IFS puts digital transformation and solutions in the spotlight at 2016 World Conference

By Nisthar Cassim

Sweden-based global enterprise applications company, IFS, last week reinforced the relevance of organisations pursuing digital transformation as a strategy for future success with a host of innovative solutions.

The prowess of IFS and its own success in helping companies in this journey came under spotlight at the global giant’s once-in-18-months Global Conference held last week in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Renowned for developing and delivering enterprise software for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and Enterprise Service Management (ESM), IFS has expanded to serve over one million users globally via a growing customer base of over 2,400. For IFS, Sri Lanka is important as it the base for around 30% of its 2,800 employees powering the Global Support Centre as well as a major part of the Research and Development arm IFS Labs. 

At the three-day World Conference 2016, IFS launched its latest Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solution called IFS IoT Business Connector to help customers successfully drive digital transformation within their organisations as well as the new version of IFS Enterprise Operational Intelligence (EOI). The latter includes new features including capabilities for adding custom visualisation, plug and play integration with IFS Applications and integration with the newly launched IFS IoT Business Connector. 

A new product estimation solution was also launched which enables users of IFS Applications to calculate bid prices quickly and accurately via collaboration between the field sales team and the back office support team. The World Conference 2016 also saw the unveiling of new and enhanced version of IFS Mobile Workforce Management.

IFS World Conference 2016 drew a record 1,200 participants from 50 countries including Sri Lanka. The sessions over the three days featured 164 speakers. The previous global gathering was in Boston in May last year.

IFS CEO Alastair Sorbie said the event was an excellent platform to share the vision and efforts of the IFS towards helping customers in their digital transformation strategy. 

In his keynote focusing on the challenge faced by firms in taking control of infinite possibilities in a chaotic business world, Sorbie said “simple incremental changes implemented now can have profound changes on businesses” and if businesses get involved with this transformation early on, some of the rewards come early in the process. “IFS is very keen to work with customers on that,” the CEO added. 

He recalled that IFS started talking about the Internet of Things (IoT) in Barcelona back in 2013. “We see a lot of interest in this and would love to have more customers talking to us about it,” Sorbie said ahead of the launch of the IFS IOT Business Connector at the World Conference 2016. “IFS IoT Business Connector will allow you to connect IoT device via the internet to IFS Applications,” he added.

IFS a hidden gem 

in the industry 

Quoting surveys the CEO also told the World Conference attendees that 87% of customers would recommend IFS over any other ERP package. IFS, in 2015 was named for the third consecutive year as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Single-Instance ERP for Product Centric Midmarket Companies.

The CEO of IFS, which is now owned by EQT, a private equity firm with an industrial approach since late last year, said going forward IFS will invest considerably in three priority areas. 

One was mobility as a digital transformation catalyst across all IFS’ key areas. Secondly on Field Service Management following recent acquisitions of two firms and seeing huge growth opportunity. Thirdly on further globalisation of IFS operations.

Sorbie said that EQT noted IFS was “something of a hidden gem in the industry.””We want to get awareness up and we’ve started to do that. We’ve invested in branded sports,” the CEO said referring to IFS’entry 18 months ago in to the Formula 1, watched by over 400 million people, by becoming a principal partner of the Sauber F1 Team. 

Real business value will be in Industrial IoT

Ben Salama, Managing Director, Accenture Digital, one of the IFS World Conference 2016 Diamond Sponsors, said Gartner identified IoT as the most hyped technology in 2015. 

“We believe that the real business value will be in the Industrial IoT estimated to grow to $ 10 trillion in the future. The World Economic Forum identified potentially huge value in the area – but unlock that value in a complex ecosystem is not simple. Many customers are still experimenting to understand how they can create the end-to-end value chains needed. Unlocking existing data is still complex,” he said. 

It was pointed out that asset optimisation is the key driver of such great interest. “How do you run your assets longer and deal with breakdowns? Constant optimisations and reductions. It’s also around driving new revenue and interactions with customers. If you think about your ability to connect to your products and learn how customers are using them in real time – that’s incredibly powerful,” Salama told the IFS World Conference in Gothenburg.

IDC Group Vice President Global Research Bob Parker said companies are investing in IoT as a way to pursue three main business objectives. Quoting IDC Buyer Behaviour Report, he said key objectives include lower operational costs, improve business processing efficiency and operation optimisation and control, IT optimisation and modernisation, better supply chain management and logistics, and better customer service and support.

IFS’ move towards evergreen business applications

IFS Chief Technology Officer Dan Matthews shared some key insights to the success of IFS Applications 9 which was launched last year. He said IFS Applications 9 kick-started IFS’ move towards evergreen business applications – constantly updated business applications with near to zero effort from customer. “That’s why we shifted to configuration from customisation. That’s why we built a layered architecture – so we could update the underlying architecture without impacting the extensions layers,” he said.

IFS also moved from service packs every 12 to 18 months, and patches in between to quarterly updates adding that customers who apply updates regularly need not take patches anymore. 

Highlighting a successful case study on IFS Applications 9, Matthews said SAAB had a heavily customised install with 242 customisations and 48 integrations. “With IFS 9, that went down to 106 customisations and 44 integrations. SAAB has taken two updates – updates 1 and 2. Pre-9, it would have been $90,000, but now it’s 80% less. We are reducing the obstacles to the evergreen approach,” the IFS CTO pointed out.

“Supporting global businesses is core to IFS. We still need country-specific extensions, particularly where local legislation is changing fast. We’re taking those extensions and merging them into one global extension. This is making it possible to take global updates in one extension. It makes evergreen within the reach of global businesses,” Matthews told the IFS  World Conference 2016.

Founded in 1983, IFS brings customers in targeted sectors closer to their business, helps them be more agile and prepare for what’s next in their industry. Its efforts are powered by 2,800 employees in a network of local offices and through a growing ecosystem of over 240 partners.

It offers applications that enable companies to respond quickly to market changes and use resources in a more agile way to achieve better business performance and competitive advantages. According to IFS, its products are known for being user friendly, modular in their design and flexible enough to support the customers in their way of working according to their established processes.

With IFS Applications and powerful service management and mobile functionality, IFS has pioneered component-based service management and ERP software. IFS Enterprise Service Management in the meantime is a leader in field service management, mobile workforce management, reverse logistics and more. Its business philosophy and architecture provide solutions that are easier to implement, run, and upgrade. IFS Applications business software provides increased ERP functionality, including CRM, SCM, PLM, EOI, enterprise asset management, and MRO capabilities.