Infor in Sweden, SAP’s face

Enterprise software provider Infor has announced that Folksam, a leading Swedish insurance company, has chosen Infor CRM Epiphany to “implement its five-year CRM vision.” Said vision actually began in 2003 and, in the master plan, Infor CRM Epiphany enables Folksam to implement the user interface for the CRM strategy.

The project’s initial phase focused on data warehousing, analysis and process development. The deployment of Infor CRM Epiphany sales, service and inbound marketing will be fully supported by one system with one comprehensive customer view, in theory enabling Folksam to completely implement all defined CRM processes.

Infor also got some attention for itself on Wednesday. After SAP CEO Henning Kagermann unveiled his firm’s “new game changing approach to the mid-market,” which involves SAP developing a hosted suite of business applications for the midmarket, in hopes of “attract[ing] an untapped segment of customers with the promise of faster implementation and lower ownership costs,” Infor CEO Jim Schaper quickly shot back.

“One has to wonder if SAP truly understands the mid-market or whether this strategy is solely an effort to detract attention from the slowing growth of their Fortune 500 base,” said Schaper. “Medium-sized customers do not want all-in-one products that need massive customization efforts to address their line of business. That approach is a relic of the past, when ERP implementations were akin to corporate open heart surgery. … The bottom line is that customers want more functionality, less complexity and the lowest total cost of ownership. That is not the plan we see from SAP.”

Ouch.

Swedish insurance company Folksam was founded in 1908 and today handles more than 18 million insurance contracts in over 100 offices. The company has approximately 3,700 employees and settles 600,000 claims annually. Folksam numbers show that the company now insures half of all family homes, half of all citizens, and one-quarter of all automobiles in Sweden.