Executive Summary
- This is the Brightwork Research & Analysis software rating series.
- We rate both the software and estimate the risk of implementing each application.
MUFI Rating & Risk for Infor Lawson
MUFI: Maintainability, Usability, Functionality, Implement ability
Vendor: Infor (Select For Vendor Profile)
Introduction
Info is another ERP software vendor, which has grown through mergers and acquisitions. Infor is the 3rd largest ERP software vendor in the world. Infor acquired the ERP software vendor Lawson in 2011. Infor actually has the following ERP products.
Application Detail
Infor10 ERP Enterprise, Lawson M3 ERP Enterprise, Infor10 ERP Business, Infor10 ERP Express, Infor10 ERP Process Business. And these are just the major ERP systems. Infor lists the following ERP systems on their website.
- Info LN
- Infor LX
- Infor M3
- Infor SyteLine
- Infor System21
- Infor VISUAL
- Infor XA
- Infor Adage
- Infor SunSystems
- Infor Lawson
- Infor Distribution A+
- Infor Distribution FACTS
- Infor Distribution SX.e
However, we have decided to focus on the Lawson ERP system as this is the flagship ERP for Infor.
Infor Lawson has the best user interface of any of the older generation ERP systems. Infor Lawson uses a very inventive interface design where icons along the top provide navigation between the major areas of the application.
Infor Lawson also has a decent dashboard that shows the user basic activity.
The application also has a very useful search bar along the top, along with a search modifier. Infor Lawson has the first application we have reviewed that has updates and alerts that really work well. They are listed per category along with the right side of the user interface.
This is another view on the alerts – this allows the user to hover over the appropriate icon and see the list of vendors that are on hold.
Infor Lawson has copied the Chatter functionality in Salesforce, which allows comment threads to be saved and accessed. Infor Lawson has done a very nice job with this functionality.
Infor Lawson is an interesting alternative for large ERP buyers. Infor Lawson has the highest ERP worker productivity of any of the ERP applications, which are sold to large buyers. While most of the other large company ERP applications are increasingly dated, Infor Lawson is a borderline ERP system, which is simply a combined financial system with a strong human resources module. That is not necessarily a bad thing, as it is better to go into ERP procurement understanding that buying a single system, which would do everything, was never a feasible strategy. Infor sales will attempt to counter this argument by pointing to its multiple offerings which can be connected to Infor Lawson – however these are all acquired applications, and each one of these applications would need to be evaluated on their own merits. Attempting to allow Infor to perform your solution architecture by pitching all Infor products is a bad strategy.
However, that fact that Infor Lawson combined a finance system with a strong HR system is why Lawson was traditionally strong in service industries such as finance and healthcare. Buyers that fall into this category may want to give Infor Lawson a look, however, if no real supply chain management requirements exist, FinancialForce along with either its consulting service application an HR application would be another possible alternative.
It is certainly true that service industries do not require ERP suites, and in fact even for manufacturers ERP systems are not actually necessary as the rise of excellent stand-alone financial applications provides the flexibility to create flexible solution architectures. For more on this topic see our Solution Architecture Packages.
MUFI Scores
All scores out of a possible 10.
MUFI Scores
- Ma. = Maintainability
- Us. = Usability
- Fu. = Functionality
- Im. = Implementability
| App | Ma. | Us. | Ft. | Im. | Cat. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average Score for Big ERP | 5.1 | 4.8 | 5.2 | 5.4 | Big ERP |
| Average Score for CRM | 6.2 | 6.2 | 5.1 | 5.9 | CRM |
| Average Score for Small and Medium ERP | 8.3 | 8 | 6.7 | 8.5 | Small and Medium ERP |
| Average Score for Finance | 8.8 | 8.8 | 8 | 8.8 | Finance |
| Average Score for Demand Planning | 7.6 | 7.2 | 7 | 7.1 | Demand Planning |
| Average Score for Supply Planning | 6.7 | 6.9 | 7 | 6.8 | Supply Planning |
| Average Score for Production Planning | 6.8 | 6.9 | 7 | 6.9 | Production Planning |
| Average Score for BI Heavy | 5.5 | 5.3 | 6.9 | 5.3 | BI Heavy |
| Average Score for PLM | 7 | 7.2 | 6.8 | 7.3 | PLM |
| Average Score for BI Light | 7.7 | 8.7 | 9 | 8.3 | BI Light |
| Arena Solutions Arena PLM | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | PLM |
| AspenTech AspenOne | 4 | 8 | 10 | 7 | Production Planning |
| Birst | 8 | 8.5 | 10 | 8 | BI Light |
| ERPNext | 10 | 10 | 7.5 | 10 | Small and Medium ERP |
| Delfoi Planner | 8 | 6 | 6.5 | 7 | Production Planning |
| Demand Works Smoothie SP | 9 | 10 | 7 | 10 | Supply Planning |
| Hamilton Grant RM | 10 | 9 | 8.5 | 9 | PLM |
| IBM Cognos | 2.7 | 3 | 1.5 | 3 | BI Heavy |
| Infor Epiphany | 7 | 8 | 6 | 5 | CRM |
| Infor Lawson | 8 | 7 | 6 | 7 | Big ERP |
| Intuit QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions | 9 | 9 | 5 | 9 | Finance |
| JDA DM | 9 | 7.5 | 8 | 8 | Demand Planning |
| Microsoft Dynamics CRM | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | CRM |
| NetSuite CRM | 6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | CRM |
| Netsuite OneWorld | 7 | 7 | 8 | 8 | Big ERP |
| OpenERP | 7 | 8 | 8.5 | 8 | 7 |
| Oracle BI | 4 | 4 | 3 | 6 | BI Heavy |
| Oracle CRM On Demand | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | CRM |
| Oracle Demantra | 5 | 3 | 3.5 | 4.5 | Demand Planning |
| Oracle JD Edwards World | 4 | 1 | 3 | 6 | Big ERP |
| Oracle RightNow | 6 | 7 | 4 | 5 | CRM |
| PlanetTogether Galaxy APS | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | Production Planning |
| Preactor | 8 | 7 | 3 | 7 | Production Planning |
| QlikTech QlikView | 9 | 9 | 10 | 9 | BI Light |
| Rootstock | 9 | 8 | 9 | 9 | Small and Medium ERP |
| Sage X3 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 8 | Big ERP |
| Salesforce Enterprise | 8 | 8.5 | 9 | 7.5 | CRM |
| SAP APO DP | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | Demand Planning |
| SAP APO PP/DS | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | Production Planning |
| SAP APO SNP | 3 | 4 | 8 | 4 | Supply Planning |
| SAP BI/BW | 1.5 | 2 | 4 | 2 | BI Heavy |
| SAP Business Objects | 3 | 2.5 | 7 | 3 | BI Heavy |
| SAP CRM | 4 | 3 | 6 | 4 | CRM |
| SAP ECC | 3 | 3 | 6.5 | 3 | Big ERP |
| SAP PLM | 1 | 2.5 | 2 | 3 | PLM |
| SAP SmartOps | 4 | 4 | 7 | 5.5 | Supply Planning |
| SAS BI | 6.5 | 7 | 9 | 6 | BI Heavy |
| SAS Demand Driven Forecasting | 7 | 8 | 9 | 7 | Demand Planning |
| Tableau (BI) | 9 | 10 | 10 | 10 | BI Light |
| Tableau (Forecasting) | 10 | 8 | 5 | 9 | Demand Planning |
| Teradata | 8 | 6.3 | 9.7 | 6 | BI Heavy |
| ToolsGroup SO99 (Forecasting) | 7 | 8 | 9 | 7 | Demand Planning |
| ToolsGroup SO99 (Supply) | 5 | 6 | 10 | 7 | Supply Planning |
Vendor and Application Risk
Brightwork Research & Analysis Risk Defined:Â (See This Link for Our Categorization of Risk)
Infor Lawson is one of the better ERP systems in this category, and it is in many ways a well-designed system that just happens to be short on some functionality. However, Infor’s consulting is not strong, and few consulting companies specialize in Infor Lawson, although they can certainly be found.
Likelihood of Implementation Success
This accounts for both the application and vendor-specific risk. In our formula, the total implementation risk is application + vendor + buyer risk. The buyer specific risk could increase or decrease this overall likelihood and adjust the values that you see below.
Likelihood of Application Implementation Success and Failure
Search for the application in this table using the search bar in the upper right of the table.
| Application | Prob of Implementation Success | Prob of Implementation Failure |
|---|---|---|
| Actuate | 0.77 | 0.23 |
| SAP Smartops | 0.39 | 0.61 |
| NetSuite CRM | 0.46 | 0.54 |
| Sugar CRM | 0.62 | 0.48 |
| Base CRM | 0.91 | 0.09 |
| SAP CRM | 0.35 | 0.65 |
| Salesforce Enterprise | 0.72 | 0.28 |
| QlikTech QlikView | 0.82 | 0.18 |
| Tableau (BI) | 0.98 | 0.02 |
| SAP Crystal Reports | 0.46 | 0.54 |
| Brist | 0.83 | 0.17 |
| MicroStrategy | 0.7 | 0.3 |
| SAS BI | 0.76 | 0.24 |
| Oracle BI | 0.35 | 0.65 |
| IBM Cognos | 0.23 | 0.77 |
| Infor Epiphany | 0.58 | 0.42 |
| Microsoft Dynamics CRM | 0.26 | 0.74 |
| Oracle RightNow CRM | 0.41 | 0.59 |
| Oracle CRM On Demand | 0.36 | 0.64 |
| Teradata | 0.76 | 0.24 |
| SAP Business Objects | 0.32 | 0.68 |
| SAP BI/BW | 0.25 | 0.75 |
| SAP PLM | 0.29 | 0.71 |
| Hamilton Grant RM | 0.89 | 0.11 |
| Arena Solutions | 0.96 | 0.04 |
| Delfoi Planner | 0.7 | 0.3 |
| Preactor | 0.64 | 0.36 |
| PlanetTogether Galaxy APS | 0.96 | 0.04 |
| AspenTech AspenOne | 0.55 | 0.45 |
| SAP APO PP/DS | 0.27 | 0.73 |
| Demand Works Smoothie SP | 0.93 | 0.07 |
| ToolsGroup SO99 (Supply) | 0.82 | 0.18 |
| Demand Works Smoothie | 0.96 | 0.04 |
| Tableau (Forecasting) | 0.9 | 0.1 |
| SAS Demand Driven Forecasting | 0.82 | 0.18 |
| ToolsGroup SO99 (Forecasting) | 0.86 | 0.14 |
| JDA DM | 0.57 | 0.43 |
| Oracle Demantra | 0.33 | 0.67 |
| SAP APO DP | 0.28 | 0.72 |
| FinancialForce | 0.92 | 0.08 |
| Intacct | 0.98 | 0.02 |
| Intuit QB Enterprise | 0.8 | 0.2 |
| ERPNext | 0.9 | 0.1 |
| OpenERP | 0.78 | 0.22 |
| Rootstock | 0.91 | 0.09 |
| ProcessPro | 0.93 | 0.07 |
| Microsoft Dynamics AX | 0.4 | 0.6 |
| SAP Business One | 0.49 | 0.51 |
| Sage X3 | 0.62 | 0.38 |
| Infor Lawson | 0.58 | 0.42 |
| Epicor ERP | 0.4 | 0.6 |
| Oracle JD Edwards World | 0.31 | 0.69 |
| Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne | 0.36 | 0.64 |
| SAP ERP ECC/R/3 | 0.32 | 0.68 |
| NetSuite OneWorld | 0.65 | 0.35 |
Risk Definition
See this link for more on our categorizations of risk. We also offer a Buyer Specific Risk Estimation as a service for those that want a comprehensive analysis.
Risk Management Approach
Managing an Infor Lawson implementation means managing the risks related to getting consultants assigned to the project, and secondly to deal with rather limited functionality. This can quickly become a problem if the buyer takes statements made by Infor sales to heart and hold’s the implementation team’s feet to the fire to make all of them come true. And this, by the way, can easily happen, because as we explain in our Honest Vendor Rating of Info, Infor generally has a low accuracy level to the information it provides during the sales process.
Finished With Your Analysis?
To go back to the Software Selection Package page for the Big ERP software category. Or go to this link to see other analytical products for Infor Lawson.