Charles Phillips is nowadays seen as a market innovator, one of the most successful and inspiring business leaders in the world. All the work that he did was envied, mainly due to a strong aggressiveness that appeared after he became CEO of Infor. However, even Charles Phillips previous role at Oracle was filled with aggressiveness, making his entire business approach one that is studied in schools.
When Charles was Oracle CEO there were many huge acquisitions that were made. That was a strategy that was moved towards Infor, leading towards constant growth, one that will surely continue in the following years.
Infor now stands out as a different company in the ERP sector. The largest competition is offered by SAP and Oracle but the differentiators that Charles Phillips brought in are quite obvious. For instance, many verticals are potential or appear in business conducted at Infor. The entire company is focusing on hospitality, services, retail and healthcare, besides the regular markets covered by ERP for years. The focus is on distribution type markets and the manufacturing markets. These sectors are not really covered by modern ERP services.
It has to be added that Charles Phillips does stand out as a believer of what cloud computing can offer for every single business from around the world. The cloud infrastructures are focused by Infor and a little neglected by both Oracle and SAP. Charles Phillips tried to focus on using systems already created as opposed to the regular market approach of developing new applications. The acquisition strategy stepped in and offered the parts of the service that Infor lacked.
Charles Phillips declared that a really large part of the available budget was invested in the functionality of the applications instead of creating new systems. The focus was put on acquiring instead of developing as that would avoid overspending. What many do not know and Phillips quickly realized is that the development of proprietary technology ended up being more expensive than acquiring companies that already developed the applications and the software that was necessary to improve the experience of the business clients that Infor had.
Phillips focused a lot on discussing with clients and understanding exactly what they want from the services that Infor can offer. ERP vendors normally end up investing a lot of money in the creation of data centers when working with clients in all industries. This investment is translated into higher prices for the clients. Infor works on creating a cloud based infrastructure that does not really need to have investments done by clients in hardware. This creates a difference and leads Infor towards constant growth. Many even think that Infor is going to surpass Oracle in the ERP sector in the near future.
On the whole, Charles Phillips managed to create a new business strategy that was mainly focused on acquisitions and improving services based on direct input from business clients. The development of the recently labeled social network of companies is the long term plan that can shift the entire industry towards services like what Infor is offering right now.