A cornerstone of Infor Inc.’s business strategy is micro-verticals, a focus on industry-specific software that can provide unique solutions for a baker versus a brewer. When the enterprise software provider bought enterprise resource planning rival Lawson six years ago, it forced one system integrator, Avaap Inc., to make a risky bet that Infor’s strategy would not destroy its fledgling business.

“When Infor acquired Lawson there was a huge amount of apprehension in the customer base,” said Dhiraj Shah (pictured), founder, president and chief executive officer of Avaap, whose business was centered around Lawson’s software. But when Infor Chief Executive Officer Charles Phillips explained the company’s micro-vertical approach, Shah was sold. “We bought into that vision. That belief has really catapulted both organizations,” he said.

Shah told his story during a visit to theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and answered questions from co-hosts Rebecca Knight (@knightrm) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), during Inforum 2017 in New York. They discussed how Avaap is partnering with Infor to support retail and healthcare customers, as well as the challenges of change management in the enterprise. (* Disclosure below.)

Avaap’s main focus on healthcare

Healthcare is Avaap’s largest vertical market, representing about 75 percent of its business, Shah explained. The company recently announced an agreement with Palos Health to deliver Infor CloudSuite Financials (financial management technology) and replace the organization’s legacy ERP system.

Through an Infor tool such as Birst, a new cloud-native, business intelligence platform, hospitals can connect critical systems together so that operators can gather key patient data and better understand costs, according to Shah. “We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars that hospitals are burning through inefficient systems right now,” he stated.

Avaap also works with customers in the retail sector, including Whole Foods Market Inc. Avaap partnered with Infor to write a merchandising system for the well-known grocery chain and emphasized the importance of using technology to improve the retail sales and delivery process for a single backend user experience.

“Retail is really getting hurt. There’s a huge technology change happening in the marketplace,” Shah said.

Shah said that customers accept the delivery of cloud-native applications “about eight out of 10 times,” but sometimes customization is needed, despite the difficulty involved.

“We’ve learned through change management mechanisms to have educated conversations with the customers because it’s a lot more painful to change the software,” Shah explained.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Inforum 2017 event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Inforum 2017. Neither Infor Inc. nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE