Infor Named Top-Tier Software Vendor by APPS RUN THE WORLD in the APPS and CLOUD TOP 500 Market Report

Infor Strengths, Domain Expertise, and Key Differentiators

Infor’s strengths lie in its vertical focus and its ability to invest heavily in both feature/function as well as its underlying technology (think middleware). After years of being privately held by several private equity firms, Koch Industries first invested in Infor in 2017, but then completed the acquisition of the remaining portion of Infor from Golden Gate Capital in April 2020. Koch’s deep pockets have allowed Infor to deliver thousands of new features across multiple product lines.

Having initially grown through acquisition (since 2002), its product portfolio includes dozens of ERP solutions (in addition to some other specialty solutions like the recently acquired MES solution) of which a handful have become strategic and form the building blocks for its industry-specific CloudSuites. While originally all these acquired ERP products were on-premises solutions, these strategic products have undergone a technology transformation that allows them to be offered as multi-tenant SaaS solutions. But even more importantly, they are now supported by a microservices architecture.

Infor OS (Operating Service), its foundational cloud platform provides horizontal technology services to its vertical CloudSuites and extends into third-party solutions as well. The services range from essential, business-critical functionality to more advanced high tech like its AI engine Coleman, built-in predictive analytics for optimized production, inventory and delivery schedules and connectivity to support Industry 4.0. This allows Infor to develop some common components that can be shared across a variety of its industry-specific solutions.

Infor has deep domain expertise to deliver industry-specific features, functions and (professional) services to the following industries: Manufacturing: Aerospace & Defense, Automotive, Chemicals, Food & Beverage, Construction & Engineering, High Tech and Electronics, Industrial Manufacturing Consumer; Fashion, Food & Beverage, Retail, Distribution; Wholesale distribution, Equipment Dealers, Logistics Service Providers, Public Sector; Defense, Federal, State and Local Governments, K-12 Education, Energy and Natural Resources; Oil & Gas, Utilities, Healthcare; Healthcare Institutions, Hotels & Resorts, Restaurants & Food Services, Service Industries; Bank & Financial Services, Professional Services, Transportation Service Providers.

Infor does not attempt to address all these verticals with a single solution. Instead it assembles each industry CloudSuite from a flexible set of components, drawing on its portfolio of strategic ERP solutions.

Infor Recent Developments

In October 2023, Infor unveiled Infor Enterprise Automation solution, a comprehensive suite of Infor Operating Service (Infor OS) multi-tenant cloud services strategically crafted on the robust infrastructure of Amazon Web Services (AWS). This innovative offering is meticulously engineered to empower enterprises in swiftly expanding their automation endeavors throughout their organizational landscape. By data integration, artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML), and robotic process automation (RPA) capabilities into a unified platform, Infor aims to provide a sophisticated solution that fosters operational efficiency and agility for businesses.

In April 2023, Infor launched its new Infor Talent Empowerment solution, aiming to redefine how organizations approach personalized career mobility. Recognizing the key driver of employee departures as the lack of clear paths to internal growth, Infor addresses this challenge amid rising attrition rates, particularly impacting sectors like healthcare. Talent retention is now a pivotal concern, and Infor's solution aims to provide a transformative approach to address this issue.

In October 2021, Infor announced the general availability of its Infor Coleman AI Digital Assistant app for Microsoft Teams. The Infor Coleman Digital Assistant was previously available via a web browser, the Infor Go mobile app, and Amazon Alexa for Business. With this release, Infor customers can interact with Infor Coleman using Microsoft Teams. This can help reduce adoption friction when rolling out the digital assistant to organizations that already use Teams. The Infor Coleman AI Digital Assistant provides a conversational interface to the Infor OS platform, the underlying foundation of Infor CloudSuites. It offers custom skills, a chat UX, and natural language processing (NLP) capabilities.

In October 2021, Infor launched Infor Public Sector, a dedicated multi-tenant cloud offering for the UK public sector. The solution combines Infor CloudSuite Public Sector, Financials and Supply Chain Management (FSCM), Infor People Solutions (HR & Talent) with the dedicated public sector enterprise asset management capabilities of Infor Hansen, all of which run on Amazon Web Services (AWS). As part of the offering, Infor will build on more than two decades of experience with UK public sector organizations such as South West Water, Borders College, London Fire Brigade and Viewpoint Housing; and many global customers including the City of Coral Gables in Florida, US, Ras Al Khaimah Wastewater Agency (RAKWA) in UAE, and the City of Franklin in Tennessee, USA.

In July, Infor collaborated with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to support its AWS for Health initiative. AWS for Health is an initiative featuring services and solutions from AWS and AWS Partners, built specifically for healthcare, biopharma, and genomics customers. The initiative is designed to make it easier for health customers to select the right tools and partners for their highest-priority workloads across the health community to help unlock operational efficiencies and insights, respond with agility to unforeseen circumstances, lower costs, and realize clinical and patient care improvements. This collaboration underscores Infor’s commitment to the healthcare industry and to providing its customers with a trusted cloud offering through AWS. In June 2021, Infor announced a “Three for Free” program for smaller distributors in North America, designed to help them leverage cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology in an effort to help them rebound from the pandemic and strengthen their businesses. For a limited time, small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) in North America received a subscription for three free user licenses of Infor CloudSuite Distribution — a cloud platform powered by the Infor Distribution SX.e ERP system — with an optional fixed-fee services engagement. The program applied to any SMB that was not already an Infor ERP customer.

In July 2020 Infor introduced its new Payroll module for Infor Global Human Resources (Global HR). Infor Payroll provides in-house payroll processing capabilities with multiple options for service partners to help manage back-end payroll processes, including employment tax filing, wage payments, wage garnishments, and other value-added services. Infor’s payroll solution offers flexibility to help organizations enable the desired balance of operational control. Significant updates to this new offering include the benefits of being a module within Global HR as well as being included as part of industry-based CloudSuites. Payroll is now offered to all Infor CloudSuite HCM customers, fully integrated with Infor CloudSuite Financials, with plans to make third-party financial integration available.

In January 2020 Infor released a number of solutions designed to help omnichannel retailers and fashion brands optimize their inventories, improve demand and supply planning, boost factory efficiency and help take their fashion products to market faster. The new, machine learning (ML)-driven solutions are generally available (GA) and include Infor Retail Allocation, Infor Omni-Channel Planning for Brands, the latest version of Infor CloudSuite PLM for Fashion, and the Infor Nexus RFID Scan & Pack solution.

Infor Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Activities

In October 2021, Infor announced the acquisition of Lighthouse Systems, a provider of manufacturing execution system (MES) software for smart manufacturing. Lighthouse Systems’ MES solution can be fully integrated into Infor CloudSuite ERP systems. This will help Infor address a critical customer requirement of 24x7 manufacturing operations. For those manufacturing companies that are looking to implement ERP and MES together, Infor anticipates that its ability to offer a fully integrated solution “out of the box” will significantly shorten time to value for customers. Based in Crawley, UK, Lighthouse Systems has major offices in the UK, the United States and Singapore. Its approximately 100 employees serve customers worldwide in focus industries such as automotive, building & construction, food & beverage, life science, machinery & equipment, packaging, and sustainable energy.

In July 2021 Hexagon AB, a global leader in digital reality solutions, announced an agreement to acquire Infor’s global EAM (enterprise asset management) business, for approximately 2,750 MUSD. The terms of the agreement include establishing a deeper commercial relationship between Hexagon and Infor as well as Hexagon and Koch Equity Development, both subsidiaries of Koch Industries, Inc. Hexagon gains a best-in-class, SaaS-based asset management solution – Infor EAM – which is used to track assets, digitalize maintenance operations and enable customers in nearly any industry to reach optimum operational efficiency. In October 2021 the divestiture was completed after resolving an issue in kind of consideration shares. Completion of the transaction was subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, which have now been obtained. The SaaS-based EAM, is used to track assets, digitalize maintenance operations and enable customers in nearly any industry to reach optimum operational efficiency. Infor’s EAM business is expected to generate 2021 revenues of 184 MUSD, of which over 70 per cent is recurring, with an adjusted operating margin of over 40 per cent after integration. Given the strong fit of Infor EAM across Hexagon’s businesses, the transaction is expected to generate significant sales synergies. dynamic, and intuitive location platform used to optimize clinical assets and supplies, streamline patient workflows, and ensure the safety of staff.

This acquisition enables Infor to offer an expanded suite of technology for healthcare organizations. The Intelligent InSites solution will complement the Infor CloudSuite Healthcare footprint, enabling support across the continuum of care including clinics, urgent care, emergency departments, inpatient care, procedural care, and behavioral health.

Infor Customers in ARTW Customer Database

Leveraging a rigorous data-centric research methodology, APPS RUN THE WORLD asks the simple question: Who’s buying Infor applications and why? And we provide the answers – supported by decades of research – to our clients around the world. Our Customer database has over 100 data fields that detail company usage of Infor and other enterprise apps by function, customer size, industry, location, implementation status, partner involvement, Line of Business Key Stakeholders and IT decision makers contact details. List of Verified CloudSuite Aerospace & Defense, CloudSuite Automotive, CloudSuite Business, CloudSuite Business (SMB), CloudSuite Corporate, CloudSuite Distribution Enterprise, CloudSuite Facilities, CloudSuite Fashion, CloudSuite Financials & Supply Management, CloudSuite Food & Beverage, CloudSuite HCM, CloudSuite Healthcare, CloudSuite Hospitality, CloudSuite Industrial (Enterprise Edition), CloudSuite Industrial (SMB), CloudSuite Industrial (SyteLine), CloudSuite Public Sector, Infor Configure Price Quote, Infor CRM, Infor HR Service Delivery, Infor Learning Management, Infor Marketing Resource, Infor Rhythm E-commerce & Collaboration Platform, Infor SCM, Infor Service Management, Infor Talent Management, Infor Talent Science, Infor Workforce Management customers.

Infor Key Enterprise and Cloud Applications

CloudSuite Aerospace & Defense, CloudSuite Automotive, CloudSuite Business, CloudSuite Business (SMB), CloudSuite Corporate, CloudSuite Distribution Enterprise, CloudSuite Facilities, CloudSuite Fashion, CloudSuite Financials & Supply Management, CloudSuite Food & Beverage, CloudSuite HCM, CloudSuite Healthcare, CloudSuite Hospitality, CloudSuite Industrial (Enterprise Edition), CloudSuite Industrial (SMB), CloudSuite Industrial (SyteLine), CloudSuite Public Sector, Infor Configure Price Quote, Infor CRM, Infor HR Service Delivery, Infor Learning Management, Infor Marketing Resource, Infor Rhythm E-commerce & Collaboration Platform, Infor SCM, Infor Service Management, Infor Talent Management, Infor Talent Science, Infor Workforce Management

Infor Revenues, $M:

Infor Revenue Breakdown By Type, $M:

Infor Enterprise Applications Revenues By Functional Markets, $M:

Infor Enterprise Applications Revenues By Verticals, $M:

Infor Revenues By Region, $M

Infor Direct vs Indirect sales

Infor Customers - Breakdown by Geo, Size, Vertical and Product

List of Verified Infor Customers

No. of Infor Customers: 75000

No. of Infor Enterprise Applications Customers: 75000

No. of Infor Cloud Customers: 15000

No. of Infor Cloud Subscribers: 71 million

Infor supports more than 75,000 customers. Many of these customers have come through acquisitions over the past (almost) 20 years. While Infor closes new business at an impressive rate, this number has only grown modestly over the past few years, indicating that the company also suffers from attrition of those legacy customers. While many of the acquired companies focused heavily on the small to mid-size markets, Infor’s advanced technology and breadth of solution today is more focused on the medium to large enterprise. Recent customer wins during 2023 were Waikato Regional Council, ICA Sweden, Dormac Marine & Engineering, Noble House Hotels & Resorts, Bahrain’s Arab Shipbuilding and Repair Yard Co. (ASRY), Saint-Gobain Distribution Norway AS, and others.

Some recent wins include: Huida, Metito, Panda Restaurants, Maison Sieur d’Arques, CGR, AutoWorld and Hofil Transportation Company, Amsterdam UMC, Foundation Building Materials, and others.

Among its ERP customers are York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Lineage Logistics, Toye, Kenning & Spencer, Egbert Taylor Group, Kempinski Hotels, First Transit, Promethean, The Caldrea Company, Zicom, Spraylat, Organic Valley Family of Farms, Koch Equipment, Pride Industries, Dematic, Beldon Brick, Ferrari, High Five Sportswear, Shaklee Corporation, Herman Miller, Western Wire, Rocky Brands, Physicians Formula, Duramax Marine LLC, Piper Aircraft, Karma Industries Limited, Montebello Packaging, HKL Baumaschinen GmbH, Moba, Banglacat, Pama, AUNDE Brazil, Essen, Group Dekko.

Infor SaaS CRM customer references include Sanofi, Publix, o2, LSI, Invista, GE Capital, Energy Australia, Dell, Crown Perth, Covident, Barnes&Noble, Amgen, American National, TicketMaster, Telstra, Scotiabank, Schweppes, Pitney Bowes, Callaway, Blanchard, Sony Computer Entertainment, Heartland Payment Systems, World Financial Group, Ted Baker London, Rheem, Georgia-Pacific, and others.

Infor HCM customer references include Community Medical Centers, Kellogg Company, PSI, State of Utah, itella, Interface, AMC theatres, Einstein Healthcare Network, Hyundai Motor Europe., Affiliated Computer Services, Butler Machinery Co., City of Abilene, City of St Paul, MN; Cook County Hospital, Friendly’s Ice Cream Corp., and LHC Group. and many others.

Infor Market Opportunities, M&A and Geo Expansions

In April 2023, Infor launched its new Infor Talent Empowerment solution, aiming to redefine how organizations approach personalized career mobility. Recognizing the key driver of employee departures as the lack of clear paths to internal growth, Infor addresses this challenge amid rising attrition rates, particularly impacting sectors like healthcare. Talent retention is now a pivotal concern, and Infor's solution aims to provide a transformative approach to address this issue.

In June 2022 Infor entered into a technology partnership with Everstream Analytics, to help organizations better anticipate and navigate supply chain risks and disruptions. Through the partnership, Infor will integrate Everstream’s end-to-end supply chain risk assessment and monitoring data with its Infor Nexus multienterprise business network platform.

The Infor Nexus Control Center, an end-to-end supply chain control tower, provides organizations with visibility to orders, shipments and inventory throughout the supply chain — delivering intelligent, actionable insights through its connectivity to carriers, logistics service providers (LSPs), suppliers and manufacturers.

Everstream’s solution will complement these capabilities by providing data on external events — such as weather, labor strikes, port congestion, cybersecurity, ESG (environmental, social, and governance), and partner risks (physical and financial) — that could impact a company’s supply chain flows and its ability to deliver. In addition to its July announcement of its collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to support its AWS for Health initiative, in August 2021 Infor announced it had achieved significant success and momentum for its cloud-based interoperability solutions, including its FHIR Server, the company’s vision for helping healthcare organizations better leverage and analyze their data. Built on the latest web technologies, Infor FHIR Server is one of the most advanced, modern, and scalable FHIR servers commercially available.

With this new application, organizations can extend their electronic health records (EHR) and clinical systems’ Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR) and application programming interface (API) capabilities beyond their current limited support, streamline care coordination by providing needed information to providers and patients, and expedite their organization’s digital transformation while utilizing existing clinical systems connected to an innovative FHIR-based ecosystem. This presents a very significant opportunity for Infor in Healthcare to impact healthcare outcomes and business operations. In August Infor announced 100 new or expanded relationships over the past 12 consecutive months. These included customers such as Hermes Pardini Group, Penn Highlands Healthcare, and Sentara Healthcare. More recently Infor added St Vincent Health and Amsterdam UMC.

The global pandemic has brought to light the fact that Healthcare data today is siloed in legacy systems that lack connectivity to innovative healthcare solutions. However, this, in no way, diminishes the continued opportunity for Infor in all its chosen verticals. While some industries saw a distinct slow-down during the pandemic, as the world emerges, many are seeing renewed growth and this, in turn, presents a strong opportunity for Infor.

In August 2020 Infor launched Infor Construction and Property Management, a cloud-based solution that lets construction businesses, serving the healthcare and public sector industries, digitize their entire operations and expand into property management roles. Infor Construction and Property Management offer embedded business intelligence and analytics, simplified navigation, and enhanced security and SaaS capabilities to help businesses manage the entire building process, from scaffolding to lease management.

Infor Construction and Property Management are tailored for construction businesses serving customers across the healthcare industry and the public sector. For healthcare-focused businesses, the solution can help reduce the cost of hospital and commercial office building build-outs, as well as property management of leases and tenants, which in turn boosts operational efficiency. Public sector-focused construction businesses can leverage the solution to solve critical leasing needs, such as sourcing and managing tenants for airport and transit centers, school and educational buildings, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) properties, and higher education and university management housing.

The robust, cloud-based solution offers construction businesses enhanced financial management with on-demand centralized data, role- and user-based secure access, simultaneous cash- and accrual-based accounting, and real-time insight into operational accounts receivable. Improved features include job cost accounting, purchase order management, and service request modules, and an interactive map that acts as a visual guide to filter by region, state, or project. The solution supports multi-family, commercial property, and construction management and financials, and specializes in HUD, university housing, apartment, and retail lease spaces.

Infor’s cloud-based property management and construction applications are designed to deliver industry-specific capabilities without the need for extensive customizations. Its cloud-based architecture means businesses benefit from automatic software upgrades that continuously improve functionality, and users can access data and meet complex reporting requirements while working seamlessly from any device.

During the first half of 2019, Infor made a lot of partnership agreements with different partners all around the world. Infor partnered with GTY Technology Holdings, a provider of SaaS solutions for the public sector, to fuel digital transformation – helping government agencies significantly improve the way they engage stakeholders and manage their resources. The same period Aŭtomatigo Inc. and Infor Japan K.K., the Japanese subsidiary of Infor, announced that Aŭtomatigo has signed an agreement to be an Infor Alliance Partner specializing in the Infor Nexus cloud commerce network.

In June, Infor joined forces with Linklogis, which will leverage the Infor Nexus platform to power a suite of financial service solutions designed to reinforce the supply chains of small and medium-sized upstream suppliers that are traditionally underfunded and overlooked.

Another partnership agreement Infor made with Montage, the single solution to engage, interview, and hire better candidates, faster. The goal of this partnership is to allow both companies to leverage their respective platforms in bringing the next generation of predictive talent analytics and interviewing technology together during the hiring process.

One of the more important partnerships that Infor made in 2019, is with ESDS, India's leading Managed Data Center and Cloud Hosting Service provider to drive digital transformation for Indian and Middle-Eastern Businesses. Through this partnership, Infor and ESDS will provide a robust and modern IT infrastructure that delivers state-of-the-art user experience along with an integrated platform for seamless collaboration across existing systems and deep data analytics capabilities to drive informed business decisions.

Over the past year, Infor has invested heavily in analytics by buying Cloud BI vendor Birst for $105 million after spending $126 million for Predictx for retail analytics. The moves are expected to drive better insights for its customers both at the horizontal level and retail-specific use cases.

Infor introduced its artificial intelligence play called Coleman, which aims to use the latest machine-learning technologies to eliminate certain business processes, similar to what robotic process management can do to with virtual assistants handling repetitive inquiries from driving direction to helpdesk support. Along with its Enterprise Asset Management applications, Coleman will zero in on predictive maintenance and drive positive results for many of its industrial customers.

Koch Industries is a case in point as the 49% owner of Infor plans to run its Cloud HCM applications for its own 120,000 employees in 60+ countries.

Infor Risks and Challenges

Prior to the pandemic, Infor embarked on a number of initiatives to accelerate its Cloud expansion aided by a solid product portfolio for asset-intensive industries from accounting to HR and from supply chain planning to enterprise asset management. The July 2021 move to divest its enterprise asset management business to Hexagon enables the vendor to focus on its core ERP and emerging markets like AI and machine learning with Coleman. The question is whether the divestiture underscores its parent Koch Industries' desire to redirect its energy or limit its exposure to areas that it deems too risky. Still, it's a departure of a tent-like strategy that has served Infor well for more than a decade. Reversing its course appears to signal a new strategy that has yet to fully manifest itself.

Infor Ecosystem, Partners, Resellers and SI

In October 2023, Deloitte and Infor extended their collaborative alliance to encompass the Nordic region. The extension of this partnership is underpinned by a history of internationally acclaimed projects, illustrating the substantial business value that Infor and Deloitte consistently deliver to their clientele. Notably, the Nordic expansion builds upon existing collaborative ventures, including joint projects with entities such as Scandi Standard.

In February 2022, Infor and iCIMS made a partnership agreement to deliver next-gen talent capabilities throughout North America, focusing on pivotal service industries, notably healthcare organizations.

Infor primarily sells direct to its ERP and Cloud customers, but it also relies on reseller channels to help address the needs of those in EMEA and Asia Pacific. It has more than 220 channel and 100 alliance partners in Asia Pacific.

Some partners sell and install Infor solutions. They are recruited to implement, optimize and maintain. These include Cerca Technology, Konica Minolta (Germany), Decision Resources, Inc. and Synergy. However, there is also a myriad of legacy partnerships that were acquired along with acquisitions. These were often life-style businesses, forming somewhat of a cottage industry surrounding older solutions that are no longer “strategic” to Infor. They were notorious for customizing the software. But those customizations often built barriers to customers consuming Infor innovation. Those types of services and partnerships are no longer encouraged. They will have no impact on new customers of Infor’s CloudSuites, but remain in support of legacy solutions. Any new partnerships formed will demand much more in terms of added value to new customers, either in terms of domain expertise in specific verticals, or their ability to add value in terms of extensions. Infor has also developed an alliance program with larger consulting firms, including Accenture, Cap Gemini, Tata, HCL and Deloitte and Grant Thornton. These partnerships are formed primarily for the influence these companies assert over the mid-to-large enterprise.

In July 2020 Infor Japan K.K. and Nippon Systemware Co., Ltd. established a newly-inked partner agreement to help Japanese customers accelerate their digital journey. Under the partnership, NSW can sell or otherwise provide Infor CloudSuite Industrial as a supply chain solution (ERP) for managing sales and production planning. This will enable both Infor and NSW to provide even higher value-added solutions that span both the engineering chain and supply chain. With multi-language, multi-currency, and multi-site support, Infor CloudSuite Industrial is an ERP package for manufacturing companies with global operations. It is already used in more than 6,000 locations globally, including over 1,400 locations in the Asia Pacific and over 200 locations in Japan alone. NSW has a long history of achievement and expertise across the engineering chain (product lifecycle management and product data management), managing data related to design and manufacturing in the manufacturing industry. In recent years, it has combined the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide solutions for delivering instructions and collecting performance data in production environments, while supporting its customers through their digital transformation (DX).This alliance is off to a promising start to fulfill current market and business needs, with the ERP package having already been trialed by a medical device manufacturer in a project to rebuild its core business system, including its global sites. Going forward, Infor and NSW will continue collaborating in the areas of Infor CloudSuite Industrial and other solutions for the manufacturing industry as both parties help build core business solutions that support digital transformation for customers.

Infor Cloud Infrastructure Insights

Subscribe to read more about:

• Infor Public Cloud and Infrastructure (IaaS)
• Infor Platform (PaaS)
• Infor Application Delivery
• Infor Private Cloud and Data Centers

Research Methodology

Data used in research reports are derived from publicly available documents, continuous surveys of applications vendors, customers, resellers, Independent Software Vendors, systems integrators and other verifiable sources.

Vendor shares and market forecast results are based on a combination of existing databases as well as demand side and supply side research conducted throughout the year with validation from vendors, customers, channel partners and documentations such as earnings releases and 10Q and 10K filings, vertical industry studies, regional and country-level statistics from public and private institutions(i.e. colleges, universities, government agencies and trade associations).

For additional information on our methodologies, here's the link: