News
Lawson Software acquired
GGC Software Holdings, Inc., an affiliate of Golden Gate Capital and Infor, has agreed to acquire Lawson Software. Following completion of the transaction, the combined suite of Infor and Lawson will create a unique set of industry-specific applications serving more than 75,000 customers and a global leader in verticals such as manufacturing, health care, distribution, public sector, and hospitality.
“Infor and Lawson will create a rich, integrated enterprise application suite. After the transaction closes, we plan to integrate many of the applications as soon after closing as possible, facilitated by a standards-based approach and the fact that both companies’ applications are already service-enabled. We also plan to innovate and change how customers deploy, use, and upgrade enterprise applications. We have a long list of ideas to improve the customer experience and deliver value through a singular focus on enterprise applications, accelerated investment, and a strong incentive to challenge convention,” said Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor.
Infor and Lawson will also offer richer and deeper functionality in the verticals where the companies have complementary strengths such as healthcare, state and local government, wholesale distribution, fashion, food and beverage, equipment rental and service, and process and discrete manufacturing.
The proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the third calendar quarter of 2011.
Announcing New Storeroom for Infor SX.enterprise
Announcing New Storeroom for Infor SX.enterprise
With Storeroom, you can manage your customers’ indirect material by monitoring the warehouse space they have set up for tool cribs, industrial vending machines, or maintenance repairs and operations inventory. The system associates all invoices, issues, and receipts that you generate for the customer-owned items with that assigned customer or ship-to location or both.
Contact us to learn more about how you can:
• Track customer-owned inventory.
• Track distributor-owned inventory.
• Support bill-on-receipt transactions.
• Support spot buys.
As a winner of the 50 Best Managed Companies, The Master Group joins an elite group of successful Canadian businesses
The Master Group L.P., the largest HVAC-R distributor in Eastern Canada, has been named one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies , a national program sponsored by Deloitte, CIBC, National Post, Journal Les Affaires and Queen’s School of Business.
The Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies awards program recognizes companies operating at the highest levels of business performance. Now in its 17th edition, this year the program has recognized businesses run by management teams who’ve opted for a pace favourable to thriving in an environment punctuated by unprecedented challenges and who’ve set the tone to address the strategic issues of a changing world.
«We are particularly honoured to have ranked in this prestigious line of successful Canadian companies. If our history of continuous and sustainable growth, even in times of economic downturn, is no stranger to this classification, no doubt that it is primarily the result of the company’s overall vision, its strategic direction and planning, of our rigor at the start of each considered action and of our progressive vision in terms of human resources » notes Michel Ringuet, Chief Executive Officer, The Master Group L.P.
« Our latest expansion in the Greater Toronto Area clearly demonstrates the positive results of this equation », he said. « Thoroughly planned, this implementation has been achieved thanks to the perfect synergy of the teams in place, well informed and driven by a single and common objective: excellence. We wish to acknowledge and salute the dedication and professionalism of our employees, the true masters of our success.”
Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies awards program
Established in 1993, Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies is the country’s leading business awards program, recognizing excellence in Canadian-owned and -managed companies with revenues over $10 million. Every year, hundreds of entrepreneurial companies compete for this designation in a rigorous and independent process that evaluates the calibre of their management abilities and practices. The program has continued to raise the profile of Canadian-owned businesses that have:
• outperformed their competitors;
• created thousands of jobs;
• achieved sustainable growth;
• excelled both at home and abroad.
About The Master Group L.P.
The Master Group L.P. has led the air conditioning, refrigeration and heating sectors for almost 60 years now and is the largest independent distributor in Eastern Canada. It employs over 425 dynamic and devoted individuals who serve the industry from over 18 branches and two distribution centres spanning from Ontario to the Maritimes. The Master Group recently acquired three branches in the Toronto and Hamilton markets.
Infor Appoints Charles Phillips as CEO
Outgoing CEO Jim Schaper to Become Chairman of Infor, Leading Business Applications Company Focused on Mid-Sized Companies
ATLANTA, Georgia – Oct 25, 2010
The board of directors of Infor, the leading provider of business applications to mid-sized companies, today announced that it has named Charles Phillips as chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors.
Mr. Phillips has over 20 years of leadership experience in the software industry, most recently as president and director of Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL). At Oracle, Mr. Phillips led the company’s field organization and oversaw revenue growth of nearly 300 percent during his seven-year tenure at the firm. He also played a key role in Oracle’s successful acquisition strategy including specific transactions such as BEA Systems, Hyperion Solutions, and Siebel Systems.
“Infor has quietly built the third largest enterprise applications company in the world, with 59 percent compound annual revenue growth over the last seven years, higher margins than eight of the top 10 application companies, and a track record of leading innovation,” said Mr. Phillips. “With over 70,000 customers in 125 countries, including divisions of large corporations, Infor is poised for growth as the next generation platform ships in January.” Mr. Phillips continued: “The company’s laser focus on understanding and automating complex business processes, along with its commitment to constant innovation, has served customers well. I am eager to lead this proven team of over 8,000 employees through its next phase of growth. In a consolidating industry, Infor has proven acquisition expertise, having successfully integrated over 70 companies.”
Jim Schaper, Infor’s current chairman and CEO, will remain chairman of the Company, and continue to play a critical role in the Company’s strategic development. Mr. Schaper also will serve as a senior operating partner at Golden Gate Capital, Infor’s primary shareholder.
“Charles Phillips is a proven executive who brings Infor the diverse skill set, direct industry experience, and track record of performance necessary to lead the Company to continued growth,” said Mr. Schaper. “He is a true visionary in the technology industry and has a unique perspective drawn from his experience at one of our leading industry peers, in addition to his years on Wall Street.”
David Dominik, managing director of Golden Gate Capital, said, “Jim Schaper has been instrumental in growing Infor to a global company with nearly $2 billion in annual revenues today. We welcome Charles’ tremendous management experience at a leading public global technology company and look forward to supporting him as Infor accelerates its growth initiatives and unveils new products and services.”
Mr. Phillips joins Infor at a key inflection point in the company’s trajectory, with the next generation of applications shipping in January. Infor ION will provide common workflow, business process monitoring and management across Infor applications, whether on premise or in the cloud. In addition, the Company will ship its applications with a common user interface, portal, business intelligence tools, and collaboration technologies to incorporate services from all of its major product lines.
Prior to joining Oracle, Mr. Phillips was a managing director at Morgan Stanley covering the software sector. He also served as a captain in the United States Marine Corps before starting his Wall Street career.
About Infor
Infor is the largest provider of business applications to mid-sized companies, with over 8,000 employees serving over 70,000 customers in 125 countries. Infor focuses on two core beliefs: the importance of constant innovation and the value of laser focus on its customers. Infor delivers software that is simple to buy, easy to deploy, and convenient to manage.
Infor’s focus on automating key business processes and integrating over 70 acquisitions of proven and widely deployed application products has served its customers well. These customers include:
• The top 10 aerospace companies
• Over 450 major apparel and footwear companies
• 14 of the world’s top 25 automotive suppliers
• Nine of the top 10 high tech companies
• More than 4,500 machinery manufacturers
• 21 of the top 35 life sciences companies
• Nearly half of the top 100 electrical distributors
• 1,000 financial services companies
• 2,000 municipalities and government agencies
• 22 of the top 50 global retailers
• Seven of the top 10 brewers
Wholesale trade in Canada, August 2010
Wholesale trade in Canada, August 2010
Wholesale sales posted their largest increase since January 2010, rising 1.2% to $44.5 billion in August. Higher sales in the machinery, equipment and supplies subsector were a major contributor to this growth. In volume terms, wholesale sales were up 0.9% in August. Increases were reported in all subsectors, except for the food, beverages, and tobacco products subsector.
The largest increase in dollar terms came in the machinery, equipment and supplies sub-sector, which climbed 3.2% to $9.4 billion in August. This was the subsector’s highest level since December 2008. All four component industries that comprise this subsector increased, with the construction, forestry, mining, and industrial machinery, equipment and supplies industry (+4.7%) reporting the largest gain.
The miscellaneous subsector, which includes agricultural supplies, non-agricultural chemicals, paper products, and recycled materials industries, rose 3.4% in August, up for a third consecutive month. This gain was largely attributable to increases in the other miscellaneous (+5.9%), and the agricultural supplies (+3.4%) industries.
Wholesale sales up in most provinces
Wholesale sales were up in seven provinces in August, with Ontario and Alberta posting the largest increases in dollar terms. The largest contributor to the increase was Ontario, where sales rose 1.5% in August following a 0.3% decline in July. This was the province’s strongest month-over-month gain since November 2009. In Alberta, wholesale sales grew by 2.2%, helped by higher sales in the machinery, equipment and supplies subsector. This was the province’s 9th increase in 10 months. Sales in Manitoba rose 3.8% in August, increasing for the third consecutive month. Higher sales in the miscellaneous subsector contributed to this growth. Wholesale sales in Quebec remained unchanged following a 1.0% decline in July.
Inventories decline for the first time in five months
Wholesale trade inventories fell 0.3% to $52.9 billion in August, their first decrease in five months. Overall, 11 of the 25 wholesale trade industries reported lower inventory levels.
Wholesalers of motor vehicles, metal service centres, and the textile, clothing and footwear industries reported the biggest inventory decreases in dollar terms. The largest inventory increases in dollar terms came in the construction, forestry, mining, and industrial machinery, equipment and supplies, and the other miscellaneous industries. The decline in inventories, combined with the increase in sales, translated into a decrease in the inventory-to-sales ratio from 1.21 in July to 1.19 in August.
The inventory-to-sales ratio is a measure of the time in months required to exhaust inventories if sales were to remain at their current level.
Infor and Microsoft Alliance
Infor Selects Microsoft as Preferred Technology and Tools Provider for Infor Software Solutions
ATLANTA - June 23, 2010 – Infor, the leading provider of business software for mid-market companies, today announced that it will closely align its key business applications with a wide range of complementary Microsoft products, forming software solutions that are easier for mid-market companies to deploy and use.
- Microsoft SharePoint® 2010 acting as the foundation for portal based, unified interfaces for applicable Infor applications.
- Microsoft Silverlight® for dynamic graphical interface elements.
- Microsoft Reporting Services as a part of the foundation for the Infor.
- Business Intelligence strategy across its portfolio.
- Microsoft Single Sign-On service for storage and mapping of credentials across applicable Infor applications.
- Microsoft Windows Server® as the preferred on-premise operating system
For full presse release from Infor: http://www.infor.com/company/news/pressroom/pressreleases/infor-microsoft/
Infor ION
With Infor ION, Infor’s new suite of interoperability and management services. Infor ION is designed to make it easier for you to integrate and manage your data, no matter where the data resides and no matter what application created it. Infor ION gives you the type of advanced interoperability and management tools that used to be available only for the biggest corporations.
With Infor ION, you get the tools you need to seamlessly and securely bridge your on-premise and cloud applications, so you can more quickly and easily:
- Connect—Get your applications to operate together easily, so you can seamlessly execute business processes; quickly bring new partners and customers onboard; and reuse business functionality so you realize quick ROI.
- Organize—Take control of your business processes to achieve compliance and operational excellence.
- Analyze—Make sure that everyone gets the same solid data, so they can make better decisions—faster.
- Collaborate—Maintain control and communication across your entire operation.
Derusha Supply selects SX.enterprise
Located in Stanstead (Quebec), Derusha, a provider of products, tools and equipment for the stone trade since 1978 that help companies transform natural stone into finished products, has selected the ERP SX.enterprise software developed by Infor Global Solutions and marketed, implemented and supported by Group Laurier, a founding partner of Distributor’s EDGE.
Derusha is a one-stop shop for North America for the monument, dimensional stone, counter top, masonry, sign & glass, construction industries across North America. For over three decades, the family-owned business has proven its ability to maintain sales growth through strategic decisions, a dedicated team of employees providing exceptional services and superior quality product offerings. In the recent years, Derusha Supply created its own Diamond product manufacturing facility. Derusha will use the SX.enterprise software solution to manage their entire supply chain.
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