The first initiative for pre-packaged, portal-based solutions for mid-size companies
With companies now seeking the best way to leverage their IT infrastructure, IFS offers a new answer - packaged solutions that provide less expensive, instant collaboration with customers, partners and suppliers as well as rapid, cost-effective implementation.
IFS Engage is a new initiative that provides midsize companies the packaged software solutions they require to realise a faster return on investment. Through the IFS Engage initiative, IFS offers the only portal-based, packaged solutions that give mid-size companies the ability to better leverage customer and partner interaction. These new packaged solutions provide immediate, real-time access to dynamic data from customers, partners and suppliers as well as from anyone within their enterprise. IFS` packaged solutions help mid-size companies take advantage of new business processes. For these mid-size companies, costly IT projects with high-priced licenses and lots of consulting to support new business processes are too large, complex and expensive.
Bengt Nilsson, IFS President and CEO, commented, "By offering less expensive, packaged solutions in a number of key areas, we are giving mid-size companies the ability to quickly and easily implement Internet-based business solutions and realise the kind of rapid return on investment they are now seeking. Our experience and competence in the mid-size market allowed us to package the solutions that give the quickest payback. Because we understand how new business processes influence mid-size enterprises and their routines, we`ve developed these solutions to be quickly implemented with minimal disruption while, at the same time, providing significant improvements to the routines and business processes."
Bengt Nilsson continued, "When we launched our IFS eVolve program, we offered one of the first programs designed to help companies develop a solid e-business strategy, defining the capabilities they required as well as a plan to implement these functions in a safe, affordable step-by-step way. Now, with IFS Engage, we`re again taking the lead in providing midsize companies with the software and services they require to rapidly and safely extend their enterprise without the high costs and disruptions of the "big bang" types of solutions and implementations better suited to larger companies."
The first packaged solutions available through the IFS Engage initiative include: CRM, Collaborative planning, Vendor-Managed Inventory, Collaborative project management and Sub-contracting. IFS will announce other packaged solutions continuously throughout the year.
IFS Engage - Analyst Quotes
The launch of the IFS Engage initiative and the solutions that are and will be offered within IFS Engage are based on the special characteristics of the mid-market. We believe that mid-size companies often are more risk averse than tier one companies and that they are "late adopters" when it comes to the new business models and business processes made available through new technology and new solutions.
This is because many best-of-breed solutions are too expensive and too complex for a midsize company. These best-of-breed solutions are mainly targeting very large enterprises, for which costly IT projects with high-priced licenses and lots of consulting may still be profitable. Our customers in this segment, however, do not want to go through huge consulting projects, nor can they afford to. They simply do not have available resources to implement and maintain a portfolio of applications. Thus, what are needed are pre-packaged solutions built on solid business knowledge as well as technology that is easy and quick to implement, and that comes at affordable prices so that quick ROI can be achieved.
This view is supported by a number of leading analysts:
Yvonne Genovese, Research Director, Gartner, March 2001 "In 2000 the mid-market was flooded with new and unproven e-business solutions. As mid-market ERP users began to investigate e-business strategies to extend their ERP solutions to the external enterprise environment, enterprises found that confusion reigned due to the large number of products available and the lack of proven, pre-packaged solutions, a key demand of mid-market enterprises.
Primarily a risk averse segment, the mid-market has traditionally thrived on the use of integrated solutions and external advisors to implement and maintain their software solutions. Selecting the right solution for the greatest ROI and the least investment is a major concern to this segment. Through 2004, as e-business matures in the mid-market, vendors will begin to offer integrated solutions and services strategies to assist their clients with selection and implementation of ERP II (extended enterprise) strategies (.8 probability)."
Simon Pollard, The AMR Research Alert on European E-Business, 13 February 2001 "Welcome and engage one of the last bastions of stereotyped market sector that has so far largely escaped the hungry claws of e-business reinvention: the mid-market. Although inhabited by virtually all applications and technologies, the segment has an in-built, almost genetic contradiction. It resides in the difference between the bleeding-edge, latest-trend, must-have hype that is much loved by the software marketer and early adopter minority and is the stark reality of business needs and practicality facing the end-user management."
"Think of e-business as either a delivery mechanism for existing processes or a new channel for upstream and downstream market access. E-business initiatives don`t have to be complex, costly, or all-consuming. Plan that they should be exploited with simplicity as the design criterion. E-business will play a large part in the future unlocking of the mid-market."
"Ignore the hype and think business impact and available resource. There will be more than enough people taking care of the hype on your behalf."
Josh Greenbaum, Principal, Enterprise Applications Consulting "The requirements for mid-market companies have to be seen in the context of their special needs. These companies need robust solutions that nonetheless reflect the requirement to avoid "big bang" implementations in favour of more incremental and cost-effective solutions to their e-business and enterprise software needs. IFS Engage provides a means for mid-market companies to successfully add E-CRM, extended supply chain management, and other key e-business functionality without endangering the bottom line. The component structure of IFS` application suite allows e-business improvements to take place without requiring a complete overhaul of the IT environment. In fact, IFS Engage deliberately makes the best possible use of existing IT assets while supporting essential new functionality. IFS Engage`s "leverage your investment" strategy is exactly what the mid-market needs: strong best of suite functionality that can be implemented quickly and in cost-effective manner. The result is a collaborative enterprise that allows customers, partners, and suppliers to interact via the Web and improve and enhance both the value of their B2B relationship and their B2B technology investments."
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