Two days ago, Infor started its layoff of 5% total headcount, which was about 400 employee.

Frank Scavo has a blog post (http://fscavo.blogspot.com/2008/12/infor-layoffs-dec-2008.html)on this

5% is really not many, considering the current tough economic conditions.

Well, laying of 400 people is what you call an achievement ? Very cynical to start a post like that and put it all on the crises.

Sign of the times I guess.Information on where the lay offs are happening ,geographically as well as product wise still scarce.

Well, laying of 400 people is what you call an achievement ? Very cynical to start a post like that and put it all on the crises.

I have to agree with Kai on this. Laying off people and judging the action purely on percentage points is a foul game. Laying off people should only be done when there it is a dire necessity for the operation of the company, not because of the 'general tough economic conditions', which is rather a fuzzy concept. I do wonder how layoffs are being announced these days using the current downturn as excuse instead of being based on solid business economics. The speed of light at which information travels in our global economy makes scaremongering and speculative tactics rather easy to accomplish. Short-selling employees seems to be the next step in the global business game.

I am sorry you guys are not happy to see my comment that 5% is not many. But comparing with the news I read in this morning like, "Foxconn is going to layoff 100 thousands workers in China" and "Flextronics To Cut 30% Tech Jobs In China".
Although it is cruel, it is a fact.

Perhaps this is finally an incentive and signal towards Infor to gain new clients and start selling.
So far the focus has been on milking the installed base.
I see two major challenges for Infor in the future:

- How to acquire new customers in a period of dramatic economic downturn?
- How to prevent existing customers to move away from your products and selecting competitive solutions?

In the end the pie is only getting smaller and more lay-offs are needed to support the remaining revenue levels.

Hmmm, this sounds familiar: the Detroit scenario?

Well, keep smiling because in the end it is only what you want to believe!

To gain new customers in this downturn is not easy since many companies would reduce the budget on IT.
Actually I think the downturn may help Infor to keep some customers from migrating their ERP system to SAP or Oracle.

Yes, be happy. Sometimes being layoff is not really a bad thing. :D