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Technology

Infor Global Solution introduces Business Software to Suit SMEs

SME WORLD Bureau
Jun 2010

Indian SMEs are often not well-versed with the technical know-how in the adoption of newer software for enhancing their business. Although the benefits of technical upgradation as a way to improve efficiency and to reduce the cost is not debatable yet enterprises are founding wanting in this area.

The employability of the new techniques to enhance the productivity depends upon various factors. Cost factor is one of them. Most of the SMEs tend to turn towards techniques or equipments that are cheaper but may not be promising in terms of output and quality. Such practices often leave the tech providers in dilemma to provide the kind of solution that not only reduces cost but maximizes output as well. But if both are required at the same time, the price of such techniques, obviously, will go higher.

Large corporate, especially MNCs willing to expand their boundaries to touch the base of industrial pyramid comprising a large chunk of SMEs, often employ technologies which are costly and they justify the higher costs of their products in terms of quality.

Solutions Providers

Software solution is such an area that enables the enterprises to be well-managed and to reduce the cost at the same time. Many of leading companies are using the best solutions that suit their business and enhance their efficiency. Be it customer relations, demand-supply management or financial management, there are umpteen software solution providers.

India has proved its potential in the field of IT across the world. Almost in all the countries, the Indian IT solutions or Indian brains are enhancing the efficiency of the enterprises. Little wonder, Indian IT giants have proved strength across the globe.

Thin Lineage

But almost 85 per cent of the IT-solutions are being exported and only 15 per cent used for the domestic purposes. Which means quantum of employing such techniques within the country is very surprising and teases the brain. The situation is even intense in case of SMEs where 90 per cent of the total Indian workforce is employed in the SMEs sector. Despite significant development in IT-education the software linage of the SMEs is too thin.

Of the many factors, cost is major. SMEs in India often seek cheaper products that could fulfill their needs but such products may not ensure the completeness. Which means to some extant they compromise with quality but not with price.

But there are some companies that provide complete software solutions on affordable prices. Infor Global Solutions is one of them. Infor, having presence in more than 100 countries, provides such solutions. Infor offers a full range of enterprise business software including customer relationship management, enterprise asset management, enterprise resource planning, financial management, human capital management, performance management, product lifecycle management, supplier relationship management, and supply chain management, including business specific inventory management, transportation logistics and warehouse management software. To meet customers' long-term needs, Infor Open SOA provides an evolutionary path to support continuing business and technology innovation.

SMEs Price Sensitive

In an interaction with SME WORLD recently, Lawrence Chan, who heads the Asia Pacific division of Infor, highlights the issues that are related to the adaptation of the software solutions by the SMEs. Chan also agrees with the fact that Indian SMEs are price-sensitive. But he debates the uniqueness and effectiveness of their solutions for Indian SMEs. He says, “Everywhere, not only in India, the SMEs are price sensitive. They always look for cheaper options. But they don't compromise with the quality. Price competition is everywhere. We have presence in more than 100 countries and we felt the same price-war in other countries too. But our software solutions reduce the total cost of the production process and provide better demand-supply management.”

Chan adds, “we are the only software solution providers in the world and our softwares provide complete solution for both manufacturing and distribution. Due to our presence across the globe, the enterprises that are using our solutions are well connected with their clients overseas. They are doing their business in enhanced manner and they are satisfied.”

Changing Demand

But Chan is not worried about the competition from their Indian counterparts. “Almost all the IT-companies in India are back-end solution providers. Also, they often concentrate on the requirement of their foreign clients. They don't address the domestic requirement and potential especially that lies in SMEs segment. However the demand scene is changing gradually and most of the big companies are now focusing the base of pyramid.”

Chan also agrees with the potential that lies in the Indian SMEs segment. “The awareness for IT solutions among the SMEs in India is rising. Rising awareness means huge adaptation of software solutions and hence great business potential,” says Chan.

Infor claims that their solutions are innovative and they are different from others. Souma Das, Regional Vice President and Managing Director, Infor India, also looks confident about the uniqueness of their solutions. “Our strength is providing solutions that handle both the manufacturing as well as distribution. Software is all about the innovation. We always give priority to the research and development. We take the feedback from our clients to improve our solutions. Our presence in more than 100 counties has provided us the kind experience that is different from others,” he says and adds, “most of the IT solution providers in India are providing back office solutions but we only are providing manufacturing and distributions solutions at the same time.”

Acquisitions & Collaborations

Both Chan and Das claim that they are world's largest solution provider of its kind. At the same time both of them agree with the wanting Indian scenario for IT and its adaptation and they see a huge potential in SMEs sector. They seem to adopt the most effective and viable strategies to tap the potential. One such is strategy is acquisition or collaboration.

Acquiring the local popular companies or collaboration with local companies to tap the targeted segment has been viable option for penetration. Chan, in additions to other strategies, also emphasizes on collaboration and acquisitions. He says, “We are partnering with the local leaders for better reach. We have acquired more than 35 companies in the last 7 years and many of them are much known acquisitions and solutions in the industry. In India too we have acquired a Bangalore based IT company. We are eyeing for more now.”

Sharing their goals for next ten years, Das says, “rather than just setting our goals for next ten years we want to grow step-by-step. At present we are focusing on the mid-market at primary stage. We have identified a few areas to penetrate initially like retail & logistics, auto, equipment manufacturing, oil & gas and utilities. Currently we are focusing on mid markets in tier-I cities and then we plan to move to tier-II and next to tier-III cities. Our most of the current clients are form the hospitality, insurance and BPO sector. And, if the economy remains stable, we hope to achieve 30-35 per cent combined annual growth rate (CAGR) ensuring our presence in our preferred segments too.”

Infor also takes pride in their corporate social responsibility. They recently had organized a campaign called 'Customer Connect' to spread the awareness about the IT solutions and their benefits.

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