HANDLE ANYTHING. Infor FMS SunSystems Enterprise SUNSYSTEMS ENTERPRISE IS NOW AVAILABLE INFOR ANNOUNCES PLAN TO HIRE 400 ENGINEERS

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1 EMEA LAUNCH LONDON 12 APRIL, 2011 Infor FMS SunSystems Enterprise BARBICAN INSURANCE IMPLEMENTS SUNSYSTEMS IN FOUR WEEKS LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL DRIVES EFFICIENCY WITH INFOR EXPENSE MANAGEMENT ASTER GROUP HOUSES BETTER FINANCE PROCESSES WITH SUNSYSTEMS HANDLE ANYTHING SUNSYSTEMS ENTERPRISE IS NOW AVAILABLE INFOR ANNOUNCES PLAN TO HIRE 400 ENGINEERS

2 SUNSYSTEMS ENTERPRISE IS NOW AVAILABLE INFOR FMS SUNSYSTEMS ENTERPRISE DELIVERS NEW USER EXPERIENCE, REAL-TIME, IN-CONTEXT OPERATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND COLLABORATION Infor FMS SunSystems Enterprise features superior usability, greater reporting capabilities and smart integration to additional application products. FMS SunSystems Enterprise provides a single solution to help financial managers access information quickly, manage internal change to their business, remain compliant with multiple and changing regulatory environments, and grow globally in any market. NEWS POINTS Infor FMS SunSystems Enterprise is the next generation of financial management solutions from Infor, with superior capabilities that help reduce costs, shorten financial close processes, achieve data consistency, enforce global financial standards and processes, and improve financial transparency. Enhancements in FMS SunSystems Enterprise include: Infor Workspace, a consumer grade user experience, based on MicrosoftTM Sharepoint, that provides a consistent look and feel with a single sign-on, unified navigation and in-context collaboration to multiple Infor applications, simplifying financial management, saving time and increasing usability. A Web-based user interface to provide cost effective remote access, streamline processes, make information available when it is needed and reduce time to complete financial management tasks. Improved reporting capabilities that help managers make accurate decisions with less reliance on IT through a new reporting tool and report designer, with a library of standard reports. Ad hoc reporting functionality from Infor PM Query & Analysis that will run inside web parts providing in-context operational intelligence that will aid real time decision making. FMS SunSystems Enterprise will utilize Infor ION to provide advanced yet simple application integration, business process management and shared data reporting. QUOTABLE SunSystems Enterprise represents an exciting opportunity for SHL to help improve the way we work, said Charles May, Systems Accountant, SHL. As a multi-national company the ability to enter transactions and inquire about our financial position via the web is a tremendous asset. Currently we use a well known product to publish our applications to end users. The web enablement of SunSystems will significantly decrease our reliance on such products and lead to fewer servers being used. As a result, on-going cost savings are expected over the life of this new system, even while our business is growing rapidly. SHL 2 Infor FMS SunSystems Enterprise Infor FMS SunSystems Enterprise gives users a broad range of reporting and analysis capabilities that greatly increase its value to company executives, who can get better information sooner, said Robert Kugel, senior vice president of Ventana Research. It reduces IT overhead by enabling users to create or modify periodic or ad hoc analyses and reports without IT department involvement, as well as allowing remote users to work through a browser instead of requiring software to be deployed at every location. VENTANA RESEARCH FMS SunSystems Enterprise is the next generation of financial management systems, empowering financial managers to escape from constraints of traditional applications and employ Smart Transactions, to redefine their business on the fly, said Chris Murphy, senior vice president, Financial Management Systems, Infor. Further, with the introduction of Infor ION and the new consumer-grade user experience, financial managers will benefit from new workflow capabilities to proactively deliver tasks and alerts from multiple applications, and role-specific information such as KPIs and reports. INFOR

3 BARBICAN INSURANCE IMPLEMENTS SUNSYSTEMS IN FOUR WEEKS Barbican Insurance, a specialist insurance and reinsurance group trading within the Lloyd s insurance market, implemented SunSystems in four weeks. The new solution will manage finance processes within its newly established managing agency. It will support Barbican s future growth plans, allowing it to close its books more quickly and accurately, whilst providing real time reporting across its global operations. NEWS Creation of new managing agency within Barbican Insurance Group highlighted a need for a robust system to support financial processes. Barbican s development plans meant the solution had to be highly scalable and support both current and future requirements. The solution went live following a four week implementation. The deep domain functionality and multi-currency capabilities inherent within FMS SunSystems mean that Barbican can close its books in a matter of days, driving significant efficiency and productivity benefits. The reliability and robustness of FMS SunSystems will enable the finance team to focus on running the business while the system processes financial data and documents. FMS SunSystems was selected based on its proven support, demonstrated within Barbican s previous outsourced managing agency. Barbican cites the quality, integrity and credibility of Infor s consultants as a key differentiator over competitive solutions. BARBICAN INSURANCE GROUP SAYS Business and regulatory demands are becoming increasingly complex, therefore having a reliable system to support financial management is integral, comments David Rowling, IT director, Barbican Insurance Group. As we continue to move towards our objective to increase our capacity, SunSystems scalability and robustness means that we have absolute confidence that it will support both our current and future needs as they evolve. INFOR SAYS There s little doubt that finance departments are facing a combination of increased demands from the business and squeezed resources to respond to these challenges, comments Jon Casey, UK sales director for financial solutions, Infor. FMS SunSystems frees up valuable time which would otherwise be spent keying in data, enabling finance personnel to focus on responding to challenges and ultimately managing the business. Infor FMS SunSystems Enterprise 3

4 LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL DRIVES EFFICIENCY WITH INFOR EXPENSE MANAGEMENT SETTING THE STRATEGY.As part of an efficiency-led initiative, London Business School undertook a strategic review of its expense management processes. The review identified that the processing of expense claims relied heavily on manual input, which was timeconsuming, inconsistent, and inefficient. More than 350 of the school s 400 employees regularly claim expenses, and its accounts team processes approximately 500 separate claims each month. Expenses mainly comprise travel and entertainment items, and the team must analyse each carefully to ensure assignment to the correct cost centres. They must also capture expense information to ensure that the VAT analysis is accurate and comprehensive, irrespective of where expenses are incurred. Before 2009, this was a complex task, since the account team collected expense information using spreadsheets, which had to be checked manually. The business school concluded that they needed to exploit opportunities for greater analysis of expense claim data, and that the cost of expense management processing was simply too high. GETTING BUSINESS SPECIFIC. London Business School looked at a number of options to streamline its expense management processes. The school quickly discounted outsourcing the entire process, since it simply would have moved an inefficient process to a third party, as well as being prohibitively expensive. The selection team identified expense claim automation solutions and subjected 4 Infor FMS SunSystems Enterprise

5 them to a rigorous evaluation. Following an exhaustive evaluation of the shortlisted solutions, InforTM Expense Management was the choice for its functional capabilities, robustness, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and low-risk implementation. Another significant benefit was its rapid configurability to meet London Business School s specific process requirements. None of the other software providers were able to compete with Infor Expense Management s ability to allocate an expense to multiple cost centres in the required proportions, and none could allocate line items or any part of line items to any combination of cost centre or project code. Some expense management solutions can allocate predefined percentages of an expense to different cost centres, usually in multiples of 25%, but Infor Expense Management can allocate the expense to meet our exact requirements, explains Gary Newvell, operations systems manager, London Business School. Another benefit is the software s ability to integrate easily with our financial management software, FMS SunSystems, as well as our Business Objects business intelligence software, Newvell continues. The implementation was successful and took just 25 days. Our only regret is that we didn t take Infor s suggestion of a half-day training workshop to get our super-users up to speed with the system quickly, comments Newvell. While the system is userfriendly, we would have boosted productivity even further by undertaking the workshop. SEEING RESULTS. Following a short implementation, Infor Expense Management is now delivering major business benefits to London Business School. Infor Expense Management has enabled us to simultaneously improve the calibre of our processes and reduce our costs, comments Newvell. We are now seeing a much faster turnaround of expense claims with quicker reimbursements. Employees can submit claims irrespective of their location as the system can be accessed on a PDA or a PC, expediting processing time further. Payments are typically made within a week, and processing time has decreased by approximately 70%. We have saved the equivalent of one full-time person, reducing overhead significantly. The expense allocation capabilities within the system are delivering on their promised benefits, and VAT analysis is also much more efficient. VAT can only be claimed on those expenses that are wholly, exclusively, and necessarily incurred in performing business duties, explains Newvell. While a hotel room might be considered necessary, a bottle of wine from the hotel bar might not. Where both appear on the same expenses receipt, Infor Expense Management ensures easy, accurate allocation, saving immense amounts of time during manual data entry. The solution also has an administration tool that provides great flexibility in the management of the system. The tool is a huge benefit as we can configure every aspect of the system using the tool s comprehensive capabilities. For example, we can align approvers sign-off limits precisely with our business policy, and route expense claim documents using the inbuilt workflow engine according to any attribute, or combination of attributes, of the document or its contents. The management reporting function equips us with greater visibility and tighter control of information pertaining to expenses, supporting accountability, and boosting our procurement strategy, Newvell continues. We have already derived additional cost savings through management information analysis on where the majority of spending is taking place, making it easier to negotiate better discounts with suppliers. DOING BUSINESS BETTER. Our previous expense claim process simply wasn t sustainable in the era of public sector efficiency drives. Manual re-keying of data and the inevitable margin for error hindered productivity significantly, Newvell concludes. Having used Infor Expense Management for over six months now, we are benefiting from major efficiency savings and substantial productivity improvements. Infor has proved itself as a valued business partner, having provided flexible solutions that are closely aligned to our business needs, and we look forward to a continued relationship as we evolve and expand as an organisation. Infor FMS SunSystems Enterprise 5

6 ASTER GROUP HOUSES BETTER FINANCE PROCESSES WITH SUNSYSTEMS Aster Group, a partnership providing homes and housing related services, has invested in Infor FMS SunSystems to manage finance processes for its seven divisions across central southern and south west England. The solution will enable Aster Group to de-duplicate and standardise finance processes, improve reporting capabilities and reduce banking costs. NEWS FMS SunSystems selected to replace a myriad of different finance systems used across Aster Group s diverse operations. These disparate systems and inconsistent processes were hampering efficiency and incurring unnecessary costs for the housing group. SunSystems was selected from a shortlist of three providers based on strong reporting functionality and ease of use. Easy integration and interfacing with Aster Group s operational systems such as job costing for repairs, maintenance and development are cited as a key benefit. The solution is set to go live for 40 users in April following a three month implementation. The flexibility of FMS SunSystems user interface, process flows and business rules will be key to maximising system usage and realising efficiency improvements. FMS SunSystems ipos eprocurement user interface was also selected by Aster group for 90 users. This tool will expedite transactions and transaction approval, eliminate manual data entry and remove bottlenecks. ASTER GROUP SAYS As an organisation comprised of seven very different subsidiaries, process consistency is pivotal to generating consistent information, comments Karl Pott, financial director of Flourish Homes, one of Aster Group s subsidiaries. We were impressed with both the reporting functionality and flexibility of FMS SunSystems. These factors, in conjunction with the expertise of Infor s consultants, will enable us to achieve productivity improvements and cost savings, without us having to change our existing processes. Crucially the system fits us rather than demanding we fit the system. INFOR SAYS Aster Group is a very good example of an organisation which stands to make cashable savings over and above the productivity gains which FMS SunSystems delivers, comments Jon Casey, sales director for financial solutions, Infor. Through using one system instead of seven, they will derive significant reductions in banking costs, and help to ensure processes are as lean as possible to capitalise on growth and deliver superior customer service. 6 Infor FMS SunSystems Enterprise

7 INFOR ANNOUNCES PLAN TO HIRE 400 ENGINEERS All of our existing and newly hired engineers will focus on one thing building great applications. Soma Somasundaram, Senior Vice President, Global Product Development Infor will expand its engineering organization by hiring approximately 400 additional software developers. We will ship significantly more new features and new releases this year than ever before. This investment in core research and development is a milestone in Infor s commitment to innovation, said Soma Somasundaram, senior vice president, Global Product Development. All of our existing and newly hired engineers will focus on one thing building great applications. This accelerated investment comes after the first quarter closed under the leadership of the new management team. Our third quarter results have put us in a strong position for our second half, and we saw great performance on both the top and bottom lines for the quarter said Stephan Scholl, executive vice president of global field operations. Our license growth of 17 percent and increased cash operating margins of 24 percent1 demonstrates the strength of the momentum we are seeing. Strong revenue performance and improved operational efficiency has increased our operating margins and generated cash flow beyond our targets for the quarter. The improved margins, along with further improvements in operating efficiencies, will fund the additional investment in product development. Customers are responding well to the new releases, standards based integration through our ION platform, and our planned consumer-grade user experience. We added 400 net new customers in the quarter. For existing customers, our plan is to increase the value of support by delighting them with deep industry features they asked for and others they didn t expect. said Duncan Angove, president, Products, Support, and Marketing. Infor will immediately begin to recruit development staff, with plans to complete the expansion before the end of The focus of innovation will be on both Infor s core industry specific applications in manufacturing, distribution, public sector, and hospitality, and also on Infor s best in class cross-industry applications including financial management, asset management, workforce management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and product lifecycle management. MAXIMISE THE VALUE OF YOUR INFOR PARTNERSHIP. SHARE YOUR UNIQUE SUCCESS STORY YOUR WAY. No one tells our story better than you. Your success using Infor solutions, your experience as a leader within your industry and your testimonials are critical as buyers increasingly rely on peer advice in purchase decision-making. Infor has established the Ambassador Reference Program to deepen and strengthen relationships with our customers. Participating customers have the opportunity to share their unique story about how Infor applications have added value and benefited their business. Getting real value from your Infor products? Why not consider being a reference. Infor FMS SunSystems Enterprise 7

8 HANDLE ANYTHING. WHATEVER THE BUSINESS WORLD THROWS AT YOU, HANDLE IT WITH CONFIDENCE. Infor FMS SunSystems Enterprise features superior usability, greater reporting capabilities and smart integration to additional application products. FMS SunSystems Enterprise provides a single solution to help financial managers access information quickly, manage internal change to their business, remain compliant with multiple and changing regulatory environments, and grow globally in any market. View the SunSystems Enterprise Demo Do you want to view or share the new Infor FMS Sunsystems Enterprise demo? Go to Register and view the demo.