Infor appoints Bruce Richardson as chief strategy officer

Industry veteran, luminary and leading enterprise software analyst joins Infor team

By Jack Smith January 2, 2010

Infor
announced on Jan. 7, that Bruce Richardson will joinInfor as chief strategy officer and will report to Jim Schaper, Infor chairmanand CEO. Richardson, a well-respected software veteran, is currently chiefresearch officer at AMR Research . In addition to his role with Infor, he willserve as a strategic advisor to Golden Gate Capital , Infor’s largestshareholder. Infor provides business software for mid-market customers in morethan 100 countries.

"Throughout the last two decades, there is no individual who

has more closely followed every significant business software company in the

world than Bruce Richardson. His joining our world-class team is a significant

endorsement," said Schaper. "Bruce is also one of the best trend-spotters in

the business and will play a key role as we continue building our business

through organic and acquisitive growth."

"As a student of the market for the last 30 years, I

understand the dynamics of the business software marketplace – the forces that

are driving the industry and shifting the balance of power in favor of

customers," said Richardson.

"Infor gets it. Their leadershipis changing how business software providers

engage with customers. It’s amazing what Infor has been able to accomplish in

seven years: a large and loyal customer base, a global footprint, an exciting

lineup of products, a great management team and a bright future with enormous

growth opportunities."

 As chief research

officer at AMR Research, Richardson

oversaw all aspects of analysis at the company, including opinions and

reporting of key trends and strategies in areas such as ERP, supply chain

management, cloud computing, service-oriented architectures,

software-as-a-service, software appliances, virtualization and visualization.

Richardson has covered and analyzed the enterprise software market for decades

and made many early market predictions that have since proven accurate, such as

the rise of the advanced planning market and the evolution of manufacturing resource

planning to enterprise resource planning.

Prior to AMR Research, Richardson

held senior marketing management positions with companies in the software and

networking industries. He is an active member of the Boston College TechnologyCouncil, and graduated cum laude fromBoston College.

Richardson’s insights and perspectives on the enterprise software market – and

particularly his knowledge of customer needs and requirements – will continue

to differentiate Infor as a software provider that consistently listens to its

customers, according to an Infor news release. Richardson willcontinue to share his

insights and opinions at www.infor.com in his "An Insider’s View" weekly blog.


Author Bio: Content manager, CFE Media