FinancialForce.com, a company specializing in back office applications, has announced that it has acquired the business and assets of Less Software including the firm's supply chain management (SCM) solutions.
The cloud application suite allows companies to acquire, manage and sell inventory efficiently by automating the logistics and order fulfillment process. This acquisition represents a step in FinancialForce.com's vision to build a borderless back office by eliminating barriers inside and outside an organization, including those that prevent companies from forming closer relationships with their customers and suppliers. The company also announced that it has acquired Vana Workforce, a global human capital software provider and maker of a leading HR application on the Salesforce Platform.
The acquisition of Less Software's business and assets adds comprehensive SCM capabilities to FinancialForce.com's back office solutions including Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ), order fulfillment, service contracts, inventory management, supplier and spend management. The suite of SCM products will be rebranded as FinancialForce SCM.
The SCM suite is a set of native Force.com packages that were architected to work with FinancialForce accounting, billing and professional services automation (PSA) from the outset. Companies already using FinancialForce solutions enjoy a single line of sight across their organization, from supply chain to finance, and efficient order to cash and procure to pay processes.
Less Software currently serves mid-market and enterprise customers including companies employing a two tier ERP strategy that require more nimble solutions for their growing or recently acquired subsidiaries. Unlike multi-cloud application alternatives, FinancialForce SCM is a native application on the Salesforce Platform providing users with a consistent experience across the enterprise including: single sign-on, a single reporting database, the same workflow, dashboarding and reporting tools, mobile device support and integration with Salesforce Chatter, the #1 enterprise social network.
FinancialForce.com's SCM applications provide visibility to customer and trading partner supply chain activity and ensure that the margin sold is the margin seen in financial reports, which are always up to date and accurate. When combined with FinancialForce billing, accounting, revenue recognition and PSA applications, customer-centric organizations are armed with the information they need to serve customers including shipment status, contract changes, reverse logistics information, invoices, payments, professional service project status, discrete margin analysis and general business profitability. The application is ideal for companies with multi-element revenue models that might combine traditional product sales, professional services and recurring revenue line items on a single customer invoice, a growing trend in businesses today. Businesses such as value added technology resellers that sell hard goods, software subscriptions, maintenance services and professional service projects are perfect candidates for this type of functionality.
"I am extremely pleased to add Less Software's innovative SCM solutions to our back office repertoire," said Jeremy Roche, president and CEO at FinancialForce.com. "By being embedded in Salesforce CRM and taking a one platform approach to SCM, companies can achieve more collaborative relationships with customers, suppliers and partners. This is just the beginning in our quest to redefine the role of the back office."
"At Less Software, it has always been our top priority to simplify the supply chain so sales teams can engage more effectively with their customers. Our closed loop approach begins with CPQ applications and progresses through order fulfillment. It is now extended through the receivable process with FinancialForce.com's billing and accounting applications," said Mike Flanagan, co-founder and CEO at Less Software, and newly appointed SCM general manager at FinancialForce.com. "By joining forces with FinancialForce.com, to couple SCM with PSA and other back-office applications, is truly the vision we have always held and we are thrilled to see this reality."
FinancialForce SCM, available today on the AppExchange, can be continued to use as a standalone solution or used with any other FinancialForce.com application.
The company's acquisition of Vana Workforce, a global human capital software provider and maker of a leading HR application on the Salesforce Platform, will include the re-branding of Vana's application as FinancialForce Human Capital Management (HCM). The application provides integrated HRMS, talent management and recruitment capabilities, allowing a consistent user experience across these solutions. As a native application built on the Salesforce Platform, the new application will be instantly unified with FinancialForce accounting and FinancialForce PSA, creating a single line of sight across an organization. This will allow true, front to back office visibility and a single user experience across the entire enterprise.
"With the acquisition of Vana Workforce and the launch of FinancialForce HCM, we are once again demonstrating that the time to remove barriers between departments is now," said Roche. "Providing front to back office visibility has always been our priority because it allows our customers to make smarter and more cohesive business decisions. Now we are able to extend that promise further with HCM to help companies manage their most important asset: human talent."
"Vana Workforce and FinancialForce.com have always shared the same goal—to unlock the power of the cloud, social and mobile capabilities in order to engage employees and gain real-time insight for our customers," said David Vanheukelom, co-founder and CEO at Vana Workforce, and newly appointed HCM General Manager at FinancialForce.com. "I am very pleased that Vana customers can now further extend that intelligence across the back office with FinancialForce.com, without changing UI or platform, and am excited about our shared vision for HCM innovation."
"This acquisition underscores our belief that people are the most important driver of growth," said Roche. "This application will enable our customers to invest in their people in modern way, which ultimately will help grow both their top and bottom lines."
