The document provides an overview of the Infor Visual ERP software. It describes Infor as a software company that specializes in enterprise software, including ERP, CRM, and supply chain management. It then discusses the core and optional modules of Infor Visual, highlighting unique features like the Manufacturing Window and Common Sense Throughput reporting for CEOs. The document also provides examples of how Infor Visual integrates with other Infor products and can be deployed through cloud computing.

1. 2013
Project report on Infor Visual
Course – Enterprise Resource Computing(MBA 853)
Submitted To
Submitted By
Dr. Savita Bhat
Group 3
Dept of HSSM, NITK SurathKal
[Aditya Pachori , 12HM03
Anubhav Grover, 12HM08
Suraj Baliga, 12HM45]

2. Contents
1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................... 3
1.1 Infor ................................................................................................................................................. 3
1.2 Infor Visual ...................................................................................................................................... 3
2. CORE MODULES .................................................................................................................................... 4
2.1 Manufacturing Window® ................................................................................................................ 4
2.2 Common Sense Throughput™ for CEOs .......................................................................................... 5
2.3 Messages ......................................................................................................................................... 6
2.4 Workflow......................................................................................................................................... 7
3. COMMON MODULES ............................................................................................................................ 8
4. INTERPRETATIONS ................................................................................................................................ 8
5. OPTIONAL MODULES .......................................................................................................................... 10
5.1 Infor Visual ERP CRM..................................................................................................................... 10
5.1.1 INFORCE Initiative ...................................................................................................................... 11
5.2 Infor Visual ERP Financials ............................................................................................................ 12
5.3 Infor Visual ERP Human Resources ............................................................................................... 13
5.4 Infor Visual ERP Multi-entity/Multi-site........................................................................................ 14
5.5 Infor Visual ERP Business Intelligence........................................................................................... 14
5.6 Infor VISUAL eBusiness ................................................................................................................. 15
5.7 Infor Visual ERP- Cloud Computing ............................................................................................... 16
6. COMPARISONS WITH SAP AND ORACLE: HOW THEY STACK UP ........................................................ 17
7. CASE STUDY......................................................................................................................................... 20
7.1 CASE1 ............................................................................................................................................ 20
7.2 CASE 2: Failure of INFOR VISUAL ...................................................................................................... 21
8. RECOMMENDATIONS: ........................................................................................................................ 23
9. REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................ 25
Infor Visual
Page 2

3. 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Infor
Infor is a US based software company headquartered in New York that specializes in enterprise
software ranging from standalone financial system to ERP, CRM and supply chain. It is a
privately held company with Golden Gate Capital owns 73% share. Infor has around $2.8 billion
in revenue, 70,000+ customers making it number one by the number of customers in ERP
domain, and more than 12,400 employees. Infor has specialties in Aerospace & Defense,
Automotive, Chemicals, Distribution, Equipment, Fashion, Food & Beverage, Industrial
Manufacturing, Healthcare, High Tech & Electronics, Hospitality, Public Sector, CRM, ERP,
HCM, PLM, WFM, EAM, SCM, and FM.
1.2 Infor Visual
Infor VISUAL Enterprise, the comprehensive software solution that addresses your front office,
back office, manufacturing, engineering, distribution, and business performance management
needs. Incorporating Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Advanced Planning and Scheduling
(APS), Manufacturing Execution System (MES), Customer Relationship Management (CRM),eBusiness, and Warehouse Management System (WMS) capabilities, Infor VISUAL Enterprise
provides companies with an integrated solution.
Figure 1 – Infor Visual Solution map
Infor Visual
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4. 2. CORE MODULES
Infor Visual like any other ERP product has numerous modules that increase the efficiency of an
organization. Most of them are sub modules of modules depicted in above figure. Below are
some of the core modules of Infor Visual ERP software that are unique from other ERP
vendor’s product in some way or other. The names of modules are same as other ERP
modules name but the uniqueness is coming in terms of functionality or solving the business
needs more handsomely.
2.1 Manufacturing Window®
Figure 2 – Manufacturing window
The Manufacturing Window® holds proprietorship for Infor Visual as claimed by their
management. The Manufacturing Window® is the master engineering and production
management tool within Infor VISUAL Enterprise. The full-color, graphical interface allows you
to create an engineering plan or Bill of Material (BOM) quickly and easily, and then use the
design to automatically create a quote and/or work order. The display and reporting features of
the Manufacturing Window provide a comprehensive view of the materials and operations
involved in the engineering process.
Infor Visual
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5. 2.2 Common Sense Throughput™ for CEOs
Figure 3 – Customer Service report
Infor Visual is targeted at smaller businesses with manufacturing intensity. These firms are often
suppliers to larger firms so they need extremely solid detail in their manufacturing and
accounting, but ease of implementation and graphical interface for most of decision making as
employee roles are often overlapped and providing CLI make coordination difficult.
Through the use of the Common Sense Throughput strategy, Infor VISUAL Enterprise uses
measurements not commonly found in ERP and MES systems. Infor VISUAL Enterprise uses
the Throughput Window to access a variety of reports and inquiries: Actual or Expected
Throughput reports, and Utilization, Contention, and Material Constraint inquiries. These tools
provide the information to be discussed at the daily Common Sense Throughput meetings. CEOs
can use Common Sense Throughput to avoid incorrect decisions based on allocations and
theoretical profit of a piece. This is not same as EIS i.e. common in all ERP products and is also
one of core modules of Visual. In fact, through this executives view an audit trail that reliably
Infor Visual
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6. identifies potential resource and material bottlenecks, both primary and secondary. Since Visual
is primarily targeting mid size enterprise awareness about daily bottlenecks in important
information on part. It comes as sub module for production management.
2.3 Messages
Figure 4- Event maintenance module generating message
While automatically send an e-mail message to your customer when you ship their order is
common in most ERP’s what differ Infor Visual in this respect is the ability delivers alerts to
user workstations, pagers, cellular phones, printers, and fax machines.
You define the important events within the manufacturing process that trigger Infor VISUAL
Enterprise to create and transmit messages to key personnel. This allows your employees to
focus on other business without the necessity of constantly “checking in”, while ensuring that
they will be informed of, and can act on, critical information. Messages can include binary data,
pictures, bitmaps, and text documents. Message, pager or mail will also be send to key personnel
if any process falls behind is schedule and so to notify the persons Visual will automatically send
messages to all. Comes as a Sub module of event management
Infor Visual
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7. 2.4 Workflow
Figure 5- Document Work flow module
Workflow allows companies to automate their business processes, integrating policies and
procedures with information flow according to predefined conditions or rules.
Although this module is common in most of ERP as main purpose of ERP is to integrate
different business process. What differentiated this module from other is the designing of work
flow same as those done on paper (by means of flowchart), in other ERP, however, it is more on
mechanical side.
After defining a workflow, companies can release this design into the Infor VISUAL system
where it operates behind the scenes. Various mechanisms notify users of tasks and activities that
require action. The system can route information, such as customer orders, purchase orders, or
engineering changes, to internal and external participants in the business process, incorporating
approval functions along the way. Users can also conveniently track and monitor the status of
documents using Workflow.
Infor Visual
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8. 3. COMMON MODULES
Above described are some of the unique modules of Visual that differentiates it from other ERP
products. Infor ERP Visual or Infor ERP Express contains various other modules that are
necessary for optimized and effective operation at manufacturer facility. Some of them are listed
below; these are not dealt in details as these are quite common in other ERP products like SAP
AG etc.
Also figure1 give a small glimpse of type of modules that are either compatible or possible in
Visual. Below listed modules called core modules are incorporated in those basic functional
modules.
Cost Accounting
Quoting and Estimating
Purchasing
Master Scheduling & MRP
Concurrent Scheduling
Inventory Control
Executive Information System
Management Reporting
Lot & Serial Traceability
Return Material Authorization etc
4. INTERPRETATIONS
In our opinion the cause of giving unique product than other ERP vendors is mainly due to two
reasons. However, this is purely subjective opinion and discrepancy can occur from other
person’s belief.
Infor Visual
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9. 1. Infor as a company known for aggressive acquisitions and it is ranked number 1 for the
different ERP products acquired so far. Around 500 different small level ERP products have
been acquired by Infor till now. This huge experience in ERP field gives them multitude of
technology that are difficult to copy and thus they are giving improved features at same price as
competitors.
2. Second reason is Infor Visual as a tool is made for mid size enterprises and as a matter of fact
employees working in such organizations needs to go through multiple roles at the same time
due to obvious reasons. Infor Visual helps them in achieving such multiple tasks due to improved
and better features like messages module of event management etc.
As clear from figure 1 that Infor ERP Visual also has great compatibility for Supply chain, CRM,
e-buisness and Business Intelligence. Below listed modules detail some of them in context of
Visual.
Infor Visual
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10. 5. OPTIONAL MODULES
5.1 Infor Visual ERP CRM
Figure 6 – Visual CRM
With the help of Infor Visual ERP enterprises are able manage every customer touch point from
a central location. They get contact-center capabilities specifically designed for manufacturing
environments. This module automates CRM processes across the enterprise to make marketing,
sales, manufacturing, and support employees more efficient. The USP of this module is that it
provides:
Contact Center - Which is a standard component in ERP Express, this module tracks
everything there is to know about customers and prospects, using information that is updated and
available instantly. The Contact Center helps to automate marketing and sales activities to track
performance and generate more revenue.
Infor Visual
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11. One such example where Infor Visual CRM enterprise helped in tracking segments is the
Organization 3Form. This organization has many different initiatives and goods for the
customers; with the help of VISUAL it allowed them to use its flexibility to customize the
software for their specific needs. One specific example in which 3form used easy customization
to support its unique goals was to track the industry segment from which product and sales
originate they figured out that they need to target hospitality market, and when they targeted that
segment, it helped them to increase their sales.
5.1.1 INFORCE Initiative
In 2011, InforTM and Salesforce.com announced a strategic partnership that established Infor as a
reseller of Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud and an ISV partner committed to
developing native Force.com solutions.
The new partnership combined Salesforce.com's CRM applications with Infor's Visual ERP and
financial applications to create a powerful enterprise solution that spans the entire customer
lifecycle. Their strategy was simple to Leverage Salesforce.com as the foundation for Infor’s
CRM solution, and develops native Force.com applications aimed at meeting the needs of Infor
customers. The result was a modern and comprehensive CRM solution that benefits from deep and wide
integration with Infor Visual ERP solutions.
Information shared between CRM and ERP is vital to obtaining a complete view of the
relationship between the organization and their customers. This is reflected in the fundamental
information captured about the business partner, and then fortified by tracking the business
activities and interactions between companies.
With Inforce enterprises can automatically integrate back-office managed product information
into the Salesforce product catalog. When they will create and update products in the back office,
changes will be automatically applied to the CRM product catalogue.
Infor Visual
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12. Benefit of Inforce is that it:

Brings together ERP and CRM to create a more responsive and effective enterprise

Extends ERP and CRM to the social enterprise with integration with Salesforce Chatter

New CRM screens, fields, and functionality that incorporate back-office information

Enhanced CRM functionality designed specifically for Infor customer priorities
5.2 Infor Visual ERP Financials
Figure 7- Accounting window in Infor ERP Financial
Infor Visual ERP Financials is a flexible, multi-site, multi-company, multi-currency financial
management solution that empowers decision-making. It provides a total enterprise solution for
their accounting needs. The accounts receivable software system provides important cash flow
information that is vital for effective management businesses.
Infor Visual
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13. Financials is an advanced application that promotes faster, accurate, real-time transactions and
provides managers across all levels of the company with the information they need to make
better-informed business decisions.
It is a transaction-based business management tool that helps companies effectively handle
customer and supplier relationships, as well as comparatively monitor business performance
across various levels of an organization.

Real-time processing of financial transactions.

Segment financial information into appropriate entities and business components for
improved tracking and reporting.

Work within a multi-company and multi-currency environment with support for global
consolidation.

Maintain customer and supplier relationships.

Manage data security with a user-friendly inquiry system.

Create Consolidated and Consolidating Financial Statements.

Import/Export data through the Consolidation Process and/or Microsoft Excel

Allow users to configure their personal browse windows.
5.3 Infor Visual ERP Human Resources
Infor Visual ERP Human Resources is a comprehensive data management and reporting tool that
maintains vital data about applicants and employees and provides numerous standardized reports.
The flexibility of Infor Visual ERP Human Resources allows enterprised to track as much or as
little information as they require. Because of its dynamic integration with Infor Visual ERP
Payroll and Infor Visual ERP Financials, the shared data between these applications eliminates
the need for repetitive data entry, and ensures consistency and accuracy.
Infor Visual
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14. 5.4 Infor Visual ERP Multi-entity/Multi-site
With multi-entity, multi-site operations becoming more and more of a reality for business today,
centralized transaction management is often a complex, multi-layered, duplicative task. Each site
might have its own database supporting separate financial, purchasing, manufacturing, and
supply chain operations, so visibility from a single vantage point is limited, and consolidated
reporting time-consuming, manual job. No matter how lean other operations may be, maintaining
multiple databases works against the critical need for speed today. The need of the hour is an
ERP solution that lets enterprises consolidate thier multi-entity, multi-site company on one
centralized database to streamline operations, improve enterprise visibility, and lower IT
complexity and costs.
With Infor Visual ERP Multi-entity/Multi-site enterprises get simplified IT, one database
instance across enterprise, streamlined operations, clear supply chain visibility, easy buying and
selling among different locations, centralized cash, consolidated reporting, single sign-on (SSO)
for all the sites.
5.5 Infor Visual ERP Business Intelligence
Infor Visual ERP Business Intelligence provides business intelligence reporting and analysis tools tied to
industry and customer-defined key performance measures. It is powered by business intelligence
technology known as Graphical Performance Series (GPS),
It offers pre-packaged views, as well as indepth customizable management views and reports that
allow users to analyze key performance metrics. The powerful reporting tools provide clear
answers about what is happening with revenue or operating costs and, more importantly,
highlight the factors that reveal why situations occur. This allows managers to make more
strategic and profitable business decisions.
By deploying VBI across their enterprise, companies take advantage of complete OLAP (OnLine Analytical Processing), graphing, and reporting functionality. Because of its Integration
with Infor Visual ERP Multi-entity/Multi-site, VBI also collects metrics about multi-site operations
and worldwide sales statistics and combines this data into a single view.
Infor Visual
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15. With improved access to critical information, and by avoiding the time and cost associated with
creating and distributing reports, companies can save money and focus on continuous
improvement.
Figure 8 – Visual BI Tool
5.6 Infor VISUAL eBusiness
Figure 9 – Visual e business
Infor Visual
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16. Infor VISUAL eBusiness is a Web-based solution that makes it easy for manufacturers and
distributors to put order information online and implement a self-service storefront. This
application supports both B2B (Business-to-Business) and B2C (Businessto- Consumer)
transactions and is flexible enough to accommodate
various business models.
The core functionality within Infor VISUAL Enterprise includes Foundation to help companies
quickly get started on their ebusiness initiatives. Companies can personalize their Web pages
using a generic framework that functions with their customer database. The intuitive architecture
of each page enables users with even the most basic skills to customize theformat and convey
their company’s “look and feel.”
5.7 Infor Visual ERP- Cloud Computing
Infor has partnered with IBM and Amazon Web Services for providing its customer with cloud
facilities. Infor is using AWS's capabilities to help customers leverage the cloud for improving
how Infor10 Business Cloud applications are deployed and managed. While Demo Deployments
of Infor applications in the cloud will be handled through IBM. This initiative has enabled
customers to access functionality that helps keep their business running effectively, without the
costly IT infrastructure and concerns required to maintain software on-premises. Also Infor has
built all the tools it needs to move customer data from on-premises to the cloud, and also the
latest versions of its applications are available on cloud now. In order to move over cloud they
have flipped them into a subscription from paying maintenance, and after that point on enterprise
are paying on a per-user fee just like any other SaaS application.
With over 2 million subscribers already in the cloud, Infor is offering full application
functionality without having to manage the infrastructure physically. Support for multi-tenant
SaaS, hosted and hybrid deployments give infor customers flexibility, and working with the
industry leader, in AWS, enables customers to quickly deploy Infor applications into the cloud
with a push of a button on Infor10 Business Cloud Portal.
The scalable, on-demand, pay-as-you-go nature of AWS has provided Infor the opportunity to
easily deploy new instances of Infor's industry application suites in the cloud, offering customers
the ability to try and buy these apps and auto scale them based on the demands of their business.
Infor Visual
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17. Since AWS's capabilities are so robust, customers can also choose to keep the environments
running perpetually, using them as their production environment managed by ICS-Applications
Management Services team or managed by the customer themselves. Another advantage Infor
received by partnering with s AWS was that they have sites in multiple geographies located in
North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, this provided Infor with another option for
setting up new multi-tenant SaaS sites in other geographies instead of having to setup
infrastructure as they did in past.
6. COMPARISONS WITH SAP AND ORACLE: HOW THEY STACK UP
Mixed-Mode ERP Competitor Rating Analysis for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (9.0) by Oracle,
Infor Visual (7.1) by Infor, SAP Business All-in-One (ERP 6.0 EHP5) by SAP
The graphs below were developed as a high-level competitive rating analysis of JD Edwards
EnterpriseOne (9.0) by Oracle, Infor Visual (7.1) by Infor, SAP Business All-in-One (ERP 6.0
EHP5) by SAP. They display the standard scores of the vendor's solution, as determined through
TEC's default Mixed-Mode ERP model. The graphs reflect 3860 functional, technical, and
business criteria. This comparisons based on average weights and priorities.
Figure 10- Overall Rating for ERP products
SAP
JD Edwards
EnterpriseOne Infor Visual
Infor Visual
Business
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18. byInfor
Module
by Oracle
All-in-One
by SAP
Total
Module
Module
Module
Criteria
Rating
Rating
Rating
958
99.07
97.28
99.9
410
87.56
80.56
98.59
1047
97.29
96.46
97.13
190
93.68
78.21
95.89
FINANCIALS
Includes: General Ledger; Accounts
Payable
(A/P); Fixed Assets; Cost Accounting; Cash
Management; Budgeting; and others
HUMAN RESOURCES
Includes: Personnel Management; Benefits;
Payroll; Employee Self-Service; Employee
Metrics; Health and Safety; and others
MANUFACTURING MANAGEMENT
Includes: Product Costing; Shop Floor
Control; Field Service and Repairs;
Production Planning; Project Management;
Product Data Management (PDM); and
others
PROCESS MANUFACTURING
MANAGEMENT
Includes: Formulas/Recipes; Process Model
(Formulas + Routings); Process Batch
Control and Reporting; Conformance
Reporting; Process Manufacturing Costing;
Infor Visual
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19. Material Management; and others
INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
Includes: Inventory Management--Online
Requirements; Processing Requirements;
Data Requirements; Reporting and
184
98.04
87.66
98.26
260
96.85
97.23
99.77
78
90.38
97.82
99.62
230
94.96
96.43
99.3
Interfacing Requirements (Inventory
Management); Locations and Lot Control;
Forecasting; and others
PURCHASING MANAGEMENT
Includes: Profile of Suppliers; Rating of
Suppliers; Requisitions and Quotations;
Purchase Orders (POs); Pricing; Vendor
Contracts and Agreements; and others
QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Includes: Production Quality Management;
Non Production Quality Management;
Inventory Quality Management;
SALES MANAGEMENT
Includes: Online Requirements (Sales
Management); Reporting and Interfacing
Requirements (Sales Management);
Available-to-Promise (ATP); Pricing and
Discounting; Customer Service and
Returned Goods Handling; Customer
Infor Visual
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20. Relationship Management (CRM); and
others
PRODUCT TECHNOLOGY
Includes: Architecture; User Interface;
277
80.04
79.39
89.17
Platforms; Reporting;
Table 1 – Holistic comparison of Infor, Oracle and SAP
As we can see in the comparison chart run simulation there are different areas in which INFOR
VISUAL excels.
7. CASE STUDY
7.1 CASE1
About the company:
J&E Manufacturing Company is a contract manufacturer of precision metal components. The
company has five locations throughout the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area and western
Wisconsin, with a combined area of more than 150,000 square feet. J&E’s extensive range of inhouse capabilities includes sheet metal fabrication, stamping, welding, CNC turning, CNC
milling, powder coating, screen printing, and assembly. The company also maintains an
engineering staff and a tool & dies department.
Challenges
Reduce workload and errors inherent in a custom manufacturing environment where lead times
are short, the quantity and variety of different parts to be processed are many, and new orders are
constantly being added with little notice. Improve visibility of workload and due dates. Gain the
ability to better manage inventory.
Benefits
Infor Visual
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21. • Reduced missed ship dates due to overlooked or late work orders thanks to the automatic
creation
of
work
orders
and
materials
requirements
in
Infor’s
VISUAL
scheduling solution.
• Required fewer people to schedule production and order materials.
• Improved on-time delivery and productivity.
• Decreased the amount of on-hand inventory required due to the system’s ability to calculate
material requirements and specify when they are needed.
Why they chose Infor Visual instead of SAP and Oracle?
• The Infor Visual process flow integrator (PFI) has put an automatic process in place to send a
full email check list to the customer that they then sign off as correct. This has, estimates Calder,
halved the number of order-taking errors. The same would take enormous financials from SAP
and Oracle
• “Infor has clearly invested heavily in the ION [Intelligent Open Network middleware] strategy
opens up a huge array of improvement opportunities," "For us, in the future, ION will become a
key part of the business case justification because, if we want new functionality, we won’t have
to pay for modification or integration work to be done.”
• Infor did not lock the small businesses in the SAP or oracle ecosystem where dependency on
one and monopoly proved to be dangerous.
7.2 CASE 2: Failure of INFOR VISUAL
Customer Accuses Infor of Betrayal in Software Lawsuit
An Infor customer is alleging the ERP (enterprise resource planning) vendor betrayed a longstanding trust between the companies in order to sell it software that utterly failed to perform as
promised. Medical device maker Paragon Medical is a longtime user of Visual ERP software,
which Infor acquired some years ago, according to a lawsuit Paragon filed last week in U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. In late 2009 and 2010, Paragon began looking
for a document management system, the suit states. The company told each potential provider
Infor Visual
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22. that the system would have to comply with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines
Paragon was subject to, according to the suit.
The software had to be able to work with Microsoft Visio files and make it possible for a
Paragon watermark to be placed on documents "as part of Paragon's FDA-compliant control
procedures," the suit adds. At the same time, Paragon happened to be discussing an upgrade of
its Visual system with Infor, but hadn't considered the company to be a potential vendor for its
document management needs. Infor caught wind that Paragon was in the market for such a
system, and presented its PLM8 software as an option, according to the suit. Paragon relayed its
requirements to Infor and was assured by the vendor's salespeople that they could be met, it adds.
Infor and Paragon subsequently inked a deal for PLM8.
"Due to the parties' long-standing relationship, Paragon trusted Infor," the suit states. "Paragon
would not have agreed to license PLM8 from Infor without these representations."But as it
turned out, "PLM8 is not document management software," and after the deal was signed an
Infor representative said as much, Paragon attorneys wrote.
PLM8, which is also listed as Infor10 PLM Discrete on Infor's website, is described as product
lifecycle management software aimed at companies that manufacture complex goods. Among
other capabilities, it includes a central data repository for "capturing, sharing, managing,
tracking, and storing documents, tasks, and product information," the site states. However, after a
number of requests from Paragon, Infor could not provide any customer references or cite any
instances where PLM8 was being used solely for document management, according to the suit.
Paragon "could not even view its documents" in the system, it adds. Infor created a patch that
converted Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents into PDF format, which made them readable.
However, this fix "added multiple steps for viewing documents, which makes its use within
Paragon's business structure -- that requires multiple individuals to review, potentially modify,
approve and execute most documents -- totally impracticable."Paragon has also had consistent
difficulties printing documents through PLM8, despite "attempted cures" by Infor, it adds. One
of those involved embedding Oracle software into the PLM8 code, according to the suit.
Infor Visual
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23. "Instead of fixing PLM8 to make it print reliably, Infor's recommended solution is for Paragon to
change its business practices," it adds. "According to Infor, Paragon needs to use few colors and
few charts in its documents, create shorter documents generally and print documents less
frequently."Finally, PLM8 "cannot, in any regard, work with Visio files," the suit claims.Paragon
never would have licensed the "virtually useless" software if it had known of its limitations, it
adds.The company is suing Infor for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, fraud and negligence.
It is demanding Infor return fees it paid for related software licenses and services, as well as
punitive damages.
8. RECOMMENDATIONS:

Although overall performance wise INFOR visual scored less, when the cost along with
overall implementation time is considered INFOR trumps SAP for small and medium
enterprise business thus, INFOR VISUAL should focus on SME’s and become efficient in
various sectors of SME’s. The added advantage is that the SME sectors have less ERP
players compared to large enterprise players.

Strength of INFOR lies in Quality management where it beats even the big player SAP , thus
instead of trying to gain overall strength INFOR must focus on improving Quality
management related process and target and gain market share in enterprises which
specifically require solution on quality management. However, weakness lays in process
manufacturing management thus a serious outlook or perhaps resurrecting and BPR is needed
in this area, this would be priority 2 as it is important to gain market share to gain reputation
thus business. Therefore priority one would be to exploit its strength and priority two would
be to restructure the weakness.

According to PC world magazine the top 10 world’s biggest failures have been due to poor
timeline planning where even the big players like Oracle and SAP have failed. Coincidently
INFOR VISUAL’s strength has been its timeline efficiency. With this strength and priority
one dealt with INFOR can start capturing beyond the SME business and challenge the big
players.

Infor moved their flagship SyteLine product to the cloud in October of 2010. Of their 70,000
customers, mostly manufacturers, 800 have put some of their solutions in the cloud. Infor
takes pride in the flexibility of their .NET architecture and their ability to serve mixed-mode
Infor Visual
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24. manufacturers. In future releases, Infor plans to expand multi-site capabilities, and expand
their mobile applications with INFOR VISUAL as one of them. Since the cloud ERP is still
in its very initial stages all players including the big one’s have a leveled advantage. INFOR
must move quickly to leverage this and upgrade their existing customers so in order to gain
reputation thus customers.
Infor Visual
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25. 9. REFERENCES
1. Computer Weekly website
2. ERP Evaluation company resources
3. PC world http://www.pcworld.com/article/246647/10_biggest_erp_software_failures_of_2011.html
4. PC World -http://www.pcworld.com/article/237746/article.html
5. http://go.infor.com/visual/functional/manufacturing/
6. http://go.infor.com/visual/functional/production_scheduling/
7. http://www.infor.com/
8. http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Infor-Global-Reviews-E15375.htm
9. http://www.infor.com/product_summary/erp/visual/
10. http://www.clresearch.com/research/detail.cfm?guid=E07BBB4E-3048-79ED-996AA6F6D1242D1F
11. http://www.visualnuggets.com/visual_nuggets/odds-ends/
12. http://www.infor.com/customers/inforerp/
Infor Visual
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