Investments in AI Pay Off for Infor’s WFM

I am happy to share some insights on Infor drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated Infor and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.

Infor ranked 11th in this Value Index evaluation. Its best scores were in the TCO/ROI and Validation categories due to the solid business case collateral and customer references it provided. However, Infor Workforce Management did not rate well in Usability and we suspect this will be a major area of emphasis moving forward due to Infor’s overall investment.

Infor’s investment in artificial intelligence (AI) is evidenced in its Infor Coleman technology, which can forecast demand in 15-minute increments across each day of the week, then match the availability and skills of employees to demand to yield optimal scheduling. It also uses AI for predictive team fitting. Its labor forecasting and budgeting features include big data capabilities and tools to project short- and long-term labor workloads. It has improved its analytics through the acquisition of BIRST.

Infor scored in the bottom third in the Capability category because the product offers limited task management functionality and is not yet fully functional on a tablet. Its capabilities could be improved in the technology trend support area of chatbots and robotic process automation. It also could improve its next-generation analytics and mobile technology support. Infor’s product also did not score well in the Usability, where its accessibility could be improved, and Adaptability, where it could improve its level of integration support across the applications and platform.

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of workforce management software in the industry. You can learn more about our Value Index as an effective vendor selection and RFI/RFP tool here. Participating vendors can learn more about how to use the Value Index here.