IFS Announces Significant Ease-of-Use Enhancements at IFS World Conference 2015

Summary
The IFS World Conference was held in Boston in the beginning of May. It was the best-attended customer event for IFS yet, attracting a strong international representation from the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The announcement that IFS Applications now has over one million users prompted widespread applause. The company also announced the release of IFS Applications 9 at the event.

Business Agility
The keynote address by Alastair Sorbie, IFS's CEO, focused on business agility - a key value proposition for the company's popular software. Mr. Sorbie made the case for flexibility using the automotive industry as an analogy. The basic design of an automobile - with a gasoline engine, steel frame, driver, and stable set of suppliers - has been in place for more than a hundred years. But, several concurrent trends impact this design: steel to carbon fiber materials; fuel alternatives like electricity, hydrogen, and CNG; autonomous driverless cars; IoT-connected cars; and new competitors entering the market.

Most industries today have this type of dynamic business environment to some degree - often fueled by innovation. To respond to change rapidly, the enterprise software used to manage the business must also be agile.

Ease-of-Use Enhancements
The release of IFS Applications 9 provided the key announcement at the conference with improved ease-of-use with IFS Lobby and IFS Streams.

IFS Lobby offers a view of the business that can be customized to fit the respective roles of individual users. Each user sees the information, tasks, and conditions with drill-downs needed to perform his or her job. This user interface (UI) improvement reduces the friction and increases agility with one central screen for the starting point of a person's work. IFS Lobby uses HTML5 and functions as a responsive web browser across platforms for a desktop, tablet, or smartphone. IFS Applications 9 ships with 40 pre-configured IFS Lobbies that can be tailored by a particular user using a drag-and-drop development tool without engaging IT specialists.

IFS Lobby on Desktop and Mobile Screens

Jaco Putter, Manager of Applications & Information and Communication Technology, VBMS stated, "We have built a Lobby for our key positions, and people working with it are happy. They can find their information on one page, and they can zoom in to where the information is detailed."

IFS Streams provides a notification system by posting relevant updates and actions to processes for individual users in one place. This eliminates the need for users to post yellow Post-It notes around their screens to remind them about of tasks or follow-up activities.

Altogether, the new release incorporates over 500 functional enhancements. Other key improvements include:

• A layered application architecture so that customizations are easier to implement and upgrades are simpler to manage
• Embedded CRM with more accessible customer data enabling better customer service
• Enhanced support for a global business with group consolidation and improved support for matrix organizations

Other news announced at the show that complimented the launch of IFS Applications 9 included:

• IFS Managed Cloud, a single-tenant instance of IFS Applications on Microsoft Azure managed by IFS with the customer specifying maintenance and timing of upgrades (this is in addition to the current IaaS on Azure managed by the customer)
• Mobility improvements including automatic calculation of estimated time of arrival using GPS location data and the ability to record videos and edit/mark-up pictures
• Dynamic scheduling in which IFS FSM (Field Service Management) supports crews, prerequisite and co-requisite tasks, resource proficiency, and location awareness to help optimize scheduling
• New versions of IFS Mobile Workforce Management and IFS Service Management with a variety of functional improvements
• The expansion of the IFS Academy Learning Center with new course material and remote training options
• Plans to deliver an update to IFS Applications 9 in 2015 optimized for in-memory database technology

Enterprise Asset Management
In a session on the specific improvements for EAM, IFS executives explained several new functions, including:

• Linear asset lifecycle support
• "Compatible units" provides a software object for a type of asset that can easily be replicated across many like assets
• GIS integration for ESRI with an integration toolbox
• Structured failure management to extend the workflow from failure analysis to corrective action
• Enhanced Dynamic Scheduling Engine (DSE) integration that provides more criteria for ranking priority and assigning resources

Praise from an Early Adopter
Founded in 1894, Spang & Company is a diversified manufacturing company that makes precision soft magnetic components and materials. With headquarters in Pittsburg, the company has plants located globally, including in China. As a long-time IFS user, Spang became an adopter (beta tester) of the new version of IFS Applications. Of the new IFS Applications 9 functions, IFS Lobby gets particular praise from Spang because it helps users react quickly and correctly when something goes wrong. By streamlining access to real-time data and eliminating the need for users to bounce among screens to identify and remediate issues, the company obtained significant improvements in user efficiency.

Conclusion
ERP systems encompass many functions and business processes in the extended enterprise. This can result in a daunting user experience with multiple applications and screens. IFS Lobby helps solve that problem with a user interface matching the person's role – whether it be operations, maintenance, or an executive. ARC believes that this represents a clear market differentiation for IFS Applications 9, one that could provide the company with a competitive advantage.

IFS lacks the market recognition of other, larger ERP suppliers. It has made significant investments in marketing that were evident at the event with excellent graphics, videos, and a purple color scheme (including many IFS people wearing purple ties). Along with the product improvements, these investments have generated growth for the company.

Suppliers in the ERP space must achieve a delicate balance between allocated resources for new client acquisition and for services to help assure successful on-boarding - particularly for global, multi-site clients. The recent partner additions represent a big step in this direction for IFS. These include Accenture, with an expertise center in the Nordic region; Deloitte Consulting for South Korean clients; and L&T Infotech, with its global reach.

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Keywords: IFS World Conference, ERP, EAM, Boston, IFS Applications 9, ARC Advisory Group.