By William Fellows
Lawson Software Inc says it is on track for an IPO sometime next calendar year. The company expects business to pick up significantly next year once the Y2K hurdle is cleared especially its analytics tools, currently 10% of its business, which it says will explode after next March.
On the back of the automated on-line recruitment software it acquired with iJob back in March, Lawson says it has additional applications to add to the Workplace Analytics suite in the areas of staffing and turnover over and above the integration with iJob it already offers. It offers metrics for career development and human capital development within iJob. Response mechanisms will be integrated into the suite and data changes or decision actions will become immediately available through the web front-end. Lawson claims to have the most comprehensive analytic software of the ERP houses, which essentially offers its own query and measurement tools on top of an Arbor Essbase OLAP database.
Lawson says it will expand its performance indicator library from 40 metrics and measures to 300 by the middle of next year. It also plans to sell programs and work methodologies to help companies adjust their business practices so they can meet the required metrics. Lawson says it doesn’t mean third party tools can’t be used against its application data, but obviously it would prefer to sell its own software.
