IDC paper shows IFS USERS are 18% more productive By MATT SMITH, Global Chief ARchitect, IFS

Friday 04 October 2019 14:55
Today we are very proud to publish the findings from an IDC end-user evaluation calculating the business value derived from using IFS enterprise software. It reveals that the average IFS customer can be 18 per cent more productive and that they hit breakeven on their investment in just 15 months.

The independent evaluation was based on qualitative research with billion-dollar revenue organizations from across the world operating in the manufacturing, engineering & construction, energy & utilities, aerospace & defense, and service industries. The research found that the biggest contributors of value were based on the ability to:

- Realize operational efficiencies: 47% of total value achieved

- Capture higher revenue*: 43% of total value achieved

- Improve user productivity: 10% of total value achieved

In addition to an 18 per cent increase in user productivity, customers also reported:

- 28% more work orders completed,

- 14% faster delivery of orders/products,

- 21% faster budgetary cycles.

This research is an in-depth qualitative analysis on how customers realize business value and it validates what we hear everywhere in the market place. Through providing customers choice in what they buy and how it gets implemented and managed, we deliver faster time-to-value and increased financial and productivity benefits compared to industry peers. The study of these large global customers also showed that the amortization period of an average IFS customer is around half the industry average at just 15 months. This once again is clear confirmation of our superior market position through independent research.

The IDC research also dispels the commonly held misperception that field service management (FSM) enterprise resource planning (ERP), and enterprise asset management (EAM) systems only deliver value in the form of operational efficiencies, such as time saving, resource optimization, and error reduction. While all these things are true, it is not the whole story, according to the findings. Respondents cited better sales team performance, the ability to bid for more business, improved net promoter scores (NPS), winning more deals and keeping customers for longer – all of which helped increased net new revenue on the books.

Organizations, regardless of their unique industries, are being disrupted by competitors, customers, and their own limited vision of incremental innovations. They're looking to technology, and specifically digitalization, to solve some of their innovation challenges and more importantly help scale the business to deliver new revenue streams, enhanced customer experiences, and more efficient processes across various functions of the organization.