Probably one of the most famous quotes in marketing comes from Harvard Business School Professor Theodore Levitt: “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”

That, in a nutshell is servitization.  Turning a traditional product offering into a service. This new customer-centric feature becomes a differentiator, adding value, building relationships, preventing commoditization, and adding profits. Data insights, generated from the Internet of Things (IoT) are often at the heart of the new service offering. Sometimes the new offering is used to generate revenue, replace the old product-centric business model, or be a complimentary add-on designed to boost loyalty.

Innovation is a central component of the manufacturing industry. It can take many forms and address many functions. It can be a simple tactic for improving shop floor operations. It can be a concept for a new type of product or service. It can be a revolutionary approach that completely disrupts the way you do business. But all innovations start much the same way: as an idea.

How does innovation fit into your growth strategy?

Manufacturers everywhere have an extremely underutilized employee. This employee is a robust repository of institutional knowledge, facts, and random trivia. However, this employee is full of latent potential that hasn’t yet been tapped, and they are ready to do so much more.

Ok, so maybe this is a quirky metaphor, but—in case it wasn’t clear—this underutilized employee is your organization’s data. And Data could be doing so much more to help your human employees make better decisions.

For many manufacturers, the collected data is sitting in various databases and spreadsheets, waiting to be called upon, sorted, and analyzed to inform decisions across your organization.

Infor is focused on productivity improvements and outcomes-based delivery of projects as the keys to ERP technology success.

To enhance productivity, Infor wants to make it easier for customers to move to its CloudSuite systems, a cloud-based ERP, and wants those systems to be embedded with intelligent ERP technologies such as business analytics, as well as AI, machine learning and robotic process automation (RPA).

"We're constantly looking at ways for our software to bring value to your organization," Infor CEO Kevin Samuelson said during Inforum 2019's opening keynote.

There is interest in intelligent ERP, but some customers and analysts believe it's too early to tell if it will be widely adopted in applications.

Digital transformation is impacting all manufacturing and distribution businesses. No matter how complex their supply chain is, manufacturers must be able to respond faster to change, reduce excess inventory, and cut costs. Most importantly, manufacturers must deliver to customers what's been promised, and on time. To keep up with the pace of change requires an agile and modern ERP solution that is flexible enough to handle both the opportunities and challenges manufacturers face today— and tomorrow.

ICCG has completed more than 1,000 projects and implementations in every facet of enterprise technology. Our managed services go beyond simply solving technical or process problems and challenges. We share insight that you simply won’t find in the product manual.

Our services include: 

• Business Process Consulting Advisory
• Business Systems Evaluation & Selection Advisory
• Enterprise Business Systems Implementations
• Application Managed Services
• Application Development Support
• Cloud & Hosting Support

Work smarter, faster, and better with our ERP solutions – trusted by thousands of customers in hundreds of countries. Purpose built to meet the needs of manufacturers and distributors in a wide variety of industries, these solutions can help you minimize costly customizations and take advantage of continuous innovation.

A panel of experts recently convened to discuss what the coming years hold for manufacturing. They all agree that manufacturing is “enjoying a moment,” and that optimism remains high among manufacturers. Still, there are challenges to overcome and technologies and processes that will be important for manufacturers to keep on the right path. In this paper, we’ll highlight 10 trends and challenges manufacturers need to keep an eye on.

Infor is named as a global competitor global cloud ERP market.

Global Cloud ERP Market report is in-depth study on how the status is for  industry. This report includes a study of marketing and development strategies, along with the product portfolios of the leading companies. It also includes profiles of leading companies and brands that are driving the market with their recent developments, product launches, joint ventures, merges, and accusations. The global Cloud ERP Market report also gives a deep knowledge about market definition, classifications, applications, engagements and market trends while also showing the CAGR figures for the Forecast years 2018-2025. SWOT analysis is used to find the market drivers and restrains.

With digitalization, manufacturers can achieve ROI in two ways: By reducing costs or by increasing revenue. According to, “Manufacturing's next big act: Building an industrial digital ecosystem,” nearly two-thirds of manufacturers expect digital manufacturing technologies, such as increased use of sensors, to help reduce overhead by at least 11%. A very optimistic 23% even hope to see cost savings of more than 30%. Most are basing their projections on the efficiencies gained from automation. In addition, more than half expect to see revenues gains of at least 11% (with 18% expecting revenues to rise more than 30%) over the next 5 years.