strategy is grounded in the following four basic tenants:
1. Architecture of the Internet
Key to Infor’s industry strategy is our
approach to system integration, which
mirrors the architecture of the Internet.
Infor’s technology allows applications to be
loosely coupled together, rather than being
connected through complex integrations. The
result is ease of integration between systems
(both Infor and non-Infor), a high degree of
system availability, simplified upgrade paths,
and lower costs.
2. Specialized micro-vertical suites
Infor’s solutions go beyond top-level
industry functionality to deliver micro-vertical
specialization. Why? Because we know that
while poultry processors and candy makers
may both be food manufacturers, their needs
vary significantly. We go the extra mile so our
customers can do the same.
Infor Industry Strategy Brochure
3. Beautiful user experience
At Infor, we passionately believe that business
software users deserve the same quality of
experience that they’ve come to expect in
their personal lives. The next generation of
business users expects to work the way they
live, and companies have an opportunity—
even a strategic imperative—to modernize
systems in ways that make workers more
productive, happy, and successful. Infor
makes this possible by delivering applications
that are beautiful, easy-to-use, and designed
to not just enable, but also to inspire a
modern workforce.
4. Cloud
Infor’s continued development
of industry-specific solutions suites deployed
in the cloud is designed to make the benefits
of cloud easily accessible for companies with
specialized needs. By eliminating the need
for customizations and dramatically simplifying
IT landscapes, we let our customers focus on
their businesses, not their technology.
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Infor offers purpose-built suites that span 12 focus industries
Our approach offers deep micro-vertical functionality tailored for your business processes,
eliminating the need for costly customizations.
Aerospace &
Defense
Food &
Beverage
Automotive
Healthcare
Chemicals
High Tech
Distribution
Hospitality
Equipment
Industrial
Manufacturing
Fashion
Public Sector
250 million+
lives are touched daily by
Infor healthcare solutions.
Infor Industry Strategy Brochure
6 million
tons of chocolate are
produced annually using
Infor food &
beverage solutions.
Infor’s microvertical strategy
results in solutions that offer:
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Deep industry-specific
functionality
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High adaptability
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Dramatic reductions in the
need for modifications
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Simplified support
and maintenance
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Value and sustainability
4 billion
passengers are moved each
year on planes built using
Infor aerospace &
defense solutions.
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What do you get? Infor’s delivery approach
Infor’s purpose-built solutions are designed to address the unique needs of a focused set of industries out of
the box, thus dramatically reducing or even eliminating the need for modifications. Combined with the option
for cloud delivery, these solutions offer accelerated implementation, lower total cost of ownership, simplified
maintenance and support, automatic upgrades, and a high degree of flexibility. The result? You can focus on
your business, not on your technology. No more specialized IT skill sets, no more disruptive upgrades, and
no more hardware graveyards in back offices. Infor accomplishes this by:
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Building holistic platforms for each target
industry, by making what were once
standalone applications into a collection
of robust services that together power
the entire business—from executives, HR,
finance and sales to marketing, product
development, and customer service. These
applications have been proven through
decades of use in our focus industries and
continually enhanced with both industry best
practices and innovative new technologies.
Our industry suites bring these capabilities
together to create a powerful whole.
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Fully integrating each industry platform
through the use of Infor ION®, Infor’s
innovative integration technology. Modeled
on the architecture of the Internet, Infor
ION loosely couples applications together
to simplify integration between systems
(both Infor and non-Infor) and deliver a high
degree of reliability.
Infor Industry Strategy Brochure
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Creating pre-packaged content that’s
used to accelerate implementation, simplify
adoption of best practices, and get users
up to speed quickly. These Implementation
Accelerators deliver robust content
packages and tooling that include easily
configurable dashboards, menus, templates,
training, and much more, all customized
by industry. In addition, all Infor suites
feature industry-specific analytic packs
preconfigured with a targeted data model,
standard reports, and dashboards designed
to support key roles and best practice
business processes.
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Providing a unified user experience across
all applications. Each industry suite features
Infor’s consumer-inspired user interface
throughout, with role-based dashboards
that connect the suite and enterprise
collaboration powered by Infor Ming.le™,
Infor ION, and Infor Analytics.
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What is the result? Your business impact
Infor’s industry suites are all cloud-enabled, so you can take full advantage of the benefits that cloud deployment
can deliver, including:
1. Global, secure cloud services using
Amazon® Web Services—Infor partners
with Amazon to deliver highly secure cloud
service at a lower cost, on a global scale.
2. Flexibility—You can deploy in the cloud,
but still integrate to applications on-premise
using Infor ION, our next generation
middleware platform. Plus, you can expand
and contract capacity as needed, paying
only for what you use.
3. Guaranteed levels of server availability and
system up-time—You get bandwidth and
service that are both difficult and costly
to replicate with internal resources.
Infor’s industry business platforms deliver
beautiful solutions with last mile functionality,
delivered on-premise or through Infor
CloudSuite™. You get a partner that
understands your business and solutions
purpose-built for your needs, avoiding the
excessive costs and complexity that have
traditionally accompanied comparable
offerings. The result is technology that
powers businesses and provides a
sustainable platform for growth.
4. Less burden on IT—Cloud hosting means
that Infor takes care of hardware, licenses,
and upgrades. We keep your systems up-todate, so you can more easily take advantage
of innovative new technologies.
5. Lower costs—With subscription-based cloud
applications, you can structure technology
investments as operating expenses, rather
than capital costs.
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