Kevin Samuelson (Infor).
An Australian and a New Zealand enterprise were among eight customers to receive customer excellence awards at enterprise software vendor Infor's annual Inforum conference over night.
Frasers Hospitality Australia (FHA) won in the hospitality category while New Zealand's largest water utility, Watercare, won the public service section.
FHA was on a path to go paperless and selected Infor to drive that in all areas of the guest experience and operations across its four luxury service apartment properties.
Four key initiatives have come online since the company rolled out Infor's Hospitality Management Solution (HMS) and Infor Mobile Check-In: paperless check-in, paperless e-sign, paperless payments, and a mobile housekeeping app
Check-in efficiency has doubled, and check-in time has declined 40 per cent since the roll-out at Fraser Suites Sydney. The organisation has reduced agreement lead times from up to three business days to minutes.
Paperless processes have improved accuracy and efficiency at all of Frasers’ properties and reduced printing costs by 50 per cent while a notable 80 per cent improvement in operational productivity was gained from the Infor HMS Housekeeping mobile app rollout.
Formerly an SAP and Hansen software site, Auckland-based Watercare Services needed to modernise its business applications to better serve its communities and achieve digital transformation.
The Auckland Council-owned company implemented Infor CloudSuite for Water applications using Agile methodologies to help it better manage assets, enrich
interactions with customers, and motivate and manage its workforce.
Watercare tackled a full digital transformation with Infor, affecting roughly 60 per cent of business processes, achieving a fully redesigned, integrated, analytics-enabled solution for customer management, billing, and asset management that has produced savings in virtually every corner of the business.
On stage at Inforum, general manager and head of international operations at Infor Cormac Watters said Watercare anticipates $15 million in savings through improved asset planning over seven years from go-live.
Watercare is also realising savings by driving customer interactions through digital channels, reducing manual processes across customer operations, optimising construction, reducing reactive maintenance, and improving employee engagement.
Among a number of specific announcements at Inforum, including the release of an embedded AI platform called Coleman, New York-based Infor pushed messages around improved time to value and productivity from its industry vertical, cloud-based enterprise software packages.
“We are thrilled to formally honor these innovative organisations for their exceptional use of technology to drive bottom-line results and better serve their internal stakeholders, partners and, ultimately, their customers,” said Kevin Samuelson, Infor chief executive officer.
The other award winners were:
Manufacturing
Michigan-based Oliver Packaging & Equipment Co, a developer of bakery equipment and meal packaging systems, which automated antiquated processes to help streamline production, speed inventory handling, track labor, and automate attendance operations.
Distribution/manufacturing/asset management
Starbucks, which decided to implement Infor Enterprise Asset Management software at seven new manufacturing/distribution locations, because it wanted to make more data-driven decisions.
Starbucks is driving better strategic planning and production planning, and more effective manpower utilisation through more consistent and reliable data that supports strategic asset life-cycle and maintenance planning.
Consumer goods
California-based footwear designer and distributor Deckers Brands was challenged with very manual and time-intensive processes for order fulfillment and supply chain planning. It rolled out Infor Nexus applications and achieved a more streamlined system for automating and integrating supply and demand data into one real-time view that uses machine learning to project inventory issues.
Human resources
PRA Health Sciences, a leading clinical research organisation, was challenged with managing a time-intensive manual process for making employee data changes. It decided to move the entire organisation - seven divisions with 52 business units in 80 countries, to Infor Global Human Resources in the cloud, and fully unify both data and processes.
Healthcare
Northern Light Health, one of the most expansive integrated health care systems in Maine, USA, was looking to modernise antiquated systems in order to better manage financial and information challenges.
It turned to Infor CloudSuite Healthcare applications to help improve processes, preserve revenue, and deliver better services to the community.
Technology and business intelligence/analytics
Tennessee-based towing and recovery equipment manufacturer Miller Industries wanted to make strategic business decisions faster and better manage its business processes. The company opted for Infor Birst analytics to combine internal and external data sets to help it more precisely analyse and forecast workforce and business performance, and better manage the business.
Disclosure: Rob O'Neill travelled to Inforum in the USA as a guest of Infor.
