Whole Foods recently cut 1,500 jobs to 'invest in technology' — here's one flagship example of the tech being rolled out - post regarding Whole Foods Market Inc. layoffs

Whole Foods recently cut 1,500 jobs to 'invest in technology' — here's one flagship example of the tech being rolled out

Whole Foods has turned to enterprise software company Infor to build a state of the art IT system that will allow it to better manage its suppliers and save money, the two companies announced on Wednesday.

Last month, Whole Foods said it would be cutting up to 1,500 jobs — or about 1.6% of its workforce to help it save money so it could lower costs and invest in new technology.

Specifically, it said: "As part of its ongoing commitment to lower prices for its customers and invest in technology upgrades while improving its cost structure, Whole Foods Market will reduce a number of positions over the next eight weeks."

This is an interesting feather in the hat for Infor, the company run by former Oracle president Charles Phillips (its CEO) and many other Oracle alums.

As we previously reported, Infor recently poached several executives from Oracle's retail unit to help it land a big new customer and create this new retail product.

In this case, Whole Foods is more than just the first customer. Whole Foods is being described as the product's "co-creator" and "a working lab" for the new system, even though Infor will sell this retail cloud service to other retailers, the companies say in their press release.

Comment! It's anonymous!

6 replies (most recent on top)

178446: You just nailed it. Spot on.

i want to know how the cost outlay for all the severance packages relates to the said tech expenses..???

Infor is terrible software and company. I used to be at a company that used its Lawson ERP product. The company will never recover after this project.

http://www.businessinsider.com/whole-foods-builds-huge-new-it-system-2015-10

This is such a stupid move, you will see this whole thing drag on, drain cash flow and miserably fail. This will take place after tens of millions of dollars in consulting fees are spent. Keep in mind that things like this take years to build, you need dozes or hundreds of people involved and you cannot find any consultant in the ERP area under $150/hour. I am not sure who will be implementing, but if they go with a top tier firm, we'll probably end up paying 200/hour or more, but keep in mind they will roll on dozens of people who will be working on this for years. Consider this - we will be a 'lab rat' here, so they do not know what they are doing, they are developing ultra complex piece of software (does not get more complicated than ERP as you are trying to connect everything, purchasing, inventory, warehouses, finance, inventory costs, sales, collection, bank, tax, etc.) - Anyhow, now we have a player that wants to co-create with us? Are we in software business now, so we are co-creating product? Why dont we just go and buy something that's proven and hire somebody who can come and do the same thing that they did for someone else? That's 20 times more bullet-proof and faster and more reliable and and and... And, since we are co-creating this, I am assuming a ton of shit will be new here, so there will be no documentation, there will be no expertise (who are you going to hire to support and extend it once we burn out all folks working on it). I guess they were not thinking about that. This is much bigger than it looks on the surface, ERP implementations gone south have delisted many companies from the stock exchanges. Each of them is a giant money pit and ultra risky. Embarking on that difficulty journey with a rookie product and software company it's simply ludicrous. I just hope that someone on the board of directors is watching this as this whole episode may bring us down.

I googled that article. The InFor rep spouted a bunch of corporate garbage just like our public officers do. I'm looking forward to a day when I can leverage efficiencies in a global dynamic.

Thread regarding Whole Foods Market Inc. layoffs

Whole Foods recently cut 1,500 jobs to 'invest in technology' — here's one flagship example of the tech being rolled out

6 replies (most recent on top)

Post a reply