Infor positioned as a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Multienterprise Supply Chain Networks
Infor, a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry, today announced that Gartner Inc. has positioned Infor, for the second consecutive time, as a Leader in its Magic Quadrant for Multienterprise Supply Chain Business Networks. Infor was positioned in the Leaders quadrant for its ability to execute and completeness of vision.
Gartner wrote in the report that, “Multienterprise supply chain business networks (MESCBNs) are an essential technology component to a successful high-maturity, digital transformation. Executives must understand that their company needs to operate within such networks to stay competitive – in other words, minimize risk, increase efficiency, reduce cost and capitalize on opportunities.”
Heidi Benko, VP of solutions strategy for Infor Supply Chain Management, said, “Companies are looking for a new level of speed, agility and resiliency in their supply chains and multienterprise business applications (MEBAs).”
“Yet, the biggest challenge to the effective operation of MEBAs is the integration – connectivity, interoperability and data quality – and collaboration among all the various partners,” Gartner states in the report.
Said Benko, “We believe this is where Infor separates from other network providers. Organically developed for complex multi-party, real-time collaboration and process automation, companies on our Infor Nexus platform can overcome typical business network challenges across the physical and financial supply chain.”
“The best-performing supply chains can sense and respond to dynamic signals in real time,” Benko added. “Customers can rely on our connected network to obtain real-time, end-to-end trusted signals and AI-driven predictive alerts to help empower users to take action based on intelligence that spans the entire ecosystem.”
According to Gartner, “Multienterprise supply chain business networks support a community of trading partners – of any tier and type within an industry-leading network – that need to work and communicate/collaborate on business processes that extend across multiple enterprises, with an end-to-end and shared focus. Such solutions provide their community with multienterprise functionality, services, and security with special emphasis on supply chain visibility and executional processes.”
In the report, Gartner notes that, “MESCBNs must include capabilities in all of the following six categories:
- Industry-leading network connectivity – including business partner connections, many-to-many network architecture, network interoperability and system integration/multichannel integration.
- Visibility foundation – centralized information/data hub, a variety of well-defined data objects and data-cleansing/management tools.
- Universal cross-domain apps – such as identity management, common and configurable process workflows, exception management, visualization, document management, supply risk management, and performance management.
- Core supply chain apps – predominantly in the domain of supply chain execution but also selectively in supply chain planning; besides offering enterprise-centric apps, the solution must demonstrate multienterprise app coverage that creates shared value for both the primary tenant and its network partners.
- Collaboration – capabilities to collaborate with business partners for issue resolution, such as cross-network instant messaging and self-serve portals.
- Intelligence – a variety of advanced capabilities, including predictive and prescriptive analytics, analysis (root cause, impact) and artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML).”
