Meet INFORM: Five Theses, Five Answers
Managing the Unplannable Digitally
INFORM is a leading global specialist in business process optimization. Based on operations research and artificial intelligence, we help companies in numerous industries to make informed decisions in highly complex situations. We call this "digital decision-making."
Why do we do it? How do we do it? And what sets us apart?
Five theses, five answers...
1. Digital decision-making is the key to optimizing business processes because it uses knowledge to generate specific recommendations for action.
Using digital decision-making, we help our customers optimize complex operational processes. Our systems complement standard IT systems by analyzing huge quantities of data, cost-out numerous decision-variants and suggest the best-possible solution to the user for implementation in a matter of seconds. In doing so, we consciously go beyond the performance range of traditional IT systems. Traditional software systems manage, distribute, and integrate data. However, in order to make economically sensible decisions based on this data, typically under great time constraints, special software is required. INFORM therefore offers IT systems that transform the available knowledge into specific recommendations for action, optimized for the situation or rather the need at hand. Companies such as Abbot, BMW, Bosch, First Data, Ford, Daimler, Delta Air Lines, Emirates, Heidelberg, Merck, Qantas, Siemens, and Zürich, have been continuously expanding and innovating their digital decision-making with us for several decades.
INFORM's IT systems analyze large amounts of data in a matter of seconds, calculate numerous decision-variants, and propose the best possible solution to the user for implementation.
2. Optimizing complex business processes is only possible with AI solutions that are both data- and knowledge-based. The development of such software systems is a feat of pioneers.
Long before terms such as "artificial intelligence" and "machine learning" were making waves, INFORM was developing intelligent algorithms for its software products. The focus is on artificial intelligence (AI) for business processes rather than consumer applications or the public sector. We rely primarily on operations research and fuzzy logic, supplemented by machine learning, to develop our software. This enables us to deliver hybrid AI solutions that are both data and knowledge-based. A classic example of this is Internet payment fraud. When a new fraud pattern emerges, it takes a data-driven algorithm several weeks to adapt to the new threat because that is how long it takes for the new pattern to be recognized in the terabytes of daily payment data. In contrast, an algorithm based on expertise can be interactively fed new rules by fraud experts as soon as a new fraud pattern is discovered to immediately defend against the new form of fraud. In other cases, data-based applications are highly suited, for example, to proactively make good decisions. In production planning, machine learning can be used to predict restocking times for individual components with extreme accuracy. An optimization algorithm can use this data to effectively adjust all follow-on production processes. Our hybrid AI solutions with digital decision-making are now used by more than 1,000 customers worldwide. Development for this began in 1979 when we became the first IT company to launch software for inventory sampling. Today, our eight standard applications optimize a wide range of business processes, including demand planning, staffing, logistics, and supply chain management.
INFORM's turnkey solutions deliver intelligent, fast, and interactive recommendations for action in the true sense of agile optimization.
3. The biggest industrial challenges are volatility, uncertainty, and complexity. Companies today must therefore be able to respond to the unpredictable with agility.
The survival of many companies depends on their ability to respond to unpredictable everyday challenges in a truly agile way. This is because our businesses live in a world where volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity are unparalleled. We provide our customers with powerful operational management tools to deal with the unpredictable.
Our turnkey solutions draw on a broad range of domain expertise specific to industry and operations, which we have continued to deepen over the five decades since the company was founded. Our algorithms provide specific recommendations for action in complex decision-making situations. And, in an intelligent way, to master the complexity of the situation as well as quickly and interactively support management's decision-making authority. We call this strategy "agile optimization."
4. Digital decision-making creates sustainability - ecologically, economically, and in relationships with employees.
We value sustainability above everything else. At INFORM, we focus on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. In addition to a zero-carbon emission footprint initiative for our own operations, we also develop our applications with an eye on how we can help customers meet the criteria for their sustainability goals. These range from reducing carbon emissions and improving employee relations to conserving resources or addressing food waste. Within our company, sustainable relationships with our employees are very important to us. Therefore, we place trust above control in our dealings with each other and give our colleagues wide-ranging responsibilities. In doing so, we encourage a high degree of personal responsibility, creativity, and problem-solving excellence. This work ethic attracts top talent and ensures that they stay with INFORM for a long time. This in turn promotes sustainable customer relationships.
Sustainability is a critical business objective for INFORM. That is why we have grown sustainably since 1969 and today serve more than 1,000 customers worldwide with over 850 employees.
5. Managing the unplannable digitally is the challenge of the future. INFORM is already offering the solution today.
The trends of individual products and ever-stronger global networking, coupled with the ongoing acceleration of production and supply chains, increase the risk of unpredictable disruptions. Hybrid AI solutions will become more necessary in order to identify critical situations within a supply chain at an early stage, for example. It is the only way to prevent expected bottlenecks in supply, or if they cannot be prevented, prepare for them ahead of time in further planning such as production processes. More than ever, the future challenge will basically be to digitally manage the unplannable. INFORM is already offering the solution for this today.