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Infor specialises in industry-specific cloud software solutions to help industrial manufacturing and distribution customers in the Middle East automate and simplify complex systems and prepare for the future.
At Gitex Global, which ended in Dubai on Friday, the company demonstrated its industry-specific cloud software solutions to help industrial manufacturing and distribution customers in the Middle East automate and simplify complex systems and prepare for the future. Infor also highlighted industry expertise and its smart, pre-configured cloud solutions, which feature built-in industry functionality, to enable industrial manufacturing and distribution customers to simplify complexity, transform business processes, accelerate time to value and put their end users at the centre of the experience.
Khaleej Times spoke with Kerry Koutsikos, Vice-President and General Manager (GM), Infor Middle East & Africa.
Edited excerpts from the interview:
Tell us about the challenges organisations face as they move to the cloud.
Organisations often experience challenges when they think of cloud – and wider business transformation projects – as mere information technology (IT) projects. These projects are transformative and need to be treated as such: Cloud is central to transformation, and so the vision and strategy should be communicated effectively from the top executives to everyone in the organisation. Every member of the team should understand what they are doing and why, and what the business outcomes will be.
Organisations must also select their transformation partners carefully. It is a long-term partnership, not a one-off transaction. Partners should be fully aligned with your vision and plans and feel invested in your success.
The human aspect of organisational change is often overlooked but it is arguably the most important part. The most successful organisations have effective change agents in place – managers who focus on overseeing the change and ensuring transformative projects are a success. In this light, it is imperative that companies recognise that change cannot be left to chance and must be proactively managed.
Change agents should understand their business very well, understand why the organisation needs to transform and the impact the transformation is expected to have. Change agents – and indeed the organisation’s management – should be able to articulate and ‘sell’ the transformation plan to all other team members to ensure everyone is on board and invested in the change. This will help fuel a successful transformation.
Digital transformation is about taking a comprehensive analysis of your organisation and understanding what you want to achieve, followed by a journey of continual innovation. By embracing powerful cloud-based software and a culture of continuous innovation, organisations can turn many of their current challenges into advantages, bringing simplicity where there was complexity, gathering and using data to maximum effect, and enhancing their ability to work in tandem with suppliers and partners.
How do the customer needs fit into digital transformation projects?
Organisations should always focus on what their customers want, but they should also look ahead and consider what the customer might want and need in the future. Standing still is not an option. This is exactly why effective transformation is so important.
By automating processes in a cloud environment, organisations can gain the agility and insights they need to give them a better understanding of their business and their customers, which can in turn enable them to tap new commercial opportunities. It also helps organisations to increase their efficiency, which means they can allocate resources to where they are most needed – including offering stellar customer service.
What do you see as the key disruptive technologies in the next two-three years?
Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will continue to be disruptive technologies. Increasingly we will see companies using ML and AI solutions to detect change and anomalies within their organisation and use this to quickly take corrective measures.
AI and ML have the capability to learn how your business operates, to learn how everything looks when things are going right, and therefore notice and raise the alarm when something unusual and potentially detrimental to the business, is taking place.
For example, as part of financial software, AI could spot a suspicious transaction, while in a supply chain it could notice when there is a hold-up or a problem brewing in the chain. This type of solution will become increasingly important as organisations adapt to the more challenging global economic outlook.
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