H1 2019A MAGAZINE FOR THE ECOSYSTEM

THE IFS SOLUTION: VISION STATEMENT

GET TO KNOW THE IFS ‘CHALLENGER CHAMPIONS PROGRAM 2019’

WOCO 2019

A HISTORY OF DELIVERING

3 MYTH-BUSTING

WHAT MAKES

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT AT THIS YEAR’S MUST-ATTEND EVENT

ON INNOVATION

CLOUD FACTS

A CHALLENGER CHAMPION?

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CHALLENGER

CONTENTS

IFS PRODUCTS

24 THE CALL FOR

CUSTOMER CENTRICITY

by Sarah Nicastro,

Director of Service Business

Development, Workwave

26 CHIEF INDUSTRIES RUNS

IFS APPLICATIONSTM

28 3 CLOUD-BASED

ENTERPRISE

SOFTWARE MYTHS

by Raymond Jones,

VP Cloud Planning and

Operations, IFS

30 IFS USER GROUPS

2 Table of Contents

3 Letter from the CEO, Darren Roos

4 IFS News Update

IFS WORLD

6 THE IFS SOLUTION:

VISION STATEMENT

by Christian Pedersen,

Chief Product Officer, IFS

10 SALUTING THE

CHALLENGER CHAMPIONS

by Oliver Pilgerstorfer,

Chief Marketing Officer, IFS

18 CHALLENGING A

COMPANY CULTURE

Interview with Jane Keith,

Chief HR Officer, IFS

IFS WOCO 2019

12 THE MOST CUSTOMER-

CENTRIC EVENT YOU’LL

EVER HAVE ATTENDED

16 IFS WORLD CONFERENCE

FROM A CUSTOMER

PERSPECTIVE

Interview with Pawel Ceglarz,

IT Development Manager, Shawcor

I am immensely proud that my amazing IFS team has created

a publication that features a fresh and modern look, and that it also has a renewed focus on global topics. They have been selected with the needs of you, our challenger customers, in mind.

Since I took the helm in April 2018, IFS has undergone several changes, including the consolidation from eight different regional businesses into a single global integrated business. These changes have been made to make it easier for you, our customers, to engage with us, no matter where you are located in the world. This magazine is part of this process—a way for us to give you a glimpse of the great work being done across our global organization.

I am also enormously proud of the great progress we have made in reshaping and enhancing every part of the business. The industry expertise, passion, and pride of our people, along with the breadth and depth of our solutions, all point to our unwavering commitment to deliver value and meaningful business results for you, whether directly or working together with our invaluable global network of partners.

In the months and years ahead, I am confident that you will notice continuous improvements as we double down on our commitment to bring you sensible enterprise so lu tions that add value in the ways that matter most to you and your business.

As an essential part of any change process, I invite you as readers, customers, prospects, and partners to give us your honest feedback on our performance. I encourage you to get in touch with your account manager, one of the senior leadership team, or directly with myself to tell us how we can improve.

Best regards,

Darren Roos CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

CHALLENGER MAGAZINEWELCOME TO THE

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UPDATEIFS NEWS

On April 2019, IFS was proud to be again named by Gartner as Leader in its Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management. Marne Martin, President of IFS Service Management, believes that this accolade is “an important validation of our long- term strategic focus on the service space.”

Discover the reasons IFS has been deemed worthy as a Leader in every Gartner Magic Quadrant for FSM published since 2014.

04IFS Q1: OUTSTANDING FINANCIAL RESULTS In April, IFS reported its financial perfor-mance for the first quarter of 2019 with several areas of growth, including an increase of 29% in net revenue and a remarkable 67% growth in license revenue.

03PTC AND IFS PARTNER TO DELIVER POWERFUL SOLUTIONS IFS and PTC will integrate PTC’s Servigistics®

Service Parts Management solution with IFS’s Service solutions. This mutual integration offers customers across verticals such as A&D, heavy industrials and high-tech indus-tries the very best in equipment uptime and service delivery among other benefits.

01 IFS IS ONCE AGAIN A LEADER IN THE GARTNER 2019 MAGIC QUADRANT FOR FIELD SERVICE MANAGEMENT

02IFS CEO DARREN ROOS INTERVIEWED BY CNBCFor a segment on technology trends, Darren was invited by international broadcaster CNBC to share how businesses can leverage software to disrupt and innovate.

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06ANTONY BOURNE LOOKS AHEAD AT MANUFACTURING AIWith a new generation of point artificial intelligence solutions coming in the near future, IFS Industries President Antony Bourne shares his three key predictions for manufacturing AI in an article for Industry Week.

05UK-BASED TUNSTALL SELECTS IFS APPLICATIONS 10 IN THE CLOUDTo keep up with global demand, the company is looking to replace its existing landscape of disparate systems with a unified ERP suite capable of supporting the entire organization.

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IFS has a history of reinventing its technology stack in order to lower total cost of ownership and redu-ce complexity for customers. Only four years after launching IFS Applications as a full ERP suite, in 1994, the company invested heavily to reinvent its entire suite to reduce cost and complexity to im-plement, upgrade, and run the software. Back then, enterprise software was written as a single, mono-lithic block of code. Changing or reconfiguring the software once it was implemented was a significant challenge. Once a company had ERP in place, it was essentially dipped in concrete—its business model and processes frozen in time. Even small changes to the business processes and certainly new busi-ness models or a novel or additional chart of ac-counts required tremendous expense and business disruption.

That is why, by the early 1990s, the concepts of software modularity and reuse were popular in the academic community. Small, modular bits of code could be configured and reconfigured as needed, just so long as there were predictable rules in place that would explain how those small modules would interlock and work together.

IFS founders thus completely recreated IFS Appli-cations using an object-oriented model. This let IFS customers implement just the functionality they needed and quickly re-arrange components and business processes with minimal disruption.

IFS became one of the first enterprise software ven-dors to adopt a service-oriented architecture (SOA), which works in much the same way as your web browser, in that it accesses functionality over the Internet. Regardless of what browser you are using, you can access information and interact with sys-tems on the Web. Website functionality may change without affecting the rest of the Web or your brow-ser. Similarly, the various features in SOA-based software can be changed, replaced, or reconfigured without affecting the rest of the system.

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VISION STATEMENTTHE IFS SOLUTION:

IFS RELEASES STATEMENT PROMISING NEW ARCHITECTURE AND INTELLIGENT AND AUTONOMOUS CAPABILITIES

Compared to its competitors, IFS has a solid reputation for delivering on its product roadmap, so customers should take interest in the IFS Solution Vision State-ment—“Intelligent and Autonomous Enterprise Solutions for the Challengers”—which was published in March 2019.

What does IFS promise in this document, and what does it say about the new ways customers will be able to be nefit from their software investment? As IFS moves towards a new generation of intelligent and autonomous solutions that fluidly access tools like IoT, artificial intel - ligence, and augmented reality, here are three major things to consider:

EVOLVING FOR RAPID INNOVATIONFor decades, IFS focused entirely on IFS Applications— a pure-play software suite where all of the different modules and components were designed to work toge-ther. The company did not acquire multiple, duplicative ERP products like some of its competitors, but it did

make targeted acquisitions. In 2010, IFS acquired a field service scheduling optimization leader, 360 Scheduling, and in 2012, bought their longtime partner, Metrix, for its field service and mobile capabilities. In 2015, it acquired VisionWaves, which became IFS’s operational intelligen-ce platform, followed by an aviation asset management leader, MXi, in 2016. Then in 2017, IFS acquired mplsys-tems, which specialized in artificial intelligence and machine learning for customer engagement.

While these acquisitions made sense for IFS and for customers, they moved the company away from its historic approach of having only one modular product for multiple industries. According to the vision state-ment, IFS is “building new innovations into our software and evolving our architecture, so all our customers can benefit, not just those who can afford to purchase and integrate disparate applications and technologies.”

What this suggests is that IFS will drive an approach with individually deployable best-of-breed solutions, which are, however, inherently integrated when

customers use more than one of them. This is a major undertaking, but one that will make it more affordable and practical for a manufacturer running IFS Applicati-ons to add software tools currently only available in IFS Field Service Management for their aftermarket service offering. For example, a commercial maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) vendor running IFS Maintenix for airframe maintenance could more cost-effectively and easily add functionality now only available in IFS Applications for depot repair and MRO of engines and components.

This is in keeping with IFS’s historical strategy of inno-vating to reduce customer cost and complexity. However, achieving this will require major investment and effort in the order of the company’s earlier move to a service-ori-ented architecture (SOA).

A HISTORY OF DELIVERING ON INNOVATION

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EVERGREEN SOFTWARE: ALWAYS CURRENTIFS has made a major move towards “evergreen” soft - ware—always having the latest features and updates— with its Layered Application Architecture in IFS Applica-tions 10. The ability to segregate modifications in their own layer and then automatically duplicate them in a new version during an upgrade makes it a lot easier and more cost-effective to stay on the current version.

According to the new vision statement, customers will be able to stay on the current version at all times, regardless of whether they are running IFS software in the cloud or on-premise. This approach is normally associated with software-as-a-service (SaaS), where all customers are running on the same instance of the soft-ware—a real benefit for customers who want the security and innovation benefits of running the most current software version.

Evergreen also means access to the latest innovations and also higher quality and security. This needs to be balanced against the efforts of change management. IFS says its goal is for customers to run its software evergreen—as SaaS in the cloud as well as on-premise—with near-zero effort and full portability.

ACCESS TO TRANSFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES THROUGHOUT THE BUSINESSIFS’s product set already includes practical approaches to the IoT, artificial intelligence and machine learning. The company has run successful proof of concepts for augmented reality and other technologies that, while common in consumer products, are not yet widely used in business.

The IFS IoT Business Connector, the AI-driven IFS Customer Engagement software, algorithm-driven scheduling found in IFS Planning and Scheduling and Optimization—all of these are real products delivering value to customers right now. But, according to the vision statement, the transformational nature of these techno-logies will be made more widely available through the set of applications by making them available in a new Application Services Layer of the software.

“IFS HAS A UNIQUE APPROACH TO DEVELOPING PRODUCTS AROUND CUSTOMER NEEDS, AND THIS WILL NOT CHANGE; WE WILL ACCELERATE OUR INVESTMENTS IN CAPABILITIES

THAT HELP OUR CUSTOMERS IN THEIR QUEST FOR DIFFERENTIATION AND RADICALLY RE-ENGINEERING

THEIR BUSINESSES. WE WILL CONTINUE TO HELP CUSTO-MERS REDUCE COST AND COMPLEXITY, BUT IT’S EQUALLY

IMPORTANT FOR US TO ENABLE THESE NEW BUSINESS SCENARIOS AND PROCESSES”

CHRISTIAN PEDERSENCHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER, IFS

MEET THE CPOWith the addition of Christian Pedersen as Chief Product Officer, who joins Thomas Säld to lead IFS’s Product Management and Development teams, IFS is making significant steps forward in its software architecture. Pedersen comes to IFS from SAP, but prior to his one- year stint there he spent 15 years in senior product roles on the Microsoft Dynamics product line. Working with

Microsoft Dynamics AX for 14 years, he shepherded the onboarding of Navision and Axapta, which became Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics AX respectively, and then worked on running the Dynamics ERP and CRM product lines.

NEW CAPABILITIES WILL BE ADDED TO THIS APPLICATION SERVICES LAYER, AND EXISTING CAPABILITIES WILL BE LEVERAGED IN THE FOLLOWING NEW WAYS:

Watch for REMOTE ASSISTANCE CAPABILITIES, so a field service or maintenance worker can get REAL-TIME REMOTE SUPPORT from an expert in a central office to see what they see, and offer guidance.

IOT CAPABILITIES will take real-time equipment data and feed it directly into systems that help diagnose equipment issues.

A power distribution utility will be able to use MACHINE LEARNING and BIG DATA including WEATHER FORECASTS to predict and prepare for spikes in demand and SCHEDULE TECHNICIAN RESOURCES accordingly.

Construction contractors will be able to use a PROJECT PLAN TO DRIVE 3D PRINTING of entire buildings or building components on site.

ROBOTICS AND AI will be deployable not just on the plant floor, but for business decisions, creating entirely new and autonomous business processes.

A PATH FORWARDIFS has some work to do before it can deliver on these promises. It must succeed where competitors have failed, uniting multiple architectures. IFS must also continue to bring innovative, disruptive technologies into the product offering in ways that allow customers to use them in a flexible, agile fashion across multiple business processes. But it has made a public commitment to do these things, so customers should watch announcements and updates coming from IFS very carefully.

Read more in the IFS Solution Vision Statement:

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CHALLENGER // 10

In the business-to-business sector, we too often only celebrate these tech traits in the context of the orga-nizations we serve: the value realized, the competitive advantage created, and/or the efficiencies achieved.

But what about the people? Yes, the employees who work with and are impacted by the tech we use in our everyday work lives. I’d argue they are the business, and I’d also argue that it’s myopic for leaders not to think about the softer implications that technology can have on people: internally in terms of employee happiness and company culture, and externally in terms of the product and the customer experience offered.

Nothing resonates with me more than a story … and a story about a person or group who has done something amazing with technology really sticks. This could be an impressive business achievement, but often I hear ama-zing stories about how a person at one of our customers has done something that has a material impact on their life, or has helped colleagues in a meaningful way.

Rarely do these stories originate from people who are doing things the same way they’ve been done for years. They transpire because someone has questioned the status quo, they’ve thought differently and then they’ve actually taken action.

That is why we are launching the Challenger Champion program. During 2019, we are celebrating people working for our customers who have done something different, making life easier, more exciting, or having more impact for themselves and their colleagues.

We plan to curate and celebrate a handful of Challenger Champions throughout the year by showcasing their stories. Over the coming months, we’ll be posting on the IFS Blog platform, through our social channels and of course at the IFS World Conference.

It is easy to talk about change and the benefits of doing things differently, but we hope that the Challenger Champions serve as good examples of what each of us can do to change the way we do business.

If you are an IFS customer and know someone in your company who you think fits the bill, someone who really helps their company challenge the norms, please nomi-nate them by contacting me or your account manager—there are no forms to fill or timeline for entries—just an appetite to hear and celebrate your story.

CHALLENGER CHAMPIONSSALUTING THE

CELEBRATING THE PEOPLE WITHIN OUR CUSTOMERS WHO DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY AND HAVE AN IMPACT.

THE CHALLENGER CHAMPIONS INITIATIVE CELEBRATES THE PEOPLE WHO ARE INTEGRAL IN OUR CUSTOMERS ACHIEVING SUCCESS – THEY ARE A DIVERSE GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE CONTINUALLY STRIVING TO IMPROVE AND CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO.

OLIVER PILGERSTORFERCHIEF MARKETING OFFICER, IFS

CHAMPIONCHALLENGER

#forthechallengers

2019

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FIND OUT ABOUT THE CHALLENGERS

AND THEIR OWN STORIES HERE:

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With IFS World Conference 2019 being just four months away, it is high time to sign up for the event of the year. Our Exhibition will be buzzing with skills, stories, and strategies to help you focus your future, power your network, and learn from the best.

INDUSTRY ZONES: INNOVATION APPLIEDOur Industry Zones help you focus on the solutions and opportunities that matter most to you. Each zone is packed with innovation and manned by IFS experts, on hand to listen and demo new solutions and capabilities. So you get to the people and solutions that will benefit you the most! With our Industry Zones you’re always in the center.

AGILITY THEATER: PROFIT FROM PERFORMANCEPure business drama. That’s what you get with these short, deep dives that shine a spotlight on an illumina-ting success story. Packed, punchy presentations, they deliver razor-sharp lessons you can take with you and put into practice—the moment the curtain rises.

MEET THE EXPERTS: REVEALING NEW HORIZONSWhether they’re showing you totally new solutions you’ve never seen before or new capabilities in solutions you thought you already knew—our IFS experts open new horizons and reveal new possibilities. So, don’t make their lives easy! Demand new solutions and tech-niques! Challenge us—we dare you! And we’ll create new opportunities—together.

THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIPOur sponsor booths will be packed full of treasures for you to explore. Meet and mingle with many of the world’s most innovative digital enterprises! Find out how together we offer end-to-end solutions and partnerships that can help you be the change you want to see—and take your business to the next level.

CONFERENCE 2019IFS WORLD

THE MOST CUSTOMER-CENTRIC EVENT YOU’LL EVER HAVE ATTENDEDOCTOBER 7–10, 2019

HYNES CONVENTION CENTER, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, USA

LEARN FROM THE BESTNothing teaches better than proven success stories from real businesses. Every session at this event will be built around real cases from successful companies who chal-lenged the status quo. Stories and solutions that will add value to your business—and empower you to achieve your potential and realize your competitive advantage, now and in the future.

FOCUS YOUR FUTURE What do you really need to focus on next for your business to move ahead of the competition? Where do you need to invest? Which new skills and solutions are must-haves? And what might you already have that you could be using differently to get better re-sults? Our expert insight and solu-tions help you focus your business and get fighting fit for the future.

POWER YOUR NETWORK Challengers stick together.They’re there for each other every step of the way. That’s how it is with us. We live to support you. We only grow because you do. Every year real business relationships are forged at IFS World Conference. Relationships that stand the test of time. That continue to reap rewards year in and year out. We’re challen-gers. We’re in it together. IFS World Conference is where our hearts and minds meet.

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FIND THE AGENDA HERE:

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CONFERENCE 2019IFS WORLD

FLY HIGH WITH THE GLOBAL SKATEBOARDING LEGENDLearn how to fly higher with the most inter- nationally recognized action-sports figure in the world. World Championship winner for skateboarding 12 years in a row, in 1999 Tony Hawk defied gravity and flew into the history books—becoming the first ever person to achieve a ‘900,’ a high-speed, mid-air spin revolving 2½ times on his board.

Tony’s billion-dollar brand and projects are just as inspiring. The Tony Hawk Foun dation drives lasting social change in challenged and low-income communi-ties throughout the US and the world.

As an entrepreneur and philanthropist, the Tony Hawk brand boasts a billion-dollar video game franchise, a best-selling auto-biography, and signature sporting goods and apparel. Apart from his successful business ventures, Tony is a role model for fans of all ages and to date has given over US$ 7.9 million to over 600 skatepark projects worldwide, helping new generati-ons fly as high, and dream as free, as Tony Hawk himself.

...who swam across the North Pole and in a lake on Mount Everest that until recently was a solid glacier. Opening minds and touching hearts as he campaigns for better stewardship of our environment.

Living legend and endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh was described by TED Talks as a “master story-teller.” He’ll empower you to aim higher and see your business with a whole new sense of “can-do.” From team building to goalsetting to mastering focus—Lewis Pugh will help bring new strength, joy, and focus to you and your team.

THE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS AT THIS YEAR’S CONFERENCE PERFECTLY EXEMPLIFY THE CHALLENGER MINDSET.

TONYHAWK

...and a Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and Chair of the Leadership Initiative. Regarded as one of the top experts on leadership, Hill is the co-author of Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Inno-vation, co-founder of Paradox Strategies, and co-creator of the Innovation Quotient.

No matter what your industry, Linda has a great way of helping you take a step back, evaluate where you’re at and where you’re heading, and ensure you have the right resources and capabi-lities to get there.

...and 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medalist. Yet she started her career as a track and field athlete, only beginning CrossFit and weightlifting in 2013. In 2016 she became Australia’s top-ranked female weightlifter and wowed the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro with a powerhouse performance in the women’s 58 kg event that placed her 14th in the world.

At IFS World Conference 2019 with com-pliments of WebQuarters, you can hear her inspirational story.

TIA-CLAIR TOOMEYTHE 2018 FITTEST WOMAN ON EARTH

LEWIS PUGH

LINDA A. HILLIS A TOP EXPERT ON LEADERSHIP

— A MASTER STORY-TELLER

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REGISTRATION:

MORE INFORMATION AND

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The conference will provide a unique opportunity to hear the latest news from IFS and your industry, to learn how the hottest technologies are being deployed by your peers to drive value for organizations like yours, and to be inspired by five keynote speakers. There are also unlimited opportunities to make new connections and build existing relationships, so it is easy to see why IFS World Conference 2019 is not to be missed.

Pawel Ceglarz, IT Development Manager for Shawcor, is a veteran of three IFS World Conferences, and we asked Pawel what he values most about the conference, and what he’s looking forward to most in Boston. Pawel and his team accelerated a major upgrade and established important new partnerships after attending IFS World Conference 2018 in Atlanta.

So, Pawel, as an experienced attendee, what advice would you give people to ensure they get the most out of the conference?

“Attend as many sessions as possible, and network! There were 16 of us from Shawcor in Atlanta so our plan was to split up and cover as many break-outs as we could. Our objective was to learn as much as we could about new IFS features and make new contacts within

the Oil & Gas industry. At the end of every day we’d meet up and share our impressions, what we’d learned, new solutions and contacts.”

NEW NETWORKS, NEW THINKINGMany new contacts were made. “We established some very valuable new connections and ended up partnering with some really good companies we met through the event, like the Canadian global corporation Linamar, who we’ve built a great connection with.”

FREE & FRANK DEBATE“One of the best parts of the Conference is how easy it is to meet and get talking to people. People are very open and willing to discuss their experiences. I personally really appreciate that IFS doesn’t try to ‘censor’ anything or steer the debate. You’re encouraged to discuss any–thing you want. So yes, you can discuss the cool stuff, but you can discuss issues too, pick people’s brains, find out how they’ve solved challenges. It’s a great network–ing and learning opportunity. Plus, the social events like IFS Customer Appreciation Night make the atmosphere open, relaxed, and totally easy to talk to people.”

CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVEFROM A

SEEING NEW FEATURES MAKE ‘WOW’ HERE & NOWWhat about the range of new features and solutions on display at the event? Is there always a wow factor?

“Definitely, definitely! A funny story is that last year when we arrived at the Conference we were in the early stages of upgrading from IFS Applications 8 to IFS Applications 9. By the end of the Conference we were so impressed by the new functionality, especially the new IFS Aurena interface and APIs, that we decided there and then to stop the upgrade from IFS Applications 8 to 9—and go straight to IFS Applications 10! I’m proud to say I had the privilege of leading that upgrade. On April 15, 2019 we went live with Applications 10—and it all started at IFS World Conference 2018!”

GET MORE VALUE FROM YOUR INVESTMENTAs well as revealing new solutions, the Conference also helps customers figure out how to get more out of their existing IFS solution. “One of the break-outs I attended was about extending IFS systems without having to mo-dify the IFS code—by using local development tools. The break-out mentioned OutSystems, and right now we’re big users of OutSystems. We implemented a DEP plat-form which is basically a digital enablement platform that lets us extend functionality by adding valuable features specific to our business—we managed to do that, and integrate IFS to our new SPIs, without modify-ing a single line of code in IFS. So, following something we heard at the Conference, we did our research post event, made the investment, and were delighted with the result.”

LOOKING FORWARD: FROM ATLANTA TO BOSTONWhat was the highlight of IFS World Conference 2018 in Atlanta and what are you looking forward to this year?

“On a personal level I really enjoyed seeing our SVP for Business Services & Human Resources, Paul Pierroz, presenting in the Main Hall during the opening keyno-tes. For me it underlined the great relationship between Shawcor and IFS. As for what I’m looking forward to most for IFS World Conference 2019? Well, of course I’m looking forward to seeing the new product features and functionalities and getting to as many break-out sessions as possible—but personally I’m also really looking forward to Tony Hawk! I want to try and get his autograph for my son—he’s a huge fan!”

However you want to grow, whatever you want to learn, and whoever you want to meet, IFS World Conference gets you closer to new technologies and new ways of thinking so you can gain more value from your IFS solutions.

BOOK NOW—and we’ll see you at the Hynes Convention Center Boston, 7-9 October 2019: IFS.BIZ/MYTY

THIS IS WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM IFS WORLD CONFERENCE 2019

INTERVIEW WITH PAWEL CEGLARZ, IT DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, SHAWCOR

SHAWCOR LTD IS A GLOBAL ENERGY COMPANY WITH MORE THAN 8,000 EMPLOYEES LOCATED IN OVER 20 COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD. SHAWCOR SPECIALIZES IN PRODUCTS AND SERVICES FOR THE PIPELINE AND PIPE SERVICES, AND PETROCHEMICAL AND INDUSTRIAL SEGMENTS OF THE OIL AND GAS INDUS-TRY AND OTHER INDUSTRIAL MARKETS.

CONFERENCE 2019IFS WORLD

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LEARN MORE ABOUT SHAWCOR:

AT ONE SINGLE EVENT YOU GET TO LEARN ALL ABOUT WHAT’S NEW IN IFS SOLUTIONS, GET VALUABLE

TRAINING, INTERACT WITH OTHER CUSTOMERS AND IFS USERS TO DISCUSS NEW IDEAS, AND MAKE REALLY GREAT NEW CONTACTS—ALL WITH A LOT OF FUN AND IN A VERY RELAXING ATMOSPHERE. IT’S A GREAT NETWORKING AND LEARNING OPPORTUNITY.”

PAWEL CEGLARZIT DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, SHAWCOR

COMPANY CULTURE— WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

CHALLENGING A

WHAT IT IS TO BE A CHALLENGER IN THE WORKPLACE

INTERVIEW WITH JANE KEITH, CHIEF HR OFFICER, IFS

Now more than ever, organizations are aiming high to engage their employees. Companies are using various methods to harness innovation and encourage thinking in new ways. We got the chance to catch up with Chief Human Resources Officer for IFS, Jane Keith, to discuss the importance of being a challenger in the workplace, and what this means to her personally, as well as for the company’s culture.

What do you see as your role in setting the tone for the company culture and environment?

My job is more to help build an environment where peo-ple feel challenged—it’s through a good challenge that people develop and end up learning new things. People are sometimes reluctant to take on new challenges since they can be difficult and often come with a lot of work—that’s why they’re called challenges! But they also build team spirit and new opportunities for having fun at work. Let’s kill the myth about the pool table that many companies have in the cafeteria or employee lounge being the best way to build a fun workplace. I find fun in working in brilliant teams that trust each other. Now that is what my role is all about: to help create a climate where people feel challenged in a positive sense.

That seems pretty simple. So, what’s stopping every leader creating a challenger culture?

Because building a culture where people challenge each other to do things differently only works if the individual employees are up for it. The manager isn’t a mind reader; if someone wants to stretch themselves they need to be vocal about it. Everyone’s needs are different and some prefer more guidance, whilst others don’t.

Let’s face it: work can be easy when you’re in your comfort zone and we often gravitate towards staying in that zone. That’s where the role of manager comes in: to encourage people to challenge themselves further. The leaders in an organization are the facilitators to your thoughts, so be open at work and you will find yourself enjoying it! I think IFS has come a long way on that journey.

That is great for us, but why should someone not wor-king at IFS care about our culture? I mean, what are the consequences for an IFS customer? Why should they care about our effort to create a challenger culture?

It’s all down to simple logic. If you’re happy in your job and you’re working directly with customers, you naturally give an energized service; you will want to go that extra mile. As an example, think about a time you’ve been into a shop and received great customer service. It’s likely this stayed with you and you returned there, right? In my experience, when the opposite happens, you not only don’t go back, but you tell other people about it and may even leave a negative review online. As leaders of the organization we’re here to keep raising the bar so that our customers not only continue to come back to us feeling engaged, but also that they communicate their experien-ce to other businesses in turn. People buy from people, and at IFS you are working with people that take their job seriously, are fully energized, motivated, and engaged. So, my answer to your question is, if we have an energized workforce in place that want to make a difference, we will see repeat customer satisfaction, and that’s why it’s important to shout about our efforts to create a challen-ger culture at IFS.

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This all sounds very motivating! There may be com-panies that wish to encourage this way of thinking in their own organizations—what can a company do to stimulate this kind of culture?

It’s important to emphasize to your employees that it’s ok to make mistakes. As a manager, make your emp-loyees feel comfortable about the fact that mistakes will be made and that through these mistakes you are going to learn, which is what managers want. It’s all a learning process.

So, are you saying that there needs to be a strong element of trust between employee and manager, and this will, in turn, lead to better customer satisfaction?

Yes, completely! We enjoy our jobs the most when we collaborate and work well together. Employees will tick the boxes, but to really make a positive impact on cus-tomers you need to have teams in place who are having fun ticking those boxes. Do your best to avoid negative energy and make a choice to embrace the journey your company is taking. Peer to peer and manager to emp-loyee, it’s important to say thank you; it’s important to recognize when employees go the extra mile. Everybody appreciates a thank you; recognition doesn’t have to be monetary, it’s an acknowledgement. Work hard, collabo-rate, have a good team spirit, and if you work with like-minded people you will look back and see great results.

You mentioned there about a company’s ‘journey’—could you give us your insight into what you think IFS’s journey ahead looks like?

I think IFS has had a fantastic history to date, but the journey doesn’t stop here—the company has a great future in front of it but we need to be very specific about what we do, where we play, and what our customer base is. We need to make sure that we deliver to our custo-mers and make it the best experience ever for them. I feel we are on the verge of a massive growth trajectory. We have just announced our Q1 results, which show a year-on-year improvement of 67% in license revenue—most companies would die for those results!

I think it will be a challenging journey, but IFS is in a great position to challenge our competitors as we have the right structure in place. We are proud to say that our priority is our care for customer choice—we won’t ever push our customers to go to the cloud, for example. I think it’s about time IFS punched its weight in the mar-ket. It’s a really motivating and exciting place to be right now—I have worked in the IT industry for over 25 years and have never seen a company with so much potential.

It looks as though IFS is going through a lot of change right now. What would you say to a customer that sees that we are suddenly growing but does not un-derstand why?

I’d explain that it has come through the great customer relationships we have in place, whether it’s new name business or current business. The growth we have achieved is through the practice we keep in treating our customers well. We are agile, and this is because of our size—we’re at a size where we can move in a quick and agile way and adapt quickly, whilst others can’t. We have a great story to tell, with great products and a brilliant set of customers already in place.

That is great advice, and what about customers rea-ding this article that may want to become challengers themselves? What advice would you give to them?

Ask yourself, are you in the status quo or are you on a journey of change, like IFS? You need to firstly accept the challenge and be willing to change, and from there we can help you improve your processes. IFS are always open to conversation; come and talk to us about your ideas—we have tools and resources that are here to help you think differently. Change management is constant and you need to keep challenging yourself.

IN HER ROLE AT IFS, JANE LEADS THE HUMAN RESOURCES PROGRAM TO ENSURE OPTIMAL EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT, RECRUITMENT, TALENT MANAGEMENT, AND BUSINESS HR ACROSS THE GLOBAL ORGANIZATION.

WITH TRUST, QUALITY, AND TRANSPARENCY AS GUIDING PRINCIPLES, JANE’S AIM IS TO CREATE A COHESIVE AND COLLABORATIVE HR TEAM THAT HAS ITS FINGER ON THE PULSE OF THE BUSINESS AND THAT WORKS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH BUSI-NESS LEADERS TO GROW THE ORGANIZATION.

PRIOR TO JOINING IFS, JANE WORKED FOR MORE THAN 22 YEARS AT HEWLETT PACKARD AND HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE, MOST RECENTLY AS THE UK&I HR DIRECTOR AND THE HR VICE PRESIDENT FOR EUROPE, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND AFRICA. JANE ALSO WORKED FOR TWO YEARS AS HR LEADER FOR THE EUROPEAN SERVICES AND CONSULTING BUSINESS AT SAP.

Jane Keith CHIEF HR OFFICER, IFS

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You will previously have heard the terms corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainability. Most of us know that it has something to do with doing good, giving back, and helping others.

For IFS, corporate sustainability is a way of taking a culture of committed employees and channeling that energy into something that matters in the long run. The goal is not to sell more products but to strengthen our sense of purpose, why we do what we do. 3500 people pulling in the same direction can make a difference, and together we have created a new way to make sure everyone has a chance to contribute, for example, to the CSR Volunteer Day.

STARTING IN 2019, ALL IFS EMPLOYEES ARE ENTITLED TO TAKE ONE DAY A YEAR OFF TO PURSUE THE CHARITY PROJECT OF THEIR CHOICE WHILE STILL RECEIVING FULL COMPENSATION.

The program includes any activity that falls within the remit of the UN’s sustainable development goals, and the aim is to make a difference in the area that matters most to them. Despite being a joint, globally coordi-nated program, the CSR Volunteer Day focuses on the interests of the individual, and so far we have seen IFS employees build houses, teach kids to read, distribute food to the poor and much more.

In order to keep track of our impact, the activities selected by the IFS employee are logged in a CSR data-base, where the topic of choice is recorded together with a personal story of the activity and a photo. The employee then receives a badge—based on the seventeen sustainable development goals—for having completed an activity in this area, a manifestation of gamification that adds an additional incentive.

SO WHY SHOULD YOU CARE ABOUT THIS? Well, one of our goals is to find projects where we can also collaborate with our customers in this area. Do you have a charity that you support or a project where an extra pair of hands could be useful? If so, please reach out to your IFS contacts and invite them to participate. We would love to spend the day with you doing some-thing together!

—WHAT OF IT?CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY

COLLABORATIVE

TRUSTWORTHYAGILE

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Whereas certain industries, such as retail, are customer- centric by nature, the call to customer centricity is relati-vely new for field service organizations. Historically, the field service function was in many instances seen as a cost center, almost an afterthought to a company’s core business offering. However, times have changed and to day field service is recognized for its ability to not only act as a profit center, but as a strategic differentiator.

In an effort to capitalize on this potential, organizations that have not traditionally operated with their primary focus on customer experience are evolving. Not only does the company’s guiding principles need to become more customer-centric, but this evolution is taking place at a time when customer expectations and demands are hitting an all-time high.

I recently interviewed Christopher Buschmann, VP of IT at Smart Care Equipment Solutions at the IFS North America Service Management InFocuS user group, about the company’s overhaul of structure, processes, and technology and its effort to become more customer-centric. “All you need to do to envision the demands today’s customers have is to think about your own expe-riences with a company like Uber or Lyft,” Buschmann says of the pressure of mounting customer expectations, continuing by observing: “The ease with which you can use the service, the real-time insights you have as a consumer, are becoming the natural expectations of all service organizations—even in B2B scenarios.”

BUILDING A FOUNDATION FOR CHANGESmart Care, formerly a part of Ecolab, provides com-mercial kitchen repair and maintenance services for co-oking, coffee, refrigeration, and ware-washing equipment in the restaurant, hospitality, food retail, and healthcare industries. The company has more than 1,000 employ-ees, including more than 600 field technicians who pro-vide service for over 40,000 kitchens across America. Smart Care has recognized that to keep up with the pace of change in today’s service landscape, the company needed to tackle this evolution to customer centricity to enable it to set itself apart based on service provision.

“We want to achieve that seamless customer experien-ce,” says Buschmann. “To do so, we need to really know our customers’ wants and needs, be better equipped to give them choice and control (such as smaller service windows), provide information to keep them informed at all times, conduct surveys to ensure quality and satis-faction, and gather information that will help us and our customers make better decisions.”

The newfound focus and creation of these goals are criti-cal first steps, but for Smart Care the modernization of its technology was essential to achieving these goals. “We’ve been operating on technology selected and de ployed in a time with fewer and different demands. Our ERP was inefficient; our field service management system was not keeping pace with our vision for the future. For us to embrace customer centricity the way we need to, we

CUSTOMER CENTRICITYTHE CALL FOR

BY SARAH NICASTRO, FIELD SERVICE EVANGELIST, FUTURE OF FIELD SERVICE, IFS

had to start by building a new foundation. We chose IFS Applications, FSM, and PSO to modernize our business and help us achieve our next levels of success.”

IFS will support Smart Care in its quest to provide custo-mers more control, as well as in its shift from reactive to predictive service. “With PSO, for instance, we can better utilize our talented technicians and gain the ability to offer customers a choice of service windows to best meet their needs,” says Buschmann. “And in the future, our customers won’t want to call us to just repair broken equipment. They will expect more from us—things like receiving an automated service request from IoT-enabled equipment, predicting when they need to fix their freezer that hasn’t broken yet; when they should consider repla-cing equipment or to increase staff training on equipment. We need to be prepared to provide this level of service and insight. Investing in IFS will help us build a customer experience like this.”

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS FOR YOUR CX JOURNEYIf you, like Smart Care, are embarking on a journey toward providing higher levels of customer satisfaction, here are a few points to keep in mind. First, be cautious of making the number one mistake companies make on their road to customer centricity: making assumpti-ons about what it is their customers want. It can seem time-consuming and daunting to gather first-hand cus-tomer feedback and input, but it is the only real way to ensure your CX efforts are going to hit the mark.

Next, be sure you consider the correlation between employee engagement and customer satisfaction. All too often, companies get in a mode of being hyper-focused on CX and begin to neglect the engagement and satis-faction of their employees—who are ultimately going to deliver the service you are looking to transform.

“A happy technician is a happy customer,” says Busch-mann. “Part of our growth strategy is through acquisi-tions, so in that case, employee engagement becomes even more imperative. Our efforts are geared toward maximizing the expertise our technicians have—to better equip them for success. A tool like FSM that will allow us to know that a technician 10 miles away has a part another technician needs, that we’d previously have had them order, will have a huge impact on employee satis-faction because it removes daily hurdles and stressors, while also making us more efficient as a company.”

Finally, recognize that operating in this brand-new world means new ways of measuring progress and success. Many of the metrics field service organizations have used to measure efficiency, such as first-time fix and MTTR, are also highly relevant to the CX journey—you will simply be looking at them from the added lens of the customer, while incorporating customer satisfac-tion metrics like NPS.

A TOOL LIKE FSM THAT WILL ALLOW US TO KNOW THAT A TECHNICIAN 10 MILES AWAY HAS A

PART AN OTHER TECHNICIAN NEEDS, THAT WE’D PREVIOUSLY HAVE HAD THEM ORDER, WILL HAVE A HUGE

IMPACT ON EMPLOYEE SATIS FAC TION BECAUSE IT REMOVES DAILY HUR DLES AND STRESSORS...”

CHRISTOPHER BUSCHMANNVICE PRESIDENT OF IT, SMART CARE EQUIPMENT SOLUTIONS

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LEARN MORE ABOUT IFS FSM:

FASTER AND MORE COST-EFFECTIVE WITH IFS APPLICATIONS A key challenge for such a diverse company is maintai-ning high levels of service when customer requirements are prone to rapid change. Chief Industries has been using IFS Applications for about 10 years and has been reaping the benefits of its flexibility ever since. Prior to implementing IFS Applications, when customer changes were called for, Chief needed to employ developers to alter its systems. This modification process would take weeks, if not months. The agility of IFS Applications means Chief is able to react faster, realize significant financial benefits, and satisfy customer demands.

This flexibility has also come to the fore as and when Chief made acquisitions: “When we purchased an ethanol plant we were able to go live with IFS Applica-tions on the day we took over that company. Normally an implementation like that would probably take five to six months,” notes Jay Gnuse, Information Technology Director, Chief Industries.

Mike Henderson, Operations Manager, Chief Industries Agricultural Division, echoes this point: “We just brought our UK operations online and we went 100 percent paper - less on that shop floor, so through the entirety of recei-ving, manufacturing and shipment there is no paper re-quired. It’s the next step to being 100 percent real time.”

Over the course of the past 10 years, whenever Chief implemented or upgraded IFS for its different divisions, it also used the opportunity to update and review all of its processes. “With IFS, we’re able to utilize a lot of best practices to be able to improve processes at the division in many areas,” points out Gnuse.

Furthermore, by eliminating the use of spreadsheets and the legacy applications Chief had relied upon previously and moving all of its data into a single location, users have clearer, faster access to the data they need. These time savings result in significant cost savings for the company.

“We had a drastic lag time in information flow,” adds Mike Henderson. “Once IFS was implemented basically it went to a real-time system. As far as visibility and real-time information we were able to take on average a week to a week and a half off the standard lead times for our products.”

USER-FRIENDLINESS MAKES TRAINING EASYChief Industries has employees at each division known as Super Users who are tasked with training people that join the company. Experience has shown that end users appreciate IFS Applications because vital data can be accessed easily and instantaneously, which makes trai-ning new employees a straightforward task. “We’ve been very pleased with IFS and how easy it is for people to learn. Even people that have come from other systems can pick up on IFS very quickly so we don’t have a lot of training requirements,” says Gnuse.

WHAT NEXT?Chief Industries has been using IFS Applications for the past 10 years, but there is still plenty of scope for the company to take advantage of the software platform’s functionality. The company has just started using the powerful Lobby feature and is in the process of edu-cating upper management about the power of having a complete view of the business.

The ability to access IFA Applications on mobile devices is also being investigated. “One of the most important things at Chief Industries is customer service and we believe that the integrated CRM along with the mobile app will allow us to provide a higher level of customer service,” says Gnuse.

“IFS is vital to our organization and it allows us to pro-vide the customer service that we continue to strive for. We’re looking into an array of different modules inclu-ding group consolidation and estimation. We’re excited to see what IFS is going to offer in future updates. We’re excited to continue this relationship with IFS and we’re looking forward to seeing what’s next,” adds Gnuse.

BENEFITS

HIGHLY FLEXIBLE SOLUTION easily modified

Enables 100 percent paperless systems

Provides REAL-TIME VIEW OF BUSINESS

USER-FRIENDLINESS minimizes training requirements

RUNS IFS APPLICATIONSTMCHIEF INDUSTRIES

ABOUT CHIEF INDUSTRIESChief Industries, Inc. was founded in 1954 as a construction company in Grand Is-land, Nebraska. Today it has eight loca-tions in the US, one in the UK and another in France. It offers a range of storage and material handling products for agricul-tural use that includes catwalks, tower systems and aeration systems. Chief also manufactures modular homes and designs and manufactures metal buildings used for industrial, agriculture, retail, government, and public buildings, such as schools and churches.

In addition to manufacturing, Chief also produces renewable fuels, offers steel fa-brication and powder coating services and has a contract carrier that includes logis-tics services for pickup, delivery, tracking, and scheduling.

From their humble beginnings as a small construction company that worked out of a garage in Nebraska, USA, Chief Indus-tries has grown to include divisions and subsidiaries representing a diverse array of interests. These include construction and development, agriculture, ethanol, tru-cking, metal fabrication, housing, and elec-trical. With operations located in Grand Island, Hastings, Kearney, Aurora, Lexing-ton and Lincoln, Nebraska; Fort Dodge, Iowa; Rensselaer, Indiana; Maldon, Essex, England; and Rousies, France, Chief has a skilled workforce of approximately 1,250.

IFS.BIZ/UTBO

CHIEF INDUSTRIES:

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ONE OF THE THINGS THAT’S SPECIAL ABOUT IFS IS THE PERSONAL CONNECTION. IFS ISN’T JUST A PRODUCT TO US; IT’S THE PEOPLE AT IFS THAT MAKE IT A GREAT SOLUTION.

JAY GNUSEINFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR, CHIEF INDUSTRIES

LEARN MORE ABOUT

CHALLENGER // 29CHALLENGER // 28

3 CLOUD-BASED

Enterprise software will reside increasingly in the cloud. In some rare situations, on-premise instances of enter-prise software will be desirable—for instance, in mining or offshore drilling where business operations are in remote areas unserved by reliable connectivity. But for the clear majority of businesses, the objections against cloud are, today, easily discounted. As part of an ongo-ing series on the inexorable move to cloud, let’s debunk some of these enterprise cloud computing myths.

Organizations are recognizing the benefits and are planning to increase reliance on cloud provisioning of software. According to IDC, cloud computing spending is expected to grow at more than six times the rate of IT spending through 2020. Importantly, IDC also predicts that by 2020, 67 percent of enterprise infrastructure and software offerings will be cloud-based. In 2018 alone, IFS has seen a 300 percent increase in cloud and software as a service (SaaS) revenue from its establis-hed customer base and net new customers.

The trend clearly indicates that cloud provisioning of en-terprise software will become the default, replacing the on-premise instances that were the default as recently as five or six years ago. At that point, data security and control over the software environment were the primary concerns executives had with running enterprise soft-ware in the cloud.

Security may be less of a concern than it was then as most IT and operational executives have come to realize something like a Microsoft Azure data center is orders of magnitudes more secure than their own on-premise server room. Control over the instance of software in the cloud may appear to be an issue due to the formal change management process required to move software changes into the live cloud environment. But over time, customers find these Information Technology Infrastruc-ture Library (ITIL) processes used to make changes to their cloud instance of software are there for a reason— to preserve data and functional integrity that could suffer if they made changes themselves without proper validation.

AVAILABILITY AND PERFORMANCE WILL SUFFER For most enterprises, availability and performance will increase in the cloud when compared to on-premise instances of software, particularly for multi-location businesses and for users outside the four walls of the business. While affordable 100 percent data center avail ability is still a long way away for most enterprises, most IFS cloud customers look for a contractual commit-ment to 99.5 percent availability. Since we always try to underpromise but overdeliver, IFS therefore delivered 99.8 percent availability during the 2017-2018 planning period.

Organizations often think they must invest heavily to achieve 100 percent availability if they move to the cloud. But 100 percent availability would be cost prohi-bitive regardless of where software is provisioned. Even if a company has a solution installed in their own data center, achieving 100 percent availability would involve significant cost.

MYTH #1

DISASTER RECOVERY TIMES WILL BE NEGATIVELY AFFECTED In fact, the Spiceworks 2019 ‘State of IT’ report found 38 percent of respondents cited enhancing disaster recovery capabilities as a key driver of moving to the cloud.

But one of the first questions we hear when discussing a move to the cloud is still “How quickly can my data be recovered?” Depending on the size and scale of a disas-ter, recovery times for an on-premise disaster recovery can range from days to weeks.

IFS, meanwhile, currently provides eight-hour recovery of data, or 24 hours to completely recover a full data center environment. Again, IFS strives to underpromise and overdeliver with capability to reduce recovery time to one hour for data and four hours for a full environment.

HANDING OVER THE MISSION-CRITICAL BUSINESS SOFTWARE TO A THIRD-PARTY INCREASES COMPLIANCE RISK With on-premise solutions customers trust they have the right infrastructure and people to support key compliance requirements such as the General Data Protection Re-gulation (GDPR) and the ISO 27001 certification for data security management—but these standards can also be achieved in the cloud. The IFS customers running in the

cloud easily comply with both GDPR and ISO 27001, and our development team continues to make investments in meeting the latest standards and regulatory require-ments so our customers do not have to.

As a global enterprise software provider, IFS has the depth and breadth of skillsets, both internally and among our partners, to provide deeper and more tho-rough support for changing and evolving business needs in the cloud than our customers ever could on their own. As enterprise software deployments move to the cloud, IFS has made software as a service (SaaS) and managed cloud a key strategic focus.

GO WITH THE FLOW The question of moving to the cloud is today a question of “when” rather than “if.” To discuss your options and how your organization can benefit from running enter-prise software in the cloud, watch out for more entries in this series via the IFS Blog platform and reach out to your IFS customer service representative or a member of our designated cloud team.

To learn more about our cloud offerings, download our IFS Cloud Solutions brochure:

RAYMOND JONES, VICE PRESIDENT OF CLOUD OPERATIONS AT IFS, IS A SENIOR INTERNATIONAL SOFTWARE LEADER WITH A SOLID TECHNICAL BACKGROUND AND BROAD EXPERIENCE IN SALES, OPERATIONS, AND HIGH-LEVEL CUSTO-MER ADVOCACY. PRIOR TO JOINING IFS HE HAS HELD CUSTOMER ADVOCACY, TECHNICAL, AND CLOUD-RELATED POSITIONS AT ORACLE, SUNGARD, AND MICROSOFT.

Raymond Jones VP CLOUD PLANNING AND OPERATIONS, IFS

MYTH #2

MYTH #3

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DOWNLOAD CLOUD BROCHURE:

ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE MYTHS

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IFS USER GROUP CONTACT DETAILS:

IFS SCANDINAVIAmagnus.ingemars@ifsworld.com

IFS BENELUXinfo@ifsusergroup.nl

IFS UK administrator@ifsusers.co.uk

IFS NORTH AMERICAalackas@cleaver-brooks.com

leonard.huray@lisi-medical.com

For many years, our customers have amazed us with the ways in which they use IFS solutions to enhance their business operations, so it is fitting that along the way they have sought ways to engage with fellow users from other companies. The realization that came from this behaviour inspired the requirement for face-to-face forums: a place where customers could share their experiences of IFS and its products with each other. From these needs the IFS user groups were born.

IFS user groups are customer-led organizations that gather IFS customers for sharing best practice, joint discussions and events. The user groups function as a sounding board for IFS when developing products and are one of our most important sources of information regarding customer sentiment. For customers, the user groups are a unique chance to meet with peers in the industry to discuss common challenges and learn from each other. Members of a user group can choose the level of involvement they want to have in a group, ran-ging from 1-12 hours hours a month.

Currently, there are user groups in Scandinavia, the UK, the US, Benelux and Japan. In the Nordics, for example, the user group is run by customers with operational sup-port provided by IFS. The group is made up of a board of six companies from Sweden and Norway and, since the user group was founded in 2005, they have arranged more than 100 activities ranging from seminars to work-shops and study visits to member companies. In North America, the InFocuS User Group began in 2002, and it consists of a Steering Committee followed by Sub-Com-mittees and Special Interest Groups.

We reached out to Amanda Miller, IFS UK&I User Group Manager, to give us an insight into what has been hap-pening in their group:

2019 HAS ALREADY BEEN A BUSY YEAR FOR THE IFS UK&I USER GROUP WITH THE LAUNCH OF THE NEW WEB-SITE, REPRESENTATION AT THE IFS

SERVICE MANAGEMENT CUSTOMER DAY IN MARCH AND OUR USER GROUP HR EVENT HOSTED BY IFS CUSTOMER FARROW & BALL IN MAY.

We were very excited to launch our new website (www.ifsusers.co.uk) in March. It includes a Networking page which enables members to search for other members with similar interests. It allows them to contact each other directly to discuss specific subjects or to ask for advice or assistance. The new website also allows mem-bers to view and book our events with minimum fuss.”

IFS USER GROUP?ARE YOU IN A

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LEARN MORE:

AMERICAS +1 888 437 4968

ASIA PACIFIC +65 63 33 33 00

EUROPE EAST +48 22 577 45 00

EUROPE CENTRAL +49 9131 77 340

UK & IRELAND +44 1494 428 900

FRANCE, BENELUX AND IBERICA +33 3 89 50 72 72

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA +971 4390 0888

NORDICS +46 13 460 4000

Industrial and Financial Systems, IFS AB Teknikringen 5 Box 1545 Linköping SE-581 15 Sweden

PHONE: + 46 (0)13 460 3600FAX: + 46 (0)13 460 40 01

IMAGERY: gettyimages.com Kurt Rebry

WHERE WE ARE

PUBLISHER

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IFS World Conference 2019 is a meeting place for business people who know that standing still means falling behind.

In Boston we’ll unite more challengers than ever before at the industry’s most customer-focused event.

REGISTER TODAY!

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