Infor has set up a dedicated software-as-a-service (SaaS) division to sell a range of enterprise applications, which includes its Epiphany CRM offering, to small-to-medium sized enterprises.
The division, which is due to be unveiled later this year, will undertake direct sales of Infor’s self-hosted SaaS offerings. The packages are undergoing performance testing at the moment and are not currently commercially available under the new delivery model.
But the unit will also manage a network of partners, which is still in the process of been recruited. Deloitte in the Netherlands has already signed up to the scheme, however, as has GSI, which currently hosts the firm’s sales, service and Interactive Advisor packages for the US market.
The move follows Infor’s decision to increase investment in its CRM product line after an apparent defocusing in favour of its flagship enterprise resource planning and supply chain management applications.
Jackie Palmer, the firm’s senior product manager, explained the rationale behind the CRM renaissance: "We went through all of our product lines and looked at where we could really see growth and an increased return - and CRM was one of those high growth areas. Over the next four years, we think it will be a huge growth area, especially in marketing."
She added that this situation had arisen because: "Companies need to react faster and better and more in line with consumers who are expecting more across an explosion of channels, including social media. Consumers are expecting more and technology has been enabled to do more so companies are more in need of CRM systems to address their needs."
New markets
As part of this increased focus, which will also include a boost to CRM sales and marketing staff numbers, the firm has also released version 7.2 of the outbound marketing module of its applications.
The upgrade includes improvements to the interface to make it easier to use as well as an ability to modify and reuse existing campaign software components to form the basis of new ones.
It also incorporates new External Data Access software to enable marketers to plug into internal third party information sources such as prospect data or email databases without having to involve the IT department or know how to write code themselves.
"Our existing customer base has shown a lot of interest so it will help us to grow there as well as take us into new markets," Palmer said. "Opening up data access will allow us to target financial services and retail firms that use a lot of data sources by putting it in the hands of marketers, who currently have to wait weeks or even months for IT to respond or aren’t even using a package to help them."
Infor’s key markets currently include financial services, retail, telcos, consumer products, travel, leisure and hospitality.
In the next few months, however, Infor also intends to revamp its Interactive Advisor product to work not only in an inbound marketing context but also in an outbound one. This means that marketers will be able to send customers promotional emails that include a "wireframe" to dynamically create a web page in the message and change its content in real-time.
"So if you send a customer an email relating to Easter and they open it on the Thursday before, they’d see visual graphics relating to Easter," Palmer explained. "But if they open it on the Monday after, they might see spring flowers. It also takes into account any customer interactions and can present them with different offers based on their last purchase."
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