Infor Unveils Upgraded M3 for Six Key Industries

NEW YORK – Feb. 20, 2014 – Infor, a leading provider of business application software serving more than 70,000 customers, today announced the general availability of version 13.2 of Infor M3, a leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution designed for companies that make, move or maintain products. With over 1,000 enhancements compared to the last major version, M3 now includes dedicated new solutions for customer lifecycle management (CLM); fashion product lifecycle management (PLM); fast food planning; and customer relationship management (CRM) for the equipment industry.

M3 also offers an easy upgrade method to deliver and install major functional improvements without the need for a completely new version. News points • M3 has received significantly more investment since Infor acquired the product than at any point in the last decade, in order to ensure that M3 continues to meet the requirements of key industries including manufacturing, fashion, distribution, food & beverage, chemicals, distribution and equipment dealers, rental and service providers. • The latest version of M3 includes more than 1,000 enhancements built over the last four years since the last major version. Many of these have been requested by customers.

• M3 13.2 also offers industry-specific customer lifecycle management (CLM) capabilities, delivering a holistic view of customer-facing processes. Infor M3 CLM not only delivers sales force automation and account management functionality, but also drives a more intelligent approach to account management.

• M3 13.2 also offers an improved HTML5 client user interface that has multi-browser capabilities that allow it to run on mobile devices such as the iPad. 13.2 also features configurable start pages, new menu navigation and a simplified user interface (UI), offering the ease of use found in consumer software.

• M3 is now Infor 10x-certified, making it fully compatible with Infor Ming.le, Infor ION and Infor Business Intelligence (BI). Infor Ming.le is an innovative collaboration and workflow platform. Infor ION connects M3 to other Infor best-in-class applications to deliver more complete industry solutions and ensures a smoother upgrade path for the future through a standard, loosely coupled connection.

• For fashion companies, there is a completely new product lifecycle management (PLM) capability. This is the result of substantial investment over the past two years.

• For equipment dealers, M3 now offers not only customer relationship management (CRM) for equipment, but also analytics capabilities and specific functionality for parts marketing programs and rebates.

• For food and beverage manufacturers that produce ultra-fresh food, Infor M3 Fresh Food Planner introduces the new concept of “forecast pacing.” This helps manufacturers refine forecasts and create an efficient daily planning process.

• As part of the Infor Local.ly strategy to reduce the time and cost of global expansion, M3 supports 41 countries and 16 languages as standard. Customer Quote “As part of our evolution as a manufacturer, we have recently upgraded to version 13 of M3 to exploit some of the new functionality,” said Daniel Rönnertz, process development manager, Thule Group. “It is clear that the investment Infor has made in M3 is now starting to pay dividends in terms of meeting the developing needs of our business and improving efficiencies.”

Infor Quote “The latest version of M3 is built on a new delivery platform to enable fast and incremental upgrades and deliver new capabilities without the cost and risk of a major upgrade,” said Henrik Billgren, vice president, M3 Product Management at Infor. “Combined with the Infor UpgradeX program, this offers customers a unique opportunity to move to the latest user experience, and exploit all the new capabilities available in M3, be it on premise or in the cloud.”