The results are in—and year three tells a much bigger story.
In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, we break down what we’re seeing in our third annual State of the Infor Community Survey, including a closer look behind the headline numbers.
Cloud activity has accelerated in a big way. AI experimentation is everywhere, though enterprise adoption tells a more measured story. Reporting satisfaction is up and interestingly, the organizations using multiple tools seem to be the most content with their approach. Meanwhile, testing is still largely manual, and payroll modernization continues to trail behind as 2030 gets closer.
Nothing in this year’s data feels chaotic but rather is deliberate. Organizations are moving just not all at once, and not all in the same direction. It’s part of the reason why we conduct this survey each year and the results from this edition point to the need to collaborate collectively.
If you’re part of the Infor ecosystem, this episode is a candid look at where things stand right now and where they’re trending.
Interested in listening to this episode on another streaming platform? Check out our directories or watch the YouTube video below.
If you haven’t yet seen it, you can download this year’s State of the Infor Community Infographic below.
Meet Today’s Guest, Richard Leigh Stout
Recognized as a thought leader throughout the Infor CloudSuite and Lawson communities, Richard Leigh Stout joined RPI’s management team in 2014. He first served as the Director of our Technical Services practice, before taking the role of Director of Infor Service Delivery.
Mr. Stout has grown the practice with a focus on client satisfaction and the core values of RPI, completing hundreds of projects from interface flows to Lawson upgrades to full CloudSuite implementations. He draws on the experience of the whole team to architect elegant solutions that meet complex business challenges faced by RPI’s service industry clients.
Prior to joining the management team, he spent 10 years as an RPI Consultant, allowing him the opportunity to gain a wide-ranging familiarity with Infor implementation and optimization projects. In this role, he expanded his knowledge of workflow and process automation, document management, data management and reporting, integrations between Infor and other systems, web user interface development, as well as end user training and documentation.
Meet your Host, Chris Arey
Chris Arey is a B2B marketing professional with nearly a decade of experience working in content creation, copywriting, SEO, website architecture, corporate branding, and social media. Beginning his career as an analyst before making a lateral move into marketing, he combines analytical thinking with creative flair—two fundamental qualities required in marketing.
With a Bachelor’s degree in English and certifications from the Digital Marketing Institute and HubSpot, Chris has spearheaded impactful content marketing initiatives, participated in corporate re-branding efforts, and collaborated with celebrity influencers. He has also worked with award-winning PR professionals to create unique, compelling campaigns that drove brand recognition and revenue growth for his previous employers.
Chris’ versatility is highlighted by his experience working across different industries, including HR, Tech, SaaS, and Consulting.
About RPI Tech Connect
RPI Tech Connect is the go-to podcast for catching up on the dynamic world of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Join us as we discuss the future of ERPs, covering everything from best practices and organizational change to seamless cloud migration and optimizing applications. Plus, we’ll share predictions and insights of what to expect in the future world of ERPs.
RPI Tech Connect delivers relevant, valuable information in a digestible format. Through candid, genuine conversations and stories from the world of consulting, we aim to provide actionable steps to help you elevate your organization’s ERP. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or new to the ERP scene, our podcast ensures you’re well-equipped for success.
Tune in as we explore tips and tricks in the field of ERP consulting each week and subscribe below.
Transcript
Chris Arey
This is RPI Tech Connect, and I’m your host, Chris Arey. In our segment today, we’re taking a deeper look at the results of our State of the Info Community Survey.
Joining me once again is Mr. Richard Leigh Stout, partner here at RPI and an absolute fan-favorite on the RPI Tech Connect podcast.
So Stout, welcome back, sir. For those who may not know you, would you mind giving us the cliff notes on your time here at RPI?
Richard Leigh Stout
Thank you. All right. Hey, thanks so much, Chris. Always great to be here on the pod. I’m a huge fan. I love what you’re doing with this program. Yeah, my name is Richard Leigh Stout, partner with RPI Consultants and in-demand podcast guest.
Chris Arey
You absolutely are, and it’s great to have you here today. This is an important discussion we have here ahead of us, and I’m looking forward to getting into it with you.
I think a good place to start would be to talk about who this year’s respondents were and what their tech stack looks like, because that’s a question we’ve asked in the past, but have not presented the information in the way that we have this year.
So, what about this speaks to you?
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, well, first off, again, I just want to say thanks for everything that you and your team have done to build out our RPI Consultants State of the Infor Community Survey. This is the third year that we’ve done this in such a structured way.
At RPI, we’ve done previous surveys, but you and your team have really upped our game on surveys. I think the results really show that not only do we get a really great level of participation from a very diverse group of survey respondents, it shows that we’re asking the right questions.
And we’re able to put together some interesting insights and present that in a nice, easily digestible way. So, thanks, Chris. You guys are doing great.
Chris Arey
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you, Leigh. I appreciate that. This project is something that every year when it comes up again, we’re like, it’s time. And it really kind of consumes our efforts for the next month or so.
So, I’m very happy with how it turned out.
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, I can tell. I’m excited that it’s only going to get better year over year. This is our third year. I think this is the first time we can start talking about trends and changes in a more meaningful way, obviously as we move forward through the years that’s going to get more useful.
To answer your question, yeah, we’ve always asked about some basic demographics in the survey. This is the first time you’re starting your results with a nice visual of that. And I think that’s a great addition to the survey to give just a quick snapshot of where everybody is.
Obviously, this survey is aimed at users of Lawson or Infor software. And clearly, we see that in the results, right? We’re not really asking people outside of the Infor community to answer. Almost every category has 90 % plus Infor utilization.
I think the big change year over year has been a greater adoption in the payroll stack, obviously. Payroll is I think the most recent of the multi-tenant cloud-based apps to come online, but it’s been online and mainstream for so many years now that there’s no risk of feeling like an early adopter.
It’s extremely stable. It’s deployed at very large organizations. And we’re seeing about 40 % of respondents saying they’re live on multi-tenant payroll. Other than that, I think it’s been about the same across the board. And we have a pretty good number of respondents using Infor WFM. This year, obviously, WFM has been one of the, I would say, most trending apps in the Infor portfolio.
Among our customer base, we’ve seen a great uptick in adoption over the past couple of years. So, a lot more organizations are running WFM or we have a lot more contacts with customers that use WFM and we’re able to get more of them to answer our survey. Either way, I love that we have that perspective in our results.
Chris Arey
Yeah. I agree. There’s one thing, one of the big data points out of this ERP tech stack graphic that speaks to me is this, this segment of users still on Lawson for payroll. It’s consistent with something that Keith had mentioned in his predictions podcast, which we did earlier this year.
He said that payroll seemed to be the last leg of modernizing or moving to the cloud. And I don’t want to get to our next takeaway just yet, but I think it’s interesting that there is this portion that is not moved to the cloud yet but will soon. There’s a second wave of CloudSuite implementations on the way, and the tail end of that first wave is all Payroll implementations. When I see this data, I feel like it reinforces that messaging and the prediction that he had.
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, I would agree with that. Payroll certainly is the tail. I don’t know of any organization where Payroll is their only Infor app, right? So everyone that we know that runs Infor payroll, they also run Infor HR. And for the most part among our client base, you know, we have a lot of customers that are on multi-tenant HR and either in process or planning to bring payroll in.
Big advantage, obviously, putting it all together in that you don’t have to worry about the interfaces, data synchronization anymore. It’s all in one place. It’s easier to use. There is a deadline for that, right. Chris Arey
Got it. I want to transition now into now, are you actively engaged in moving to cloud? Are you planning on moving to the cloud? Where are you in that process? And one thing that stands out is that last year, 26 % of respondents said that they were in a cloud migration actively. And this year, that number jumped to 59%.
That’s more than double. Serious momentum. Based on what you’re seeing, how would you describe the community’s approach to the cloud right now, hearing that data point and your own anecdotal experiences of working with customers?
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, you know, obviously we’re involved in a lot of those migrations. Cloud implementation has been a big part of our service offering for the past few years. There was an initial wave between 2020 and 2022. And we think there’s going to be a second wave. And maybe we’re on the upside of that wave right now.
Chris Arey
Yeah. Sometimes I feel like we hear about “cloud hesitation”. The idea that people are resistant to this move to the cloud. Do you think that the data here supports that narrative, or what do you believe?
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, perhaps. You know, we talk all the time about the benefits of being on the cloud. I feel like one of my main jobs is trying to understand what benefits you could derive from these systems and trying to explain that in practical approachable terms, right?
Translating that into what makes business sense. So, I’m always telling you about why you should be in the cloud, but maybe I should offer what are some good reasons not to be in the cloud. Like, well, Lawson works, right? It’s stable at this point. It works well.
For those clients running on-prem, you’ve got some infrastructure costs. And unfortunately, there’s a Windows server and a life that some customers have had to contend with or are contending with. But other than that, running Lawson on-prem is low cost and fairly low risk.
And I think some organizations have been a little slower to make the move to the cloud. Like it’s 2026, right? The cloud is the norm at this point. Cloud is mainstream. So if you’re not in the cloud, it’s like, well, why not? I wouldn’t phrase it as hesitation or resistance. I would phrase it as it’s not the priority right now, right?
For many of our customers, Lawson or Infor is not the most important application in their portfolio, because oftentimes it’s not what we think of as front of the house revenue driving system, right?
It’s more of a back-office system. So maybe our customers are prioritizing their front of office cloud modernization and taking advantage of the stability and the economics of maintaining Lawson where it is right now, focusing their efforts somewhere else, and then eventually we’ll turn to the back office systems and bring those up to the cloud as well.
Chris Arey
And you figure at some point, like it may not be a priority at this very moment, but a minimum of 18 months, you’d think away from that 2030 deadline, they got to be thinking, what’s our next move?
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, earlier the better, I think. Obviously, there’s some challenges to being first. Well, you don’t have to worry about that. There are more problems that come with being the absolute last organization to make the transition.
I think now’s a great time. Now’s a great time to start talking about getting the rest of your apps up to the cloud. We’ll be here through 2030 and beyond. I’m sure there will be some organizations that go past that date as well.
There always have been previous end of life dates, and you know, the world didn’t end.
Chris Arey
No, it didn’t, but we sure like to make it feel like that’s what might happen. I like that we talked about this 2030 deadline. On that note, this year’s survey also asked respondents what their one-to-three-year system roadmap looks like. We had a range of responses here, and I believe this is a multi-select question, which is why you see some of the higher percentages here.
Two strong standout options responses here were the expanding use of delivered functionality. 65 % responded and another 52 % said they’re optimizing configurations. So, when you hear those data points, what does that communicate to you? Where does your mind go?
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, so first off, it’s exciting, right? I’m a consultant, so I’m excited about projects. I’m always excited about doing stuff. I just talked about the value of stability and talked about Lawson, a system that hasn’t changed in a long time.
So that’s great, but it’s not very interesting to me, right?
Chris Arey
Right.
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, I’m excited about doing stuff about pushing the boundaries, deriving more and more value out of these systems. So that’s exciting to hear. We looked at this and dug into the data a bit. One cool stat that I don’t think we have represented in that graph is that 27 % of respondents are doing both those things.
They’re expanding delivered functionality on one hand and then adding in more applications on the other hand, right? So those are some very dynamic organizations.
Chris Arey
More. Always looking to do more. We talk about ERP as a continuous improvement journey. It’s not, the work has not stopped at go-live. You’re constantly looking to level up, get more out of your investment, have your systems do more, be more efficient.
And this data demonstrates that the community understands that. Right? Do you agree?
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, or at least the ones that are willing to respond to surveys, 100%.
Chris Arey
Yeah, of the people who engaged in our survey, they agree that ERP is a continuous improvement journey.
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, I mean, it is kind of funny because every year we go to the Infor Services Connect Conference and it’s such an exciting time because we get to meet so many different Infor users that are interested in doing so many things. And we leave that conference thinking like, man, what a great space we work in. It’s so exciting!
Then I have to remember it’s like, yeah, because these are the people that are willing to come to a conference.
Chris Arey
That’s a great detail to remember there.
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, so, yeah, I do hope that 65 % of the entire Infor universe is currently working on expanding use of delivery functionality. I’d like to see that number higher because the breadth of these applications is just amazing. How much capability there is that comes out of the box.
That is, in my mind, a huge advantage of being in multi-tenant software is no matter which portions of the app you’re using, you have access to an enormous set of capabilities and a powerful platform that you could build off of too.
Chris Arey
Yeah.
Richard Leigh Stout
I guess if I was a Infor system administrator, I’d have no shortage of ideas to work on, only a shortage of time to execute.
Chris Arey
Yeah, at the end of the day, it’s all of these things take time. But I do think that these results are encouraging. And to your point, this is the percentage of folks who want to take surveys, but you have to think that you would hope that this is representative of the larger community.
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, I mean, the RPI name opens doors, right?
Chris Arey
Yes, sir. So on that note, you talked a lot about how these applications have a lot of functionality and that there’s a lot to take advantage of.
This next segment of the survey ties into that with the concept of AI adoption. We saw a big jump in usage from year over year. Last year, only about 20 % said that they were using AI, and now it’s 46%, which is a huge jump.
And it’s good to see, you know, we’ve been talking about AI for some time. It’s really carved its space out in office jobs. What’s interesting though, is that we are seeing more AI usage, but not a lot of Velocity Suite usage. What do you think about that?
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, I think that the increase in general AI usage is something that’s happening the world over, not unique to the Infor space. I mean, my own journey using AI tools and workflow has certainly accelerated through 2025.
You know, compared to where I was two or three years ago, it’s night and day. There are certain tasks that I’m like way more productive at. And we certainly see, you know, just in our daily interactions, I’m sure you’ve emailed with people and you get one of those email backs with the bolding in it.
And it’s like, I know what you did. It’s like, look, we’re all using it, but you have to get good enough at using it that it sounds natural. So, I do think that’s most people’s entry point to AI is ChatGPT or Claude or your LLM of choice.
And you’re right, we haven’t seen as much adoption of Velocity Suite in 2025 as we expected. Obviously, I’ve been talking about it. I was talking about it all last year. This is a branding. Velocity Suite’s a sort of a branding that was put together in early 2025. It comprises a couple of different tool sets. It’s generally positioned as an AI offering.
Not everything that’s put into the Velocity Suite is strictly AI. RPA is a big part of the Velocity Suite offering. We’ve been working with RPA for over 10 years and have a lot of experience in that area, so I wouldn’t call that strictly AI.
But, Velocity Suite is still a new offering from Infor. And I do think that we need to continue to help explaining what the value proposition is and where it stands out. We’re all living in a sea of AI this and AI that, right?
Every application that I’m using in my business is now offering some sort of premium AI feature that I can add to my subscription. You obviously can’t subscribe to them all, and you have to make choices.
Where does it make sense to utilize Velocity Suite versus the AI add-on in your Microsoft productivity stack, your CRM, or whatever your main revenue generation systems are? If you’re a hospital, how are you deploying AI in conjunction with the EMR?
I think it’s going to take some time for the community to come around on Velocity Suite, but I wholeheartedly believe in it. And I know that Infor is going to keep improving it and getting better at articulating where it really fits in. Also, we’re going to see more customers talking about what they’re getting out of it.
Chris Arey
Yeah.
Richard Leigh Stout
The most exciting areas, I think, are process mining and the ability to bring an LLM into a workflow in RPI. Once we start hearing more success stories about how customers have actually applied those tools and derived real benefits, I think that’s going to be a watershed moment.
Chris Arey
Okay. If I’m hearing you correctly, one of the big drivers for increasing Velocity Suite adoption is going to stem from organizations being more vocal about the different use cases and success they’ve had with using it.
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, I think so. Deploying Velocity Suite is not like a technology problem. It’s more organizational, how do you connect with this? It’s very easy to set up, it’s easy to use. So why isn’t everybody doing it? Well, because not everybody understands where it would fit into their daily workflow.
Richard Leigh Stout
Once we could break through and make that apparent, I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of resistance.
Chris Arey
Makes sense. It is still early, relatively early for it too.
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, I will also maybe mention that most of the customers that we’re interacting with have been our long time Infor Lawson customers, right? Like our company has been around for 25 years, but I often get on the phone with customers who say, yeah, I’ve been working here for 25 years and I was here when we first set up Lawson at 1997: I’ve been through this journey the whole time.
So, that’s a lot of the perspective that we have. But there’s a whole other world out there of companies that are implementing Infor for the very first time and don’t have the expectations or history with the platform the same way that these long-term customers have.
Organizations implementing for the first time? I expect they’re implementing Velocity Suite as part of phase one, essentially. That’s part of the messaging right now on the value of Infor CloudSuite.
Organizations that are selecting Infor CloudSuite for the first time, they’re doing so partly because of what Velocity Suite has to offer, and they expect to receive those Velocity Suite benefits from day one to go-live.
Those net-new customers might actually be at the forefront of velocity suite’s adoption. They’re going to help the rest of us get over that hump.
Chris Arey
That makes sense. I like your positive outlook on it there. think that there’s, that’s something that could come to fruition here. I want to shift gears now and talk a little bit about reporting. It’s been a hot topic in the results for the last three years. And I think this year’s findings are probably the most groundbreaking.
Richard Leigh Stout
Why is that?
Chris Arey
We have this, it seems that there is a correlation between the number of reporting tools that you use and the level of satisfaction that you have with reporting. Our results show that a staggering 81 % of users noted that they use more than one reporting tool to address business needs. And of that 81%, they were more likely to say that satisfaction with reporting is greater.
What I like about that data nugget there is that it’s consistent with things that we’ve been saying over the last two, three years now. Taking a holistic approach to reporting is the best way to get the insights and visibility and business analytics that you’re looking for. You can’t rely on just a single tool.
Richard Leigh Stout
Mm-hmm.
Chris Arey
It’s just one of those things where you speak it into existence, and we’ve done that, and this data supports that narrative, you know?
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah. No, it’s cool when it feels like people took your advice and it worked out for them, for sure. Yeah, it’s been a crazy ride with reporting. It’s kind of funny because five or 10 years ago, I feel like we reached peak capability in reporting, right?
Chris Arey
Yeah.
Richard Leigh Stout
Like, everybody was able to create very powerful reporting analytics against their on-premise SQL databases. We had these database servers that could crunch massive amounts of data in lots of different ways and put that together rapidly, and we all kind of got used to the ability to dream up a report and make that come to reality fairly quickly, fairly inexpensively, and then be able to have access to that report in real time, right?
That way we can get a real time snapshot of data and see what we need to see. And of course, there were a ton of different tools out there, right, that people found success with. Then everything changed when we started going multi-tenant cloud, right? When multi-tenant cloud first came out, it felt almost like you were putting your data in data jail, right? Because you lose access to all these different platforms that you enjoyed before. You lose that real-time inquiry capability.
That was a paradigm shift that took everybody a few years to get over. And it also was a paradigm shift for the software vendors, right? Because when enterprise software first went multi-tenant, every one of the software vendors wanted to be a one-stop shop for reporting.
That was the initial approach, right? And you look at look at Infor, they went out and acquired Birst, right? They bought a multi-tenant reporting solution and incorporated it into their platform because such an important part of their strategy was to be able to offer all the reporting tools and capabilities that a user would need so that way the data never needs to leave the Infor platform.
That strategy has been completely rejected at this point. It doesn’t make any sense for end users that by choosing an application stack, they’re also committing to that reporting and analytics stack. And it certainly was swimming upstream from how everything had gone in the previous 20 years, right?
So, looking back, hindsight is always 20-20, but it was almost inevitable that this would happen. The technology got better too, right? Interoperability with cloud-based systems is worlds better than what it was before.
It’s so much easier to weave together a multi-vendor solution while everything is multi-tenant cloud. I think that while we still don’t have the same level, I think, of real-time reporting capability that we used to have on-prem, I think we’re all kind of getting used to that and are able to consider, you know, how fresh does this data need to be when thinking about a report?
There are certainly ways to get real time data, it’s not the default that every, you know, every view in the data is going to be a momentary snapshot in time.
Chris Arey
This timeframe of reporting that you’ve been talking about here, what is that? 15 years, 10 years, 20 years?
Richard Leigh Stout
I mean, I, I don’t want to date myself, but I mean, I think I knew everything there was to know about SQL in 2000, 2001. In the year 2000, I would like to say I knew 100 % of SQL.
Chris Arey
Okay, so what do you, so seeing the data now and folks take more approach to reporting, what do you feel that that response says about the reporting majority?
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, I think seeing the data now, there’s a pretty good level of satisfaction is what the survey says, right? And that’s come a long way since we first started asking people. I would say that’s one of the biggest changes over these three years that we’ve been surveying people. At the same time, the thirst for improved reporting capabilities has not gone down, right?
So, I mean, I think if we look at the past three years, it’s been around 50% of respondents who want to see improved reporting capacities from Infor. And I don’t know if that’ll ever go, right? It’s like, there’s always something better that you can do.
Chris Arey
Yeah.
Richard Leigh Stout
Infor made enormous investments in their reporting platform and making it easier to use, making it more capable and more practical for real world application. At the same time, people are figuring out that there’s so many different platforms that are useful here and they’re having a lot of success adopting.
Chris Arey
Yeah, I agree. And this is, you know, all the data we gathered from this year. Sorry, this one might be my, my favorite, because I feel like it’s one of the most positive, you know, we’ve seen progress over the last three years and there’s greater satisfaction and like on both ends too, right. That means that not only are users more satisfied, but also that Infor is making it easier for folks to deploy these different solutions for reporting.
Just feels like, I know that when I started RPI, reporting was a hot topic and in the last three years almost now, it seems to be people are finding greater satisfaction with it, which is good.
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, and you know, there’s always going to be work to do. We’ll always have a backlog of report development work that we’re helping our clients with, no doubt. But I’m glad that people feel good about it and optimistic at this point, rather than feeling like, this is such a painful thing to work through.
Chris Arey
So that brings us to our fifth and final nugget from this year’s survey. And that is about testing. know, testing is not something we’ve asked respondents about in previous years.
This was a highlight. It was the first time we had done it, and it revealed some pretty interesting developments.
Chris Arey
I think as a whole though, both of the data points point to this testing being kind of a reactive thing. 42 % of respondents are relying on manual test scripts, which is nearly half. And another 38% are fixing issues only after they emerge. There’s a better way, I think.
I’m curious from your perspective, what do these testing data points tell you?
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, that is interesting. I can only guess why 42 % of our respondents do manual test scripts for regression testing after a CU and why 38 % don’t.
I would love to hear more on this. if you’re listening to this and have something to share on this topic, I’d love if you drop us a note.
If you’re watching us on YouTube, hit that comments button and tell us what you’re doing at your organization and if it is working out?
I have to wonder if you’re running manual test scripts, did you start doing that because originally your approach was to fix issues as they appear and that wasn’t a good way to react. Were you running into too many issues?
Was that chaotic and disruptive to come in on a Monday after a CU and find out what doesn’t work? And then by running manual test scripts, have you been able to head off? Have you been able to identify issues before they impacted your business and get ahead of those issues?
I’d love to know for people that are using either of those strategies, why are you approaching it that way and how well is it working? I think these days, on the one hand, the platform is obviously a lot more stable than compared to doing an on-premise system update.
But on the other hand, the organizations are not setting the timeline for updates, the updates occur when the updates occur. It’s something we need to rally around rather than attacking it as a project.
Chris Arey
Is it for the folks who said that the 38 % who are waiting or fixing issues only after they appear, do they go into work on Monday morning and sit by the phone and wait for the phone call?
Richard Leigh Stout
I think some do. Yeah, I’ve heard that.
Chris Arey
Would you recommend that approach?
Richard Leigh Stout
I think it’s a fair approach. You know, one question I have, I guess, is if you’re running manual test scripts, how much time are you putting into that? Does that really work? You know, is that effective? Or do you still run into unexpected issues, things you didn’t specifically test for, maybe that are popping up? Are you getting the return on investment?
In the grand scheme of things, Infor Cloud Suite is very widely deployed at this point. Everybody is running the same code base and tech stack. And of course, Infor tests everything very thoroughly before it ends up in customer production systems. So, by the time an update makes it in front of a customer, we could be reasonably assured that the software is going to work just fine.
So, the only “gotchas” are going to be, it hasn’t been tested on your data, and it hasn’t been tested with your extensions and workflows and interfaces.
Other sort of factor here is there’s not a lot of breaking changes that should be pushed out in the application. More and more, any changes that are coming out are offered with a toggle switch. So rather than saying, on such and such a date, the system used to work this way, and now it’s going to work that way, they’ll just offer the second approach.
They’ll say, hey, the system will work exactly the way it worked before, but now we’re offering a new way to do it and a user toggleable switch to change to that approach that goes back to a more traditional model where you are able to go to a non-production environment and try something out.
You’re able to see how well that performs, train your users on it, go through proper change management, and then bring it live in production on your schedule.
Chris Arey
So it sounds like then that maybe the risk that sounded more apparent with taking this either manual test scripts or waiting until something breaks is not really as apparent as it might sound.
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah, that would be my opinion, but you know, in my world, I don’t test any of my applications, right? It’s like my main, I’ve got my laptop, my phone, I use Microsoft Office extensively, right? That stuff’s changing all the time. Sometimes it’s frustrating. Like, wait, why do you keep moving the menu options around? Sometimes it’s frustrating, but.
Chris Arey
There’s still a better way though, yeah? Yes, that’s fair. You need to evaluate.
Richard Leigh Stout
I’m used to it.
Chris Arey
So, Stout, we’ve covered a lot today, cloud migration, AI reporting, testing, long-term planning, a lot of great insights here. I appreciate you sharing yours and jumping on here. If you had to sum up what the data from this year’s survey says about the community, how would you describe it?
Richard Leigh Stout
Yeah.
I would say that our survey shows stability among the community. I was actually surprised by some of these categories; how consistent they’ve been when we asked the same question year over year over year.
I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. I think that it means that the Infor customer base is settled in and comfortable with the systems that they use. There’s not an overwhelming amount of change going on, even if we have a lot more of our respondents reporting that they’re in an active project at this point.
I think real interesting takeaway that I’m seeing is the variety of responses, right? If you scan through the survey results, there are no questions that feature an answer with an overwhelming majority like 75, 80, 90%. Right? It’s like.
Chris Arey
Yeah.
Richard Leigh Stout
The highest stat I think you have on this whole thing is 77 % of respondents want to see more training available. And it’s like, you know what? Great. That should be like 100%, right? Like everybody would value from training. That makes total sense. We dug into the reporting stats, because I love this idea that we can correlate customer satisfaction with use of multiple reporting tools.
I thought, wow, that’s really interesting. And we see that there’s a pretty good variety of tools out there. We’re probably not even asking about all of the popular tools, right? But great adoption on Power BI, on Birst, on Tableau, even Dashboard Gear, we split that up across different practice areas or different functional areas of work.
The variety was there across the board. If we look at finance users specifically, some are finding success with Power BI. Some are finding success with GL Report Designer, some are finding success with Tableau. Some are finding success with Insight or Dashboard Gear.
To me, that says that there are a lot of different tools out there that are going to be really effective. There are a lot of different capabilities and ways to do things to meet your job objectives that are going to work. Hey, we’re all using the same software at this point, right?
Everybody’s running the same version of Infor CloudSuite. Everybody has access to the same tools that are out there. So why isn’t there any one choice that’s the right answer for everybody? I think it comes down to it’s more about the fit, you know, what’s the right tool for me?
Chris Arey
Yeah.
Richard Leigh Stout
For supply chain users, it looks like Birst is probably the winner, for HR payroll users, we see the Power BI has a greater adoption, but still, there’s a great variety across the board.
My advice looking at this data is you should experiment and try some things. And don’t assume there’s one obvious best way. There’s not always a best-in-class way to do something. The best-in-class way to do it is the way that works best for you. So, try out different things. And maybe it’s not realistic to try every tool in the tool belt. Nobody’s got time for that. But collectively we can, right? Collectively we are. That’s what the survey tells us.
Collectively we are trying out a lot of different things, and we can pool that knowledge, right? We can share that information. So, my takeaway is if you’re a user of the Infor system, you need to get out there and connect with your peers and your industry.
Get together with other Infor users, go to an Infor user group or participate in the community site online. Get out there, ask questions, share what’s working for you, ask, is anybody else doing this way? What other ways are you trying? Take that feedback and maybe try some things out and see where you connect and then share your results to the rest of the community.
Chris Arey
That’s a fantastic note to end on. It’s very positive and especially the reporting example you gave, the spectrum of tools that people prefer to use for different needs, that same thought process can be applied to the Infor ERP community.
Experiment, talk to your peers, see what’s working for them. That’s where you’re going to find success.
I really liked that. Seriously, it’s a great way to tie a bow on this whole campaign that we do every year.
Richard Leigh Stout
Great. Well, thanks so much, Chris, for having me. ⁓ It’s always a pleasure being on the pod and looking forward to coming back next year on the same topic.
Chris Arey
Yeah man.
Absolutely, sir. Thank you so much. And for those of you listening in, if you haven’t yet gotten a copy of the infographic, we’re going to make that available in the show notes here. If you have any questions, comments, or you want to just chat about your own experience with Infor, we’d love to hear from you.
So please do not hesitate to reach out. You can contact us at podcast@rpic.com. Again, that’s podcast@rpic.com. This is RPI Tech Connect and we’ll see you next time.
