Main News Desk

Individualization and mash-ups are key for staff productivity

October 21, 2008

Individualization of business applications and integration of multimedia web content improves productivity and aids collaboration in the workplace. This is according to a survey of IT professionals from North America, UK and Scandinavia on behalf of IFS, the global enterprise applications company.

“Eighty percent of the people surveyed pinpointed the ability to personalize the software they work with as being key to helping them be more productive,” Alastair Sorbie, CEO at IFS said. “No two individuals use a computer or the software installed on that computer in the same way. The ability to tailor user screens, adapt menus and access information in a way that supports the routines and roles of each individual is vital to getting the ultimate balance of functionality and usability that makes enterprise applications quicker and easier to use. We have entered the age of the ‘individualized’ business system.”

In addition to increased personalization, 78 per cent of respondents would like to have the ability to utilize web resources – not only when using the web for leisure – but more directly within business applications in their work tasks.

“A combination of information pulled together from different sources to provide a unique service is known as a mash-up,” Dan Matthews, CTO at IFS said. “As our study shows, mash-ups need to become more prevalent within business applications. Third party information pulled from the web will prove especially valuable when geographical data, addresses, company names and other information held in business applications is leveraged to provide context. For example, using the facts held on a regular customer order, it would be possible to pull together recent news coverage of the customer, financial data, satellite photo of the facility to which the order is shipped, and details on how to get there using public transportation. Using such data from business applications to provide relevant context-cuts time for information gathering, provides additional insight and a better basis for
decision-making, driving value within the business.”

“With a component-based application, such as IFS Applications, individualization is very straightforward. Such individualization is further enhanced by the IFS Aurora Program, our focus on user productivity, from which comes IFS Enterprise Explorer our innovative new user interface. This enables a really high degree of personalization and integrates easily with the Internet, helping companies deliver a working environment that will dramatically improve productivity and support business processes,” Matthews continued.

The IFS research also showed that 89 per cent of respondents agree that better collaboration with colleagues would improve productivity for their organization.

“Working with structured and unstructured information, sourced both from inside and outside the organization, and working with colleagues, suppliers and sub-contractors around the world who work in the office, on the road and from home, is the business reality we all face. Employees need and deserve modern business systems so that they can meet the demands their organizations are placing on them,” Sorbie added.
The survey of 1, 010 IT professionals was carried out on behalf of IFS by Omniboss in Europe and Survey Monkey in the US.

Executive quote

About the company

IFS is a public company (OMX STO: IFS) founded in 1983 that develops, supplies, and implements IFS Applications™, a fully-integrated, component-based extended ERP suite built on SOA technology. The company has more than 2,000 customers in 54 countries and focuses on seven main industries: aerospace & defense, utilities & telecom, manufacturing, process industries, automotive, retail & wholesale distribution, and construction contracting & service management. IFS has 2,600 employees and net revenue in 2007 was SKr 2.4 billion.
More information on IFS is available at www.IFSWORLD.com.
IFS Applications is a trademark of Industrial and Financial Systems, IFS AB (publ). All other referenced company or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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Individualization and mash-ups are key for staff productivity

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