Cloud erp a_sleeping_giant_awakes

Cloud ERP a sleeping giant awakes?
Your expert guide to Subtitle

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Users should stay grounded
while ERP suppliers take to
the cloud
SAP aims to clarify S/4
Hana, cloud apps roadmaps
for customers
Oracle executives claim
more comprehensive reach
for cloud business
SAP connects S/4 Hana in
ERP
Oracle trumpets cloud
applications progress at
start of 2017
Natural Resources Wales
adopts Unit4 ERP in digital
transformation drive
Inforum 2016: Travis Perkins
commits to Infor for cloud
transformation
IFS 16: CEO Sorbie vaunts
digital transformation,
capped with IoT play
In this e-guide:
Business applications software suppliers have, in recent
years, been on a route march to the cloud. To what extent
this has been driven by customer demand, and to what extent
by investor demand is an open question.
A whole host of cloud-born applications vendors such as
Salesforce, Workday, Netsuite (part of Oracle since 2016),
and SuccessFactors (part of SAP since 2011) has arisen to
challenge long-established firms, like SAP and Oracle.
However, the pure-play cloud vendors have mostly
specialised in specific functional areas, like HR, sales
automation, and CRM as opposed to the core business of
mission as efficiently as possible (ERP, to use the well-worn
acronym).
For a long time now, (on-premises) ERP has been an
important but sleepy aspect of enterprise IT. But is the time
for cloud ERP now? Oracle, SAP, and smaller, more niche

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players, like Infor and Unit4
is that in the interests of their large corporate customers, who
have invested masses of capital in enterprise software since
the 1990s? Perhaps it is more in the interest of SMEs, who
can now, the argument runs, avail themselves of enterprise-
grade IT, in ways hitherto impossible? Or is cloud ERP for all
data-driven companies and organisations, who can now
benefit from super-computer capacity, which can only be
delivered over the cloud, not on-premise?
The lead article in this e-guide explores these issues. The
others convey the theory and practice of cloud ERP, on both
sides of the market, today.
Brian McKenna, business application editor

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Lindsay Clark, guest contributor
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) suppliers are in a difficult position. They
have two masters to please their customers and their investors and the
tension between these parties goes some way to explain their approach to
cloud computing in recent years.
Suppliers of ERP software have heavily promoted the benefits of moving to
the cloud with more standardised systems, while their customers, by and
large, live with complex software portfolios, often customised to perform
specific business processes.
While there are advantages customers can gain from the cloud computing
model, suppliers are keen on the model because it benefits them too, says
Christian Hestermann, Gartner research director.
Suppliers no longer have to support multiple versions of the software. It is
easier to support and that lowers costs. Do they give that as cost benefit
back to the users? No, • he says.

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Moreover, the subscription model can favour suppliers when compared with
client access licences used to buy on-premise software. This means the
revenue and the margin is higher for the supplier, so the bottom line is higher
when you charge for cloud software on subscription than software on-
premise, • says Hestermann.
Together, these are some of the reasons the investment community is so
interested in suppliers adopting the cloud model. •
Across the gamut of ERP technologies, some have been more inclined to
move to the cloud than others. Human resources (HR), finance and
procurement systems are among those that are being deployed in the cloud
more quickly than operational ERP, which manages day-to-day resources,
says Hestermann.
With administrative ERP, there is often no differentiation: they are highly
standardised and you cannot do anything special. However, companies
differentiate with the processes managed by operational ERP, • he says.
This is the way they move things around and produce things in the
manufacturing environment. That is where the value lies.
Hestermann says an existing application, which has been customised to
manage these business processes, can be lifted to the cloud as it is and that

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offers some technical and support advantages. It is largely an IT decision, he
adds.
ERP in the cloud
However, some businesses are using the move to the cloud to completely
remodel their ERP processes and data. For example, UK brewer and pub
company Fuller s has opted to adopt a suit of Infor s applications in the
cloud to standardise processes and improve data quality [see case study
below].
Software suppliers argue the move to more modern, standardised
applications, which are able to exploit the latest technologies more rapidly,
present the most compelling reason to move ERP to the cloud.
Darren Roos, president for SAP s S/4Hana Cloud systems, says this move is
necessary because of the challenges businesses face, especially in
digitising new interactions with customers and suppliers.
Many customers are finding that the ERP they rolled out 10 years ago is no
longer fit for purpose. Business models are changing, but the ERP systems
were highly customised and therefore inflexible to adapt to change in the
market, he says.
We find that our customers have quirky processes that have built up over
time, not because they are best practice or the right way of doing things, but

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because they have been forced down that path through circumstances, he
says.
However, adopting new ERP systems in the cloud forces a certain amount of
standardisation, he says.
According to Roos, any business choosing this option is not limited to one
way of working as systems can be customised, but it still means the
business can upgrade much more frequently than most on-premise
applications.
He says businesses typically adopt cloud ERP by necessity such as when
they need a rapid roll-out to a particular geography or subsidiary and the
remainder of the business then takes up the advantages of rapid
implementation and upgrades.
Meanwhile, cloud computing offers more rapid adoption of the latest
technology, such as in-memory databases, advance analytics and artificial
intelligence, which offer business advantages as they adopt new business
models and compete in digitised markets, he says.
Adapting business to the cloud
However, Gartner s Hestermann says moving to a more modern, and
perhaps more standardised, application and adopting the latest technology

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need not go hand-in-hand with cloud computing. Instead, they are two
separate issues.
Moving to a modern business application could be cloud-based, but it does
not have to be, • he says.
While suppliers argue the cloud model offers more rapid upgrade cycles,
businesses could do the same on-premise, he says.
If you have the same discipline to business apps as they have in the cloud,
your upgrades would be just as easy. Most IT organisations got used to
customising their ERP because they could and the users wanted the
functionality. Then they find, five years later, it is difficult to upgrade, he
adds.
While many suppliers say upgrading to the cloud requires users to comply
with albeit configurable standard processes, customisation is possible in
the cloud if businesses make use of platform as a service (PaaS),
Hestermann says.
However, if a business is moving to modernise its ERP application, and take
advantage of technical advances such as in-memory computing, there may
be some advantages to hosting the application in the cloud to avoid the IT
department learning a raft of new technical skills.

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Whether or not a business chooses to move to the cloud for its application
upgrade, the major challenge will remain in adapting business processes to
fit the new application, says Hestermann.
The focus has to be on business side, not the technical side. The technical
side is minimal compared with change management, training users and
political discussions over how to standardise processes, • he says.
According to him, the cloud may come into play in a different way: as a tool
to persuade users that they need to adopt more standardised processes
across the business wherever possible.
Although ERP suppliers heavily promote the cloud model, users should
understand the arguments are not as clear cut as they sometimes make out.
In determining the real benefits to ERP in the cloud, users need to keep their
feet on the ground.
Case study: Fuller s Brewery moves business application to the cloud
with Infor
Fuller s, an independent British brewer with a portfolio of almost 400 pubs,
was founded in 1845. Although its main enterprise applications do not date
back quite that far, they were in need of modernisation, says Bronwen
White, head of IT development for Fuller s.

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We were using a mix from different suppliers, some best-of-breed. The
main ERP system was installed in 1992 and, although it has been upgraded
several times, it is fundamentally the same, • she says.
The ERP system did the basic core financial functionality but it did not have
manufacturing capability, so we interfaced a lot of other systems to it,
creating a complex environment. It did not have the functionality that s right
for a modern business. •
To update this application, the company looked to the cloud. As part of a 15-
year deal, Fuller s will implement Infor CloudSuite Food & Beverage
alongside Infor Enterprise Asset Management, Infor Contract Lifecycle
Management, Infor Customer Relationship Management and Infor Dynamic
Enterprise Performance Management (d/EPM).
The cloud applications will be deployed by Amazon Web Services (AWS)
across Fuller s Beer Company and Fuller s Inns, which has an estate of 195
tenanted pubs and 197 managed pubs and hotels.
White says the application will cover much wider functionality than the
previous ERP system, helping to overcome some of the pain of integrating a
number of different applications. It will also give the business a single
version of the truth .

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Business decision making was slower than it ought to be. People were
spending time making sure they had the right information, • she says.
However, White says the business was not necessarily looking for a cloud
system: We did not specify on-premise or cloud in our request for
information, we simply asked each supplier to tell us what it would look like
and the price. •
She says Fuller s chose Infor because it was impressed with its industry-
specific food and beverage system. It was Infor that suggested that the
fastest and most effective way to introduce the system would be by hosting
it in the cloud.
But in doing so, the business would need to change its processes and adopt
a more standardised approach. Part of the advantage of using the cloud
model was that it would allow the business to focus on the importance of
data and process change, rather than technical issues, says White.
We recognised that the success of the project is dependent on getting
people to change what they do. That is a big deal and we recognise that. We
have built the involvement of many people into the selection of the product,
asking them to help with requirements. They already feel involved, she says.

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In addition, the company has dedicated specific resources to change
management, including internal secondment to the project from business
teams.
White says the company is quite risk-averse, and was initially wary of moving
such a vital application to the cloud. We are very aware of risk and we re
working with Infor to learn about how they mitigate those risks, • she says.
The project is due to start and the application is expected to go live in 13 to
14 months. Aside from offering a more modern application with better data
quality, the business expects the project to improve warehouse efficiency,
stock level management and procurement.
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Brian McKenna, business applications editor
SAP s board has taken steps to clear up commonly expressed customer
confusion in respect to its technology roadmaps, particularly in regards to
S/4 Hana and the supplier s cloud applications.
The supplier plans to launch a new tool, Transformation Navigator, intended
to guide customers as they make technology choices to effect their digital
transformation strategies. Customers have told SAP they want guidance and
not a plethora of choices, said Peter Maier, the executive charged with
executing this board initiative, and the supplier s general manager for energy
and natural resources industries.
SAP has, in recent years, confronted customers with two big novelties: cloud
applications, which include acquired properties, and its in-memory,
columnar, high-speed database Hana, on which it has been building its full
software suite for planning enterprise resources, S/4, and with which it
wants to displace the Oracle database technology that has underpinned
SAP applications for many years.

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The outgoing chair of the UK and Ireland SAP User Group, Phil Adams spoke
to Computer Weekly during the user group s conference in November 2016.
H
s products and services
roadmaps.
Indeed, 12% of members of the user group surveyed ahead of the
conference had never heard of S/4 Hana.
Adams described the bedding in of acquired cloud propetrties Ariba,
know you just can t do [the integration] overnight, but it is clearly not all
• he said. I want to clearly see it on the roadmap. If they give us an
idea of when it is going to be, we can avoid the disruption of trying to make it
work ahead of its •
SAP has a case where an early adopter organisation with a deep skill set in
Oracle [databases], say, has made the move, then let s hear about it.
The view among our members is mixed. Some are cautious and don t like
being told what to do. But if there is a clear advantage and the cost is right,
then why not? We like the Fiori apps and we know you don t get the full
advantage of those unless you run Hana. The clue [for the new ERP] is in the
name: it s not called S/4 Hana for nothing. But we have until 2025 to get

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used to the idea, and maybe the adoption will get driven up as current
•
2025 is when maintenance support for the older ERP system ECC6 is due
to be turned off.
Guidance over choices
SAP • was the strong
message that came back from the company s recent, deliberate attempts to
be •, as Bill McDermott, CEO, signalled at
Sapphire 2016.
SAP Digital Transformation Navigator is a tool that, said Maier, customers
will be able to use to interrogate the supplier s roadmaps
ll go big on this at this year s
•, he said. The roadmaps themselves are three years in
scope for on-premise and quarterly for cloud applications.
mers, who need broader roadmaps for the
cloud and on-premise, and we have changed how we communicate the
vision for moving to an S/4-centric application landscape. And this is for all
lines of business in all 25 industries.
is the cost? How does it integrate? How do I get there? What is the cost of

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migration?
fewer choices •
with S/4] and go to the
edge [to applications such as HR system SuccessFactors •
just adds to the confusion. The roadmaps will cover everything, end to •
Full-scope implementation
At the time of SAP s Q3 2016 results in October, Rob Enslin, president of
global customer operations, said there were 350 live S/4 Hana customers
worldwide, with 1,400 projects in play, and 4,100 customers signed up.
n you look at the live customers in S/4, it is particularly pleasing that,
out of the customers that are doing projects right now, more than 50% of
them are full scope. In other words, with the 1511 release of manufacturing
and the full ERP scope, most of these customers are now actually
•.
But how many of those S/4 customers are on the cloud, supposedly the big
picture future of enterprise IT?
At the time, an SAP spokesperson confirmed to Computer Weekly that the
-premise customers are
implementing full scope as opposed to finance only. We see a significant
•

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SAP s full year 2016 results were disclosed last week. They showed 2016
cloud revenues of 2.99bn, 14% of its overall revenue of $22.06bn, which
represents 3% more cloud revenue, as an overall proportion, than in 2015.
During the analyst earnings call, transcribed by website SeekingAlpha, SAP
senior leaders were keen to address the theme of S/4 Hana s public cloud
deployment.
-tenant cloud, we will feature this business
prominently at our investor day on 9 Fe • said Enslin.
leader named Darren Roos, who is running this for us on an end-to-end
basis: think of it as a division going to market with S/4 Hana public cloud
multitenant.
re going to find with those customers that have signed up for S/4
public cloud is that they are really cool; they do some innovative things and
we •
•, with projects around the 2,500 mark.
-of-
business solutions, we now see it •
said Bernd Leukert, director for products and innovation at SAP.

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you compare the modern S/4 public cloud solution with NetSuite, I
think many people forget that NetSuite is on the market for more than a
decade. The response time with our leading platform of Hana outpaces
•
It would seem that SAP is, at the start of 2017, stepping up its response to
customer confusion about what is becoming available and when, on Hana
and in the cloud, and to financial analyst pressure on broadening and
speeding up its cloud applications offer.
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Oracle s declaration of a march to the cloud will have escaped nobody in the
IT market. The supplier started 2017 at a cloud event in New York, with
reports of a new wave of customer take-up of its cloud offerings, and the
announcement of some new datacentres to support its cloud push.
•, Oracle executives briefed Computer Weekly on how they
believe the company s cloud business is shaping up. They presented a
picture of the supplier s cloud delivery becoming at once more
comprehensive, with corporate IT being re-enlisted as a stakeholder
alongside lines of business, and more inclusive of small to medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs).
Laura Ipsen, general manager and senior vice-president of Oracle Marketing
Cloud, has a CV that includes senior executive roles at Microsoft, in its
worldwide public sector organisation. She has also worked for Cisco, as
general manager of its Connected Energy Networks business, as well as at
Oracle.

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She is six months into her current position, leading the supplier s marketing
cloud business, which includes marketing automation system Eloqua, and is
mainly pitched at chief marketing officers. However, she said corporate IT is
coming into the picture more now that cloud-delivered marketing software is
maturing beyond the putting in point systems at a departmental level.
ile the latter
expectation of RoI [return on investment] is very high, and marketers have
• said
Ipsen.
rk hand in hand with IT. There was a time, about three
ll go mine . But
data privacy, scalability, difficulties in implementation, integrations, and so on
mean that is not realistic. We find that the companies that are furthest along
do have that partnership.
-risking the projects. But it is not just about security and
privacy, it s about business context and value, and the CIOs are aware of
• she said.
Ipsen gave the example of Vodafone s implementation of Eloqua in 20

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implementer of Marketing Cloud, doing the whole stack and connecting to
•
Ipsen s colleague Steve Daheb, senior vice-president of Oracle Cloud,
platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) business
enterprise, cloud is a great equaliser, and so we ve got the Exadata Express
database service, targeted for SMEs, as an •.
s important to understand the complexity of it all at an application level
• he said. These things are what CIOs are grappling
with as they move to cloud. It s not just a case of let s turn on some
compute and we re done .
three levels: SaaS [software as a service], PaaS or IaaS. The hybrid [cloud
and on- •
The acquisition of SME-focused cloud applications business NetSuite,
completed in November 2016, will speed up the expansion of Oracle s cloud
business among SMEs.

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with 1,000 employees and
above, whereas theirs have been for 1,000 and below. So that is
• said Daheb.
like we have come home. Larry [Ellison] was instrumental in saying NetSuite
had to be online to have a web shop, as well providing funding [of $125m
when the company was formed in 1998]. There was always a strong link, and
•
NetSuite will add cloud knowledge and experience to Oracle as well as
ve come the other way.
We built a system expressly for SMEs. We are absolutely embedded in the
mid- •
Meanwhile, the acquired business will benefit from Oracle s infrastructure of
19 datacentres, 14 more than NetSuite had. The new Oracle business unit
will also look to benefit from the parent company s more sophisticated
ve done payroll and core HR,
• said Turner. Many SMEs don t need
•
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SAP is stepping up the public cloud delivery of its enterprise resource
planning (ERP) system S/4 Hana and, in what it says is a related move,
adding artificial intelligence (AI) to S/4.
The company made the announcements at the New York Stock Exchange
at a Capital Markets Day event for financial analysts.
In a briefing in advance of the cloud and AI announcements, Sven Denecken,
senior vice-president, product management, co-innovation and packaging,
t favour one over the other. Just to water
down an existing ERP to the cloud does not make a difference. That is why
this next-generation intelligent ERP that we are alluding to is important. I
think the fact that the market is ready to consume an ERP in the public cloud
means the two have to come together and come together with business
•
tal assistant
capabilities, machine learning and Fiori • in the cloud version

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processes and models and act on real- •.
Competitors, such as Oracle and Salesforce, have also trumpeted the
putative infusion of their business applications with AI and machine learning
in recent months, Oracle with its Adaptive Intelligent Applications, and
Salesforce with its Einstein software platform.
invented and became the leader in first-generation ERP. Later, we were
early to build first-generation cloud ERP along with other new cloud
•
•
for project management, a finance cloud that, the supplier says, includes
management •, for what it calls comprehensive real-time business
management •.
Bob Barton, chief financial officer, MOD Pizza, a US- -on-
• pizza restaurant chain that has been using S/4 on the cloud, said:
The company prides itself on its commitment to employees and customers,
and SAP S/4 Hana cloud gives us a stable, scalable platform to help us
manage our business and our people cohesively, with real-time access to
•

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In the UK, management consultancy the Birchman Group also went live with
S/4 this year, and is implementing it among its customers, an SAP
spokesperson confirmed.
SAP also outlined the road map for S/4 at the event. The company plans
•.
The supplier also said it plans to include blockchain digital ledger and
internet of things capabilities.
Denecken, in the pre-
milestone. We are moving to a full SaaS [software as a service] model and at
• He said the S/4 Hana ERP has been rolled out in weeks rather than
months in the public cloud mode among early customers.
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During Oracle CloudWorld, hosted in New York, Oracle reported that
applications and database technology.
The supplier did not release an exact number for new cloud customers in its
second quarter, however it did report a customer roster that includes Pepsi
Bottling, Pernod Ricard, RadioShack and bicycle company Trek.
The supplier also announced its setting up of new datacentres to boost its
cloud capability. These will be in London, Turkey and Reston, Virginia, in the
US, and they are expected to come online by mid-2017, it said.
dest and most integrated public cloud, including SaaS
[software as a service], PaaS [platform as a service] and IaaS [infrastructure
as a service]. In the past two years alone, Oracle has delivered more than 50

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At the supp
October 2016, Oracle chairman and CTO Larry Ellison staked a claim for
IaaS business in enterprise IT, as well as SaaS and PaaS. The supplier has
been on a march to the cloud in the past several years.
Walker, executive vice-president of HR at G&J Pepsi-
one of the largest family-owned and operated Pepsi franchise bottlers,
employing more than 1,650 people at multiple locations across different
production facilities, we needed a better way to drive efficiencies and
engage with employees.
Oracle HCM Cloud did just that improving our HR management efficiency
by boosting recruiting and onboarding effectiveness so we could identify top
talent faster and more cost efficiently, leveraging social media to increase
candidate pools from 20 to up t
David Rawls, vice-
deploying our Oracle Retail Merchandising System on Oracle Cloud IaaS
and PaaS, we are able to reduce our physical server footprint and get faster
access to new releases.
compute power at the click of a button, which is especially important during

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Girish Washikar, global ERP technical manager at Trek Bicycle Corporation,
Oracle SOA Cloud and Oracle Developer Cloud Services, as
markets by providing increased stability, efficiency and availability of our
mission critical SOA infrastructure.
enable our dealers to provide better customer experiences by delivering
informat
Oracle said customers can now run database workloads on a broader array
availability of the Oracle Database Cloud Service on bare metal compute,
and new virtual machine (VM) compute, load balancing and storage
Oracle Cloud Platform provide a clear path
to develop, test and scale applications with the Oracle Database or third-
Oracle.
Michael Ottoman, president and COO at mFrontiers, an Oracle partner and
service for enterprise customers. We find the Oracle Cloud Platform to be
easy to use and truly elastic for provisioning and scaling out to additional
customers.

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pecially impressed by the ability to scale Oracle Database
performance up or down on Oracle IaaS without interruption a key
Oracle said it has doubled the regional presence of its cloud platform in the
past 24 months, with 29 regions available globally. It said more regions are
planned to come online in Asia-Pacific (Apac), North America and the Middle
East by mid-2018.
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Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is responsible for protecting and promoting
the nation s natural environment. Founded in April 2013, it brought together
the Countryside Council for Wales, the Environment Agency Wales and the
Forestry Commission, and currently employs some 1,900 people with a
budget of £180m a year.
So, three separate IT systems and estates had to be brought and simplified,
all under the usual public sector banner of getting more for less, says Paul
Subacchi, head of business support services at Natural Resources Wales,
•.
In order to simplify this, the Welsh-government funded organisation chose, in
February 2014, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system from the G-
Cloud, delivered by reseller Trustmarque, and based on Unit4 Business
World product.
enabling us to
become more efficient and offer greater self-service functionality to our

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employees. Cloud is a significant part of our IT strategy, so we need a
• says Subacchi.
In March 2016, NRW decided to renew its contract with Trustmarque for
another two years.
Benefits of consolidation
It had originally selected Trustmarque from the G-Cloud to implement Unit4,
in a private cloud, to consolidate the ERP systems it was using for finance
and human resources.
A further benefit of the consolidation, says Subacchi, has been an employee
self-se •, and made available in December
2014. This allows the organisation s employees to carry out tasks such as
updating personal details or accessing their digital payslips.
The ERP implementation is, though, part of bigger digital transformation
a big part of that is to exploit digital technology in its best format. That
means such things as our use of [Micorosoft] Office365 and mobile
computing, with our use •.
More broadly, Subbachi says the bringing together of the three pre-existing
ERP platforms and the move to cloud has increased the quality of the

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management information available to NRW, enabling it to make better
informed decisions and process improvements.
trying to achieve here. We are getting there. Remember, our managers have
come from three different places, and we are still learning about our new
•.
NRW s managers include those involved in flood risk projects, forest
s a broad
Handling sensitive information
Even for those managing small teams, being able to see what leave has
been booked helps to plan operations better, he adds.
Previously, two of the three constituents of NRW had been using
eFinancials, with payroll delivered through Northgate, while Environment
Agency Wales had been using Oracle s 1B1S [One Business, One System].
NRW deals with a large group of customers, with sensitive financial data,
explains Subacchi, unlike many other public sector organisations. The
commercial timber industry is, for example, a customer of the Forestry
Commission component of NRW.

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This made security an important selection criterion. The Trustmarque cloud
is accredited to manage systems and data operating at the government s
- • level, so that counted in its favour.
As part of the contract, Trustmarque is also managing the software licensing
of Unit4 for NRW, simplifying its infrastructure licensing requirements and
taking the responsibility for ensuring compliance.
• says Subacchi. However,
we have been moving at quite a pace over the past nine months. •
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Travis Perkins, a materials distributor for the construction industry and the
DIY market, has made its biggest investment in enterprise software to
support a digital transformation programme aimed at making its staff serve
customers better.
John Carter, CEO of the £6bn turnover Northampton-based company, told
attendees of Inforum 2016 in New York City that Travis Perkins chose Infor s
cloud-delivered business applications software to drive a customer-focused
digital transformation.
He said Travis Perkins - • managers will be using digital
dashboards provided by Infor, which has placed a deal of emphasis on the
aesthetics of business software in recent times, especially by way of its
Hook and Loop design agency, based in Manhattan.
Carter said ever increasing competition in the building industry means that
the company needs to serve its customers better, with a target of £10bn in
revenue.

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together with elastic bands. Our building trade customers want access to
product informatio • he said.
million SKUs across the trades. Being able to personalise the experience is
•
Travis Perkins operates more than 20 businesses spanning the trade,
construction and home improvement markets, with more than 2,000 outlets
across the UK.
It chose Infor CloudSuite to deliver a variety of strategic, technical and
financial benefits, with an overall stated goal to enhance the experience for
its customers in construction trades, as well as for employees.
nd an evolving customer base
that is increasingly relying on digital technology to do business. We are
embarking on implementing the biggest systems change in the history of
•
Infor Services will manage the CloudSuite implementation for its merchant
businesses at Travis Perkins. It is Infor s biggest customer deal so far, said a
UK-based company spokesperson.

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group such as Travis Perkins, with a rich history that spans more than 200
•
The supplier also announced H&L Digital at the conference, which is a
-to- •. This will offer digital
as a service, which will, the supplier said, help generate revenue streams and
create intellectual property for customers. Infor s chief creative officer Marc
Scibelli will head H&L Digital.
Hook & Loop, Infor s in-house creative agency, was formed in 2012 as an
internal- • for
users of Infor software. H&L Digital is a client-facing extension of Hook &
Loop, using many of the same approaches, including digital workshops and
hackathons.
Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor
agencies claim to help deliver digital transformation to help clients meet the
challenges of digital disruption, but because they lack the underpinning
technology to effect real change, their customers projects often languish,
stall or fail to meet expectations.
omponents of an
end-to-end system as a service: Cloud-based industry applications, dynamic

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data-driven insights, cutting-edge user experience design and a connected
supply chain network •
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Business applications supplier IFS has opened its annual conference, held
this year in Gothenburg in its native Sweden, by announcing an internet of
things (IoT) product •.
IFS president and CEO Alastair Sorbie (pictured above) also spoke about
the 2015 acquisition of the company by private equity firm EQT. He said this
would fuel greater investment in mobility, field service management and
increased globalisation.
Sorbie made digital transformation the guiding concept of his opening
address, and urged the 40% of IFS cust
• digital projects and not get too hung up • on what stage their efforts
were at.
He also used the digital transformation theme to tee up the announcement
of the firm s IoT Business Connector. The supplier said in a statement that
-risk and accelerate IoT initiatives in areas
such as predictive maintenance, service management, asset management
•.

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It said the IoT Business Connector would provide the ability to harness data
gathered from products, assets and equipment to identify actionable
observations that trigger user-defined, automated or semi-automated
workflows in IFS enterprise software.
It works with the Microsoft Azure IoT suite for device communications and
data analytics, alongside open application programming interfaces (APIs) to
connect other IoT platforms or specialised IoT discovery applications.
The company said it was being implemented with four early-adopter
customers: Songa Offshore, an international mid-water drilling contractor;
ATS Automation, a US-based provider of factory maintenance and IT
services; Anticimex, an international pest control company; and Hecla
Mining, a North American precious metals mining company.
service value chain, we are able to automate our processes in a new way
•
allows us to take control of the data generated by our range of digital pest
control devices, improving service to our customers and providing them with
•
The IFS IoT Business Connector will be generally released in 2017.
....................................................................................................................................

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