Charles Phillips and What He Achieved So Far at Infor

Business

Charles Phillips is a man with a vision. He developed his vision as a young boy, living on military bases. He knew then that he wanted to be involved in technology, and that is a dream he followed throughout his career. And it has been a very interesting career, one in which he has set himself apart as a true leader. His career now spans many years and many different companies, and includes the U.S. Military, Wall Street, and various tech companies. Where he really made his mark, however, was as President of Oracle. For Charles Phillips Oracle wasn’t the pinnacle of his success, but rather a stepping stone to his next career – CEO of Infor.

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Charles Phillips and Infor

At Infor, Phillips become a CEO for the first time in his impressive career. And it seemed that he started exactly where he left off at Oracle. Within just a few months of starting, he acquired Lawson Software for the sum of $2 billion. His acquisition strategies are what enabled Oracle to experience a 300% growth during his time as President, and he clearly wants to repeat this with Infor. By acquiring Lawson Software, he was able to add human resources and health care to the industry portfolio of Info. But what makes it different is that he doesn’t just focus on health care as a blanket industry. Rather, he pushes for products that serve niche markets within the industries. For instance, he has developed a software solution specifically designed for hospitals.

Since he started as Infor’s CEO, he has also been able to hire some 1,500 new members of staff. He has completely revamped the executive management team, hiring some high profile players, some who came directly from Oracle. He also moved the headquarters of Infor from Georgia to New York City, where he shares a single table with his management team. Plus, he has been able to create 70 new Infor products, leading to 2,500 new customers. These include Heineken and Ferrari. It is no surprise, therefore, that Infor is now at a really new level of playing field.

In fact, Infor seems to have found the leader of its dreams. Phillips has taken an aggressive acquisitions approach, with one of his latest acquisitions being GT Nexus, a true global player. GT Nexus is the world’s largest cloud-based software company. Today, Infor has some 70,000 individual companies. They have a presence in 194 countries the world over, and enjoy a revenue in excess of 43 billion per year. Clearly, with Phillips leading the way, Infor is really moving ahead. Now third largest of its kind, after Oracle and SAP, some believe it may soon grow to even overtake these two. Clearly, Charles Phillips aims to make Infor the leading software solutions company, and when he has a vision, he never stops until he actually gets it. Infor certainly is the company to watch at present, for some with anticipation and for others with real fear.

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The Infor On Premise v SaaS Revenue Tipping Point for 2016 Is Now Set

Business

According to Charles Phillips Infor CEO and wife Karen Phillips, who may not be an Infor employee but always pays attention to her husband, there is going to be a tipping point between SaaS and on premise revenue in 2016. After the release of very strong second quarter numbers, the revenue of the company stood at $708.4 million. This is the highest it has been since Phillips took over the company.

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There has been revenue growth across every element of the Infor company, including consultancy, maintenance, and software. They have also attracted 628 new clients. This includes a 10 year SaaS deal for the City of Gold Coast, a Queensland, Australia company. That contract alone is worth $30 million. Here, Infor will replace 42 systems, some of which more than 25 years old, while also providing revenue functions, property management, and customer service.

For Phillips, clients like this one demonstrate that Infor is doing something that Oracle and SAP, its only real remaining competitors, aren’t doing: pushing for SaaS. There has been double digit growth in SaaS for Oracle, and he believes that the split between SaaS and on premise software will be larger than 50% by 2017, much sooner than expected by both Infor and the competition.

Naturally, making these types of predictions is always a bit of a gamble. You simply don’t know what people will want or need. That said, Infor doesn’t want to sell infrastructure, which means their entire focus is on SaaS.

So what does this all mean? It means that Infor is doing things with a difference. And these differences are often very daring. For instance:

  • Instead of developing its own cloud, Infor uses Amazon Web Services. According to Phillips, there is no point reinventing something that is already out there and that works perfectly.
  • They offer almost all their services on the cloud, which means customers don’t have to pay expensive licenses, have lengthy downtime, and more.
  • They don’t focus on huge industries. Where companies like Oracle and SAP develop products for the automotive industry as a whole, Infor develops it specifically for Ferrari. And where the competition focuses on the hospitality and catering industry as a whole, Infor goes for Heineken and bakers. The list is endless and demonstrates that their goal is micro-verticals.
  • Where most tech companies move to Silicon Valley in California, Infor moved to Silicon Alley in New York. Why? Because that is where the customers are, where staff want to live, and where designers and other tech talents can be found. Designers including fashion designers, by the way (another Infor micro vertical).

Seeing all the things that the company does differently, and how well those strategies are working, it seems logical to assume that Phillips’ prediction of SaaS tipping over on premise customers will also be true. Infor is certainly pushing for it, wanting to offer their clients something convenient and affordable, yet of the highest possible quality.

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