The new president of IFS' North American operations says that her two key areas of emphasis this year will be building out the company's partner organization and concentrating on sales and marketing to IFS' current customer base.
Cindy Jaudon was named to head up the North American business late last year, replacing Michael Nordin, who had been in the job since the spring of 2003. Jaudon, who has more than 20 years of experience in the software industry, has been with IFS for the past two years, most recently as director, global industry team, in IFS' aerospace and defense business.
In an interview, Jaudon said that among her top priorities this year will be assuring support for a group of value-added resellers (VARs) IFS signed up in 2004 to more effectively reach segments of the small- and medium-size market with its ERP product line.
Three VARs -- brij, MSS Technologies and Corning Data, all former resellers of JD Edwards (JDE) software, which target the industrial manufacturing market -- were brought on board by IFS as part of a shift from direct sales in those market segments.
"The first part of 2005 will be devoted to making sure that IFS has the infrastructure to support them," Jaudon said. "We're creating a partner organization, with sales management and services, to do that."
A decision as to whether to recruit additional VARs will be made later this year, she noted.
Another major priority for 2005 will be to concentrate attention on the company's installed base, stressing IFS' expertise in engineer-to-order environments in complex manufacturing companies and in enterprise asset management.
Overall, Jaudon said she's cautiously optimistic about the market itself this year and is planning conservatively. "We believe the market is going to open up, but we're cautious," she said.
She also said that Oracle's acquisition of PeopleSoft, with its former JDE software lines, may result in opportunities as Oracle absorbs the company. "At the low end, a lot of companies using JDE will be nervous and I realize they will be cautious. But I hope IFS will be on their short lists."
This article is repurposed from the February 2005 edition of Managing Automation magazine.