Infor delivers integrated performance management for enhanced decision-making

Infor recently announced Infor PM 10, an integrated suite of Performance Management (PM) software that brings together business process applications from Extensity MPC and analytics from Systems Union MIS, to provide a complete, closed-loop offering that can be used to improve operational and financial performance.

Infor PM 10 demonstrates Infor`s commitment to enrich, extend and evolve its portfolio of software to deliver greater value to customers.

Infor PM 10 provides customers with a foundation to quickly integrate, analyse, format, and deliver answers to questions about their business performance.

With Infor PM 10, users can seamlessly navigate their essential business processes from strategy management, planning and budgeting, to financial reporting, financial consolidation and forecasting. Customers can also deploy components from the Infor PM 10 suite on a standalone basis to address specific business needs.

"In today`s business environment, it`s increasingly difficult for organisations to process, analyse and take action on the avalanche of data that is generated from both inside and outside the enterprise," says Christina McKeon, director of product marketing for Infor Performance Management solutions.

"Infor PM 10 is an integrated suite of software that enables businesses to make better decisions faster, based on accurate and up-to-date data located in a single database. The release of Infor PM 10 demonstrates Infor`s commitment to Performance Management and the value we are delivering to customers."

Infor PM 10 comprises business process applications (BPAs) for finance and other departments and business specific analytics (BSAs) that help companies address role-specific line-of-business issues.

Solutions in Infor PM 10 include:

* Infor PM planning and budgeting - BPA that allows users to identify trends that affect performance, test for multiple business scenarios and reduce budget cycle times.
* Infor PM financial consolidation - BPA that enables companies to streamline and control the entire process of consolidating financial data from departments and global subsidiaries.
* Infor PM strategic management - BPA that links strategic plans to operational plans, performance measures and people, monitoring how the actions of business units and individuals are contributing to strategic goals.
* Infor PM forecasting - BPA that allows organisations to gather and analyse detailed sales and pipeline information, and allows users to create and compare forecasts based on objective benchmarks from past performance, product trends and seasonal patterns.
* Infor PM OLAP - BSA that provides a platform for planning, reporting and analysis through a high-performance, multidimensional database.
* Infor PM application studio - BSA that enables organisations to gather information and share knowledge throughout the enterprise via Web reports, pulling from databases and semi-structured data sources like e-mail and word processing documents.
* Infor PM office plus - BSA that gives users a common, familiar Microsoft Excel interface for analysing, accessing and manipulating data and reports, eliminating the drawbacks of individual spreadsheets.

Infor PM 10 features a common "look and feel" and new enhancements across the suite of solutions that can be used by an organisation to increase transparency, system performance and process visibility. For example, transparency is improved through data and user activity reports that provide a clear audit trail for each reported number, including a line of sight to the original source of the information.

Infor PM 10 also makes it easier and faster to integrate information, allowing users to load data directly from tables in source systems or in data warehouses. Managers can automatically see the status of any business process, enabling them to identify how individual operating units are impacting the overall process.

Infor is recognised as the leading PM solutions provider, enabling companies to monitor, measure and manage their businesses with greater efficiency and accuracy. Ventana Research recently ranked Infor as the top overall performance management vendor for the fourth consecutive time.

"Ventana Research evaluates technology that enables performance management based on three phases (called "align", "optimise" and "understand") that are the cornerstone of our methodology to help organisations examine choices for their specific technology needs," says Mark Smith, CEO and EVP of Research at Ventana Research.

"As a leader in performance management, Infor has introduced many new capabilities and brings new levels of integration and support for meeting simple and sophisticated business and user requirements."

Infor PM 10 supports Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, including the Vista operating system and Office 2007. Infor`s solutions are distributed locally and throughout sub-Saharan Africa by Softworx, an EOH company.