How SONIC Spokane delivered fast the coneys

Image source: northcoastdriveins.com

“America’s Drive-In,” SONIC has been giving 43 states the taste of efficiency in service from its carhops on roller skates, and of “carnival-like” explosion in the mouth with its classic fares of hamburgers and french fries, as well as hotdogs and coneys. Its rocketing success, however, is not a giveaway in the starter kit for opening branches. So when it opened in Spokane, Washington, the fast-casual food place was met with certain business challenges.

Management worried about handling operations with a seamless, integrated system. Owners were hard-pressed to obtain and track sales and labor rates as they occur. Personnel waited to be asked for areas and service issues they can identify. Long story shortened, Infor had to intervene. Always industry- and company-specific, the solutions it wrought were accommodating to the business being put up, and flexible in incorporating the client’s feature requests into the software it introduced: the Infor SmartSeries Point-of-Sale (POS) Systems.


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Since POS targeted food service operators, it’s been built to run smoothly even as minor tweaking, glitches, and significant reconfiguration arose. As attested to by Preston Hawkins, owner of the Spokane franchise, Infor is a company that concerns itself with client-related rough spots. Meanwhile, in the first 87 days of the restaurant, it earned a record of $1 million in revenues, a first in all SONIC drive-ins.

For the franchise, POS has enhanced prep statuses to improve kitchen management, strategized addition of orders to existing ones, sped up identification of stations in need of help for order preps, made problems detectable by areas to keep the flow of stall and drive-through service fluid, and provided management with immediate access to sales and labor particulars. Mr. Hawkins and the store manager, Selina Harner, are appreciative of the software solution.

See the case study for this branch here.


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Under Charles Phillips’ mandate, Infor has been developing software solutions that work specifically for its targets. See how it’s done here.

Why attend Inforum 2013?

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Great minds do think alike, but in the age of travel and globalization, they sometimes have to come together in order to achieve this. The gathering of like-minded professionals is one of the best ways to witness innovation, solve problems, and generally determine where the industry is headed. Such gatherings exist for every industry, and for social enterprise, that event is called Inforum.

Inforum is an annual gathering of CRM leader Infor’s customers, employees, partners, and potential clients. Designed for the sharing of ideas and innovation, Inforum educates all members and investors on the state of the enterprise software industry and provides insight on what can be expected. In a world that is increasingly dependent on virtual social interaction, events like Inforum are necessary in determining when one is on the right path. Employees can get a bigger picture of where their career is headed and business owners can learn how to prepare and hop on board.


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Whether a start-up professional looking for ideas about where to take his business, or an industry expert looking to engage in insightful conversation with equally versed individuals, Inforum is the event to attend. There, attendees will benefit from firsthand information provided by experienced senior management officials, enterprise software experts, and speakers across different industries. www.inforum2013.com has the complete catalog of the conference and sessions.

Inforum 2012 was attended by over 5,000 participants from over 40 countries. This year’s event is expected to be bigger. Get more information about Infor, its services, and its success from CEO Charles Phillips via this website.


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Whose idea was the touchscreen, anyway?

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Once a prop in science fiction films, the touchscreen is one of the greatest milestones in the history of screen display technology. This remarkable display system allows a user to manipulate information in real time with the mere touch of a finger on the screen. The touchscreen is a leap from what display screens used to be, and still continues to evolve in size and resolution capabilities.

General Motors may have been the first major corporation to invest in and publicly make use of the touchscreen. In the 1980s, the automobile maker designed a touchscreen “electronic control center,” which replaced some of a car’s mechanical functions with electronic or electro-mechanical systems. But even before making appearances in GM models, touchscreens were already being used in the music and entertainment industry. In 1979, a high-end synesthetic music sampling workstation utilized the touchscreen with a non-ink pen. The product was called the HP-150 because it was developed by Hewlett-Packard– a tablet and stylus combination most closely resembling commercial touchscreen technology today.


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Despite the big names throwing touchscreen technology out into commercial use, the first recorded work on the development of the touchscreen began quietly in 1965, when British inventor E.A. Johnson published his ideas for a “capacitive touch screens” in a short article. Outlined with diagrams and photographs, the article depicted a paper-looking prototype with thin gridlines and a transparent protective layer. Since then, the touchscreen has been improved to respond to lighter touch while maintaining pocket-size mobility.

Touchscreen mobile apps are one of the best and fastest ways to reach a target audience. Infor customizes apps for client-to-consumer communication needs. Headed by Charles Phillips, the company holds one of the largest shares of the enterprise software sector. Read more about its capabilities on this blog.


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REPOST: Inforum 2013 Session Scheduler now available for registered attendees

Inforum 2013 in April is approaching fast. Schedule your agenda to maximize your participation in the activities.

The Session Scheduler is an easy-to-use tool that allows you to customize your Inforum 2013 experience. Personalize your agenda, plan your trip, and maximize your investment in Inforum.

Click here to access the session scheduler and build your agenda.

Your login and password are the same as those you used for the Inforum registration system. As a reminder, your login is your email address and your password is the one you set when you registered.

Inforum 2013 offers a broad range of content sessions designed to help you build your subject expertise and knowledge base. Whether you’re looking for multi-day training courses, hands-on computer-based Academies, industry outlooks, or abbreviated "speed" sessions on specific topics, you’ll be able to compile the education curriculum you need.

Click here for a full listing of hundreds of specialized sessions offered at Inforum 2013.

Check back soon for the Inforum mobile app—hold your Inforum schedule in the palm of your hand, get a real-time list of events happening, and connect with other Inforum attendees.

Visit the Inforum 2013 website for more event information.

Or visit Infor.com for news on suite upgrades. C-level news can be found on this Twitter page for CEO Charles Phillips.

Business in the cloud

With the increasing dynamism of business processes, interface with customers presupposes easy access. There’s no better venue to establish that quick relationship than over the Cloud.

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Infor, the third-largest enterprise software provider in the world servicing over 70,000 customers, has adjusted its platforms and suites for this development. The cloud is not as uniform or all-encompassing as layman’s terms imply. Embedded within it are specific infrastructure that may or may not permit the smooth rollout of software for business applications.

Infor Business Cloud applications, a set of products perfected for specific industries, take business applications to the Cloud with the goal of reducing complexities in customer engagement. They also target the reduction of IT costs for businesses while empowering them to generate changes along with the caprices of the market. As Infor’s CEO Charles Phillips would be apt to promote, Infor Business Cloud applications are all for flexibility, while retaining business focus on customer satisfaction.

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Infor’s Cloud-friendly services are especially tailored for backroom applications such as HR and talent management, financial management, and sales force automation. The range of applications is set to widen, especially given Infor’s headstart in Cloud-based enterprise software.

Image credit: synergy.net.pk

The company is actually one of the pioneers of Cloud-based software, and at the moment boasts two million subscribers. The main asset of this feature --- Web availability of enterprise processes and solutions --- magnetizes customers most. Easy access means needing nothing more than a Web browser to conduct business.

Read more about enterprise software through this blog.

Charles Phillips: Optimizing IBM SmartCloud for the new Technorati

At the recent IBM InterConnect conference in Singapore, Charles Phillips’ Infor rolled out the expansion of IBM SmartCloud infrastructure with the inclusion of Infor Integrated Platform-as-a-Service (iPaaS) stack. The Private Beta availability of the iPaaS augments the pre-configured and menu-driven platform of the IBM SmartCloud with an option to allow IBM’s cloudmeisters to integrate, extend, and develop an array of applications and services within a local development structure that serves both Cloud and on-premise deployments. The refurbishment of the cloudware also allows users to upgrade their applications easily and experience Infor’s mobile and computing capabilities in the device spectrum.

Charles Phillips. Image credit: Ibm.com

IBM is set to obtain the best-of-breed for its cloud system with its partnership with Charles Phillips’ Infor. In addition to the iPaaS, the Infor SyteLine ERP included in the Private Beta is another fueling factor. Running on IBM SmartCloud, Syteline makes the cloudware’s menu-driven stack incremental and different from what IBM had offered before. Syteline brings a lot of opportunities to leverage a world-class ERP straight from IBM’s cost-effective and customizable cloud system.

Charles Phillips. Image credit: Copleycg.com

Infor SVP for Business Cloud Ali Shadman reveals that there’s more to iPaas than making any cloud system a hybrid entity. Some key benefits of the iPaaS are:

• Minimal coding requirement for business functionality;
• Protection for existing investments through the extension of ongoing business functionality; and
• Utilization of open and standards-based technology.

Charles Phillips. Image credit: Ibm.com

Apparently, the IBM SmartCloud for business includes five main areas of choice: IT platform, management support and deployment, performance and availability, security, and billing. The odds could be that the IBM-Infor collaboration will find faster adoption in both large and mid-range markets.

Charles Phillips’ Infor is a leading ERP solutions provider. For more information, visit www.infor.com.

Charles Phillips and facing the demand with Infor Hospitality

Technology advances out of a need to eliminate complexities, a rule that remains true in today’s business applications. Infor, led by Charles Phillips, creates ERP solutions tailored to the needs of various sectors, the hotel industry included. After all, running a hotel is not as easy as lounging in one.

Charles Phillips | Image Credit: Homivo.com

Charles Phillips | Image Credit: archithings.com

Hotels seek to provide its customers with the feeling of being at home away from home, an end that starts at the reception area, and entails giving customers what they need when they need it. For a business that thrives on direct customer contact and quality interaction, nothing spells “success” more than a front office that can readily respond to any demand or concern.

Infor Hospitality is a set of applications that offers solutions for various aspects of hotel management. True to Charles Phillips’ word, the suite contains applications specially designed to ram up the quality of service that the front office provides. When integrated with a hotel’s front office and on-property technology, the suite facilitates better services by providing a centralized view of the guests and more opportunities to improve business operations and the delivery of services. Included in the suite are:

• Infor HMS – This combines the front office with sales, marketing, and central reservations, and provides a unified look at guests and the business’ performance.


• SoftBrands Epitome PMS – This creates a business system that manages property, converts information into knowledge, and potentially boosts profits by streamlining operations and increasing revenue and occupancy.


• Infor Starlight PMS – This creates a customizable, flexible, and central guest, company, and travel agent index that proprietors can readily access.


• SoftBrands Hotel FrontRes PMS – This helps manage reservations, sales, purchases, and services.


• SoftBrands Core CRS – This integrates and distributes data about guests, inventory, and rates across the company.

Charles Phillips | Image Credit: Synergy.net.pk

For more information about Charles Phillips, visit this Facebook page.