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Infor

Infor – A Private Software Company To Make Over Forty Acquisitions Until Now.

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Based in New York City, United States, Infor is one of the largest multinational software conglomerates in the nation. It is an enterprise software company that develops business applications that are further delivered via cloud computing. Infor was originally founded in 2002 as Agilsys. Some of the main business areas in the focus of the company are developing software for financial systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP). supply chain, and customer relationship management.

Since Infor delivers its application through cloud computing, the company uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) and many open-source platforms. Infor has made several acquisitions to date and many of them involved closing deals in billions. The company has expanded to 300 countries and territories where it has more than 90,000 corporate customers. Some of the clients include Ferrari, EBSCO, Legacy Health, Heineken, etc. Currently, Kevin Samuelson is the CEO of the company.

Foundation of Infor

In June 2002, Infor was launched as Agilsys in Malvern, Pennsylvania. In the beginning, it had around 1,300 customers for whom it developed enterprise software. The foundation of the company is based on a series of acquisitions which was led by Summit Partners and Golden Gate Capital. From the very beginning, Agilsys started acquiring multiple companies which today had resulted in a big organization. Starting in 2002, the company acquired Brain AG and Future Three. Soon, Agilsys also moved from Pennsylvania to Atlanta.

Agilsys acquired many companies in 2004 which includes a German-based company called Infor Business Solutions, Daly commerce, Lily Software Associates, and VISUAL ERP. The same year, Agilsys changed its name to Infor Global Solutions. In 2005, Infor acquired a company called MAPICS for $347 million. Next year, it acquired an Ontario-based company called GEAC ARP for $1 billion. In 2006, Infor was planning to buy SSA global but the deal was halted due to a lawsuit filed by some shareholders. Later, Infor merged with the company after a negotiation with the shareholders.

Started with only 1,300 customers, Company had increased the figure by thirteen times in 2006. In 2009, Infor acquired a line of entertainment and hotel business, SoftBrands which in turn acquired MAI Systems Corporation and The LodgingTouch Property Management System. Till 2009, the company acquired many companies in various business sectors, and now it was time for a new management team.

Infor
Image source: wikimedia.org

New Management Team

In 2010, the board of directors of Infor decided to form new management for the company. They brought in senior executives from Oracle Corporation. Charles Philips became the new CEO, Pam Murphy the new COO, Duncan Angove, and Stephen Scholl became co-presidents. As the new CEO of the company, Charles put out new strategies to gain the market share on Oracle and SAP. The company decided to make user-friendly applications and rewriting applications into new code. IN 2011, the company again made a big acquisition by buying Lawson Software for $2 billion. Next year, the company again relocated its headquarters to New York City.

Recent Acquisitions

After the formation of a new management team and relocating to New York City, Infor acquired more prominent companies. After acquiring Lawson Software, Company bought Approva and Enxsuite in the same year. It also bought SM-Plus, a company that provides service management tools. In 2012, it acquired EasyRMS, Group Laurier, and Orbis Global. In 2013, Infor acquired a US-based learning management software called CERTPOINT Systems Inc and next year acquired a talent management platform, PeopleAnswers.

Infor has acquired companies in consulting sectors, healthcare management, risk management, etc. In 2020, it acquired Intelligent Insites, a company that provides location-based healthcare services. Earlier last year, Koch Equity Developement LLC purchased full equity in Infor and the company is currently valued at $11 billion.

Kevin Samuelson – CEO of Infor

Kevin Samuelson became the CEO of Infor in 2019. He is attached to the company from the very beginning when it was founded as Agilsys. Kevin left the company in 2013 and went to work for big SaaS companies. He again rejoined the company in 2016 and served as the Chief Financial Officer until 2019. Kevin completed his education at the University of California at Berkeley.

QlikTech

QlikTech: Providing Analytical Software and Data Solutions.

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Qlik, aka QlikTech Inc., is a software solution company that deals with providing a business analytical platform to enterprises to solve their problems. The company was founded in 1993, and for the past almost 30 years, Qlik has helped many big-name companies with its business intelligence software solutions. The company deals in services like data analytics and data integration, having offices all around the world. Qlik is known for its excellence and innovation, has joined its hands with companies like Accenture and Cognizant for multiple programs.

About the Company

Qlik started its journey 28 years back in Sweden as a company providing detailed data analysis services. The company headquarters is in Lund, Sweden, and about 2500 people are working for it globally. Along with Sweden, the company has established offices in the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, as well as in Africa. Qlik is known for its services in business intelligence, data analytics, data integration, business analysis, and software development. Qlik Sense, Qlik Replicate, and Qlik Catalog are a few of the main products that the company endorses. The Qlik services are compatible with the major web service providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Microsoft applications, Google, SAP, etc.

QlikTech
Image source: analyticsindiamag.com

Founding QlikTech

Bjorn Berg and Staffan Gestrelius from Sweden founded QlikTech in 1993 as the providers of data analysis services. The company introduced QlikView as its first product, released in 1994, and got the patent for the same in 1995. In the following years, the company released the other three versions of the product. The popularity of QlikView brought Qlik funding from renowned Swedish investors Handelsbanken and Industrifonden in 1999. This led to the growth in the number of employees as well.
In 2004, Qlik went international and established the company headquarters in the US. The same year, the company also received more investments from Accel Partners and Jerusalem Venture Partners. In 2005, the company released version 7 of QlikView, replacing the single-user desktop with a server-based web tool.
By the end of the decade, the company was already a unicorn, and in 2011, the market capitalization of Qlik reached $2 billion. In the following years, the company made some important acquisitions that helped its expansion. Vizubi, Idevio, Crunch Data, Attunity, Knarr Analytic, and RoxAI are some of the companies acquired by Qlik.
In 2012, Qlik was among the top three fastest-growing tech companies in America. The next year, Qlik opened a new office in Perth, Australia, followed by the opening of a research and development branch in Ottawa, Ontario in 2015. In 2017, Qlik joined hands with Thomas Jefferson University of Pennsylvania to fight the opioid epidemic in the country. The next year, the company received the Best Business Intelligence and Analytics Software award.
By 2019, the Qlik had successfully launched its Software-as-a-Service environment, and the customers were now allowed to deploy its software on Qlik as well as any other public cloud. Wrightington, Wigan, and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust used the Qlik software to keep the record of the patients during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK.
Qlik Sense and QlikView are some of its major products that run on its Associative Engine, used for big data analytics. Other than those, Qlik Analytics Platform, Qlik Data Catalyst, Qlik Core are some of the products that work using the same engine. Other Qlik products include Qlik GeoAnalytics, Qlik DataMarket, Qlik Connectors, Qlik Catalog, and Qlik Compose, etc.

The CEO at QlikTech

Mike Capone is the current CEO at Qlik. Capone went to Dickinson College to earn a BS degree in Computer Science and later completed an MBA in Finance from Pace University. Before joining Qlik, he has worked with companies like ADP and Medidata. He held the positions like Corporate Vice President of Product Development & CIO as well as the General Manager of the global outsourcing business at ADP. At Medidata, Capone worked as the COO and helped in the product development of the company. In January 2018, he became the CEO of Qlik.

TIBCO Software

TIBCO Software – A US-based Private Company Pioneering Software Development For Enterprises.

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Vivek Ranadive, an Indian American businessman, founded TIBCO software in 1997. The company is based in Palo Alto, California, US. TIBCO Software has expanded its services and consumer market overseas over time which includes North and South America, Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Africa. The company focuses on building real-time software for other businesses which serves the purpose of business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and business-to-employee data transfer. Some of the leading products of TIBCO used by enterprises around the world are TIBCO ActiveSpaces, TIBCO BusinessEvents, TIBCO Data Virtualization, TIBCO Messaging, and many more. Currently, TIBCO Software is owned by Vista Equity Partners and Dan Streetman is serving as the CEO of the company.

Foundation of TIBCO Software

Vivek Ranadive is also known as the founder of Teknekron Software Systems Inc and it was after he sold this business, TIBCO was founded. In 1997, TIBCO Software was established which was then known as the Information Bus Company. The company was founded as a subsidiary of a new firm called Reuters Holdings which was backed by Cisco Systems. The software developed by TIBCO was used by businesses to make real-time communications within the financial market without any human intervention. This product caught the attention of many big companies like Oracle, SAP, and IBM and they also started using it. The same year, TIBCO became one of the thirteen partners for Microsoft’s “push technology” which was aimed to deliver free internet content to users through web browsers.

In 1999, the company filed for its first IPO and started trading as a public company in July of the same year. On the first day of its trading, the share value of the company doubled, and in early 2000 went even higher. The company became very famous in 2000 as Yahoo! Launched Corporate Yahoo, a platform built using TIBCO’s software. This platform helped companies to establish communications between computers in a customized way which added points to its flexibility. It was only one year after TIBCO became a public company, the economic depression started.

TIBCO Software
Image source: www.tibco.com

Post-dot-com Bubble Scenario

TIBCO Software managed to stay intact during the dot-com bust and even after the boom it was one of the 50 relevant technology companies according to USA Today’s e-Consumer and e-Business Index. The total market capitalization of TIBCO approached $2 billion during the first two quarters of 2001. In 2002, TIBCO Software formed an alliance with an American business company called Verity Inc. Both the companies came together to integrate TIBCO Active Portal 4.0 with Verity K2 Developer technology in order to meet the needs of customers in a better way.

In 2003, a lot of well-established companies like Vodafone and Reliance Communications started using TIBCO’s software. Delta Air Lines used the software as well for organizing its operating system Deutsche Bahn used the software to construct a network of digital integrated train stations. After a few years, Apple also started using the same software to process user requests and facilitate sales in the iPhone division. In 2011, the total annual revenue of the company summed up to $920 million and soon it crossed the $1 billion mark in 2012. In 2014, TIBCO was acquired by the private equity firm called Vista Equity Partners for $4.3 billion and Murray Rode was made the CEO of the company. But, it was again in 2019 that he was replaced by Dan Streetman while Rode took the place of Vice Chairman.

About The Founder

Apart from being an Indian American businessman, Vivek Ranadive is also an engineer by profession, an author, speaker, and philanthropist. Born and raised in Mumbai, India, Vivek was accepted in MIT from where he graduated as an engineer. Later, he went to Harvard Business School and obtained his MBA. Vivek was able to found TIBCO Software with sufficient funding from Reuters and Cisco Systems. A few years ago, he founded a startup investment firm called Bow Capital.

sage group

Sage Group – Story Of One Of The Largest Software Companies In The UK.

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The Sage Group was founded in 1981 and is one of the leading enterprise software companies in the UK. After Oracle and SAP, Sage has taken the third position in terms of becoming the largest supplier of enterprise resource planning software. The founders of the company are David Goldman, Paul Muller, and Graham Wylie. Sage Group is currently based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, UK. The product of Sage has its usability in all types of industrial sectors worldwide. Today, Sage Group has more than 13,000 employees that serve millions of businesses in both the UK and overseas. The company is spread across 23 international markets in Latin America, North America, Asia, Australia, Africa, and Europe. Steve Hare is the CEO of the Sage Group and Sir Donald Brydon is the working Chairperson.

Foundation of the Sage Group

The origin of the Sage Group and the idea behind it dates back to 1981 when David Goldman wanted to create quotes for his print business and keep track of his account. He wanted a very impactful solution for this and started working with a team at Newcastle University. While working, he was assisted by Dr. Paul Muller who was a computer expert working with NASA, and also a student, Graham Wylie who took a summer job writing code for an accounting firm. David and other members of the team realized that the solution that they were building can be beneficial for other businesses as well. This idea led to the foundation of the Sage Group which aimed to develop accounting software for small businesses.

Today, the solutions of Sage include account management, payrolls, HR, assets, construction, estate, enterprise systems, etc. Once David and other team members started to develop the product, he hired more employees. The first product of the company was called Sage Accounts and the code was written by Graham Wylie, the student who was hired for a summer job at Campbell Graphics (the print business of David Goldman). After developing the first product successfully, Sage started selling the software to other printing businesses and eventually expanded its network. Impressed by the work of Graham and Dr. Paul, they were brought on board as a part of Sage.

sage group
Image source: wikimedia.org

The Success of the Company

After developing the first version of the product and selling it to other print businesses, the demand for Sage increased. In 1984, the company developed Sage Software, a product that was built for the Amstrad PCW word processor. The same year, the sale of the Sage Software increased by ten folds from 30 to 300 each month. After a few years, Sage got listed on the London Stock Exchange and became a publicly-traded company. In the 1990s, Sage expanded overseas and established an Irish division of the business in Dublin. The company also opened Sage’s professional Accountant Division and entered FTSE 100. Sage eventually entered the mid-range business software market by the end of the 20th century.

In 2001, Sage Group entered the contact management market after acquiring Interact Commerce Inc and next year bagged the “Business of the Year” in the National Business Awards. The company also became famous as the Sage shares performed the best in the 90s compared to other UK businesses. Sage also sponsored £6 million for the new music center in Gateshead which is now known as Sage Gateshead. After two years, in 2003, Graham Wylie retired from the company and there were new members joining the executive team of Sage. Steve Hare became the CEO of the company in 2018 and before that, he served as the CEO of Sage since 2014. The Sage group currently has 6.1 million customers spread across the world from Africa to the Middle East, from Australia to Asia focusing on management solutions as well as engaging in non-profit works.

Steve Hare – CEO of Sage Group

Steve Hare is a famous British businessman who joined Sage with a rich industrial experience. He worked at General Electric Company in many roles including serving as the CFO of the company. He also worked at Spectris plc and Invensys and was a partner at Apax Partners. Currently, he is the CEO of the Sage Group and he was named the best CEO of the UK by Glassdoor during the pandemic.

ifs ab

IFS AB – A Sweden-based Enterprise Software Company Also Aiming To Improve Lives Of Underprivileged Population.

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IFS AB also known as Industrial and Financial Systems was born in 1983 in Sweden. The company specializes in developing and delivering enterprise software. IFS AB focuses on project-centric industries where it uses a single code base and develops ERP. Some of the sectors where IFS AB delivers such products are aerospace, manufacturing, automotive, oil, and gas, etc. With 4,000 employees, the company offers its products and solutions on a global scale to more than 10,000 customers. IFS AB is one of the most recommended suppliers in its sector and is currently led by Darren Roos (CEO of IFS AB).

About IFS AB

Since its foundation, IFS AB has made a big impact both in terms of business and uplifting the lives of socio-economically backward people. In terms of its innovative products and solutions, the company became the winner of the European Digital Technology Award among 150,000 companies. It has also won the 2019 European Business Award. Last year, Darren Roos won the Best CEO of the Year award for leading the company to such great heights. IFS AB believes in serving people who are in need of better living conditions and proper education. So, the company founded the IFS Foundation that is currently focusing on helping poor people of rural Sri Lanka.

IFS AB
Image source: www.ifs.com

History of the Company

After founding the company in 1983, the company launched its first product in 1985. The name of the software product was IFS Maintenance which after five years was included in an entire product suite called IFS Applications. Being a European company, the company gradually expanded into the Scandinavian region. It opened offices in Norway, Denmark, and Finland. After the New Year, it also opened an office in Poland. In the early 1990s, IFS AB expanded to Asia and North America. In 1996, IFS got listed on the Swedish Stock Exchange. Eventually, the company opened up an R&D center in Colombo.

In less than ten years of its releasing the first graphical user interface, it gathered 500,000 active users. In 2008, the company again launched a new GUI and started acquiring companies from various fields. IFS AB was acquired by a private equity firm in 2015. To date, the main product of IFS is IFS Applications which is an integrated suite of enterprise applications for businesses. It includes software for asset and service management, project management, manufacturing, and supply chain.

Business Growth and Acquisitions

In 2015, IFS recorded more than 1 million users of its GUI. The company has expanded to many international grounds and its operational focus has been divided into four groups. The first two groups focus on European markets, and the other two groups are in charge of management in the America and Asia Pacific region. The company has made a series of acquisitions in various countries from the US to the UK in the past 1.5 decades. In 2009, the company acquired MultiPlus Solutions followed by 360 Scheduling, a UK-based scheduling engine in 2010. In 2017, it acquired three companies namely Field Service Management Limited, WorkWave LLC, and systems Limited. This year, to date, IFS acquired two US-based businesses which are Axios Systems and Customerville.

IFS as a Philanthropist

For years, IFS has focussed on education and the importance of STEM subjects and thus partnered with many schools for financial support and scholarship. The company is heavily inclined towards providing education to those who don’t have financial support and create a bright future for the younger generation. The company also currently focuses on serving the backward local communities of Sri Lanka for the past 20 years. The IFS Foundation is addressing healthcare, sanitation, education, etc in these areas.

Darren Roos – CEO of IFS AB

Hailing from South Africa, Darren Roos is a famous business executive who has worked in multiple companies before joining IFS. He served as the Executive Board Member of Software AG and also as the President of SARP ERP Cloud. He completed his education at the University of South Africa. He was directly appointed as the CEO of IFS in 2018 when he first joined the company.