Infor attempts buy out of Lawson

It was announced on March 11th that Infor is attempting a takeover of Lawson. Quite a bid it is at 1.84B.

It sounds like Lawson would benefit from a shareholders perspective and that Infor would benefit from new markets. But where does this leave Lawson’s customers? In a difficult spot. On the surface, it appears that Lawson is doing this for shareholder value and not to directly gain anything on behalf of the customers.

On the other hand, being under Infor’s umbrella of a multitude of products may hurt them in the short term, but as with other products such as Syteline, they may see significant product improvements a few years out.

To date though, we are not sure what Infor’s end goal is with so many varied products. They seem to have a complex mass of varying solutions, and none of them have been a real standout in the market since being purchased by Infor. Yes, they are still selling licenses, but in our eyes none of the acquisitions have the buzz and excitement they once had as independent companies. It will be interesting to see how Lawson fares if this takeover goes through and they are “assimilated”.

Lawson
You can read the details here:


Infor Makes Unsolicited $1.84B Bid for ERP Vendor Lawson
By Chris Kanaracus, IDG News

Improving governance with information systems

One of the key things that ERP Systems provide are process controls. This article examines the issues around IS governance.

Improving governance with information systems
CHRISTOPHER CHAMBERLAIN

Why do we need information systems (IS) governance? Technology specialists tell us that there isn’t a great deal more functionality we can get out of our computer equipment. The next five years will not bring another Internet … revolution or significant changes in equipment size. We should concentrate on getting more out of our existing equipment by using it in a better fashion. IS governance is a framework for better controls.

Controls in the last couple of years have gained an image in the commercial world of excessive overheads and reduced efficiency. That does not have to be the case but it needs an approach different from the existing Sarbanes-Oxley process. Perhaps the future methodology could include more business controls designed to achieve greater productivity and asset control. Logistic controls to help an entity maximise its investment return on inventory usage could be an example.

The modern corporation needs financial controls because

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