Speaking to Tahawul Tech, Khaled Al Shami, Vice President for Strategic Solution Consulting – EMEA at Infor, said he believes that technology should be both purposeful and deeply aligned with industry needs.
As industries across the Middle East accelerate their digital transformation, Infor is redefining what it means to be an ‘industry cloud complete company’.
Infor’s focus, Al Shami explained, lies in creating industry-specific cloud solutions. “Infor positions itself as the industry cloud complete company. Everything we do has to be industry-specific and meaningful.”
He drew a clear distinction between Infor’s targeted approach and generalist software vendors. “There’s a big difference between being industry savvy, where everything you do is tailored to that industry, and being a generalist, like a Swiss army knife that can do many things but doesn’t cut deep enough like a chef’s knife. We want to be the chef’s knife in everything we do.”
For example, he said that in the food and beverage sector, Infor doesn’t stop at the sector level. The company operates in various verticals, including protein, dairy, conventional food, and fresh food. “While there are differences between them, there are also commonalities, and we capitalise on those by bringing them together on one platform. The difference between our approach and other vendors is that our product management, R&D, and consulting teams become experts in these industries, and we understand the language our customers speak,” Al Shamsi said.
“Another key point,” he added, “is that our customers don’t have to toggle hundreds of capabilities to use 20% of a platform that wasn’t designed for them. In our case, they toggle 100% of capabilities designed specifically for their industry.”
Discussing digital transformation, Al Shami said, “We took a very pragmatic, prescriptive approach designed to get customers to value as soon as possible. There is a massive gap between expectations and value realisation at the end of ERP projects. According to many third-party analysts, customers often fail to realise the anticipated value at go-live. We call that gap the value void.
“At Infor, we focus on bridging that gap between expectation and realisation. Everyone today is talking about AI, RPA, process intelligence, and now agentic AI. However, customers often lack the tools, skills, or know-how to utilise them effectively. Our approach is to package what we call Value Plus Solutions in our Velocity bundle. These are industry-specific, consumable packages. For instance, if you’re in the food and beverage industry and aim to boost your yield, we offer an AI-driven Value Plus Solution that’s easy to consume, eliminating the hassle of deploying or configuring complex technology components. You simply focus on achieving your business outcomes. In my opinion, that’s a game changer.”
Strategic focus on the region
Infor’s partnerships in the region are central to its strategy. “We have so many success stories,” said Al Shami. “One of the latest is with one of our customers, Zahid Group in Saudi Arabia. Zahid has been our customer for many years, and we’ve reinforced that partnership through their migration to the cloud.
“Some of their companies are already in the cloud, while others are on the path. Together, we announced a Center of Excellence, co-funded between us and Zahid, to design and nurture use cases of innovation for the equipment industry. This Center of Excellence will, in my opinion, become a role model for many others we’ll announce soon.”
He further emphasised the company’s regional priorities. “Our approach in the region is very focused. We decided to focus on areas where we have the necessary skills, references, and resources to support our customers. This is why we have chosen the UAE as our hub and headquarters, with a presence in Dubai for many years, and Saudi Arabia.
“The UAE government is a global leader in adopting technology to enhance citizen services. Similarly, Saudi Arabia has clear goals to reduce dependency on oil and increase industrial GDP. This is where we fit, in distribution, food and beverage, manufacturing, and healthcare, and where we can truly partner in the journey of transformation.”
Infor also recently announced the release of Infor Industry AI Agents. “This is opening the door toward autonomous ERP. We’ve seen hyper-automation in business applications, but now we won’t need to slice or dice data or navigate screens anymore. Thanks to the Infor platform and GenAI capabilities, users can perform tasks like increasing production line capacity or rerouting orders, all through a conversational UI.”
Reflecting on his long-standing participation at GITEX, Al Shami said, “On a personal note, this is my 17th year participating at the event, and as part of Infor, it’s the 10th year. It’s an honour to be at GITEX every year. We wait for this because it’s the celebration of the IT community within the region, where technology vendors, system integrators, customers, and partners of innovation meet to showcase the latest developments in the world and to ensure we maintain a continuous connection with the field.”
“We’re super excited to be at GITEX this year,” Al Shami concluded. “We truly value the opportunity to meet our customers and partners and look forward to having conversations about how we can help companies in the region advance in their digital transformation journey.”
Image Credit: Infor
