Infor integrates CRM platform with LinkedIn

Cloud-based business applications provider Infor will integrate its customer relationship management (CRM) software with LinkedIn Sales Navigator, in a deal that could provide sales professionals with pertinent data to deliver more valuable customer interactions, Infor said Tuesday.

Infor CRM can provide a complete view of applicable customer touch points across sales, marketing, customer service, and support teams, and can help organizations maximize the impact of interactions across the entire customer lifecycle. LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows sales professionals to tap into the power of LinkedIn's more than 500 million member network to find and build relationships with prospects and customers.

Together, the linked products can provide users with deep relational data across all applicable devices in real-time, Infor said. That integration is designed to deliver new tools to assist sales professionals in discovering the best ways to get introduced through "TeamLink," identify new contacts with contextual lead recommendations, and be alerted to job and company changes, according to Infor. In addition, an "Icebreakers" feature can be a relationship selling tool that shows shared connections, experiences, and interests, plus a link to a lead's recent activity stream.

"It's no exaggeration to say that salespeople succeed or fail by their contact data," Jason Rushforth, vice president and general manager, Infor Customer Experience, said in a statement. "Integrating leading tools such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator to Infor CRM can help arm our customers with the information they need to be competitive in today's aggressive selling environment."

Infor made the announcement at its Inforum trade show in New York City, where yesterday it launched the "Coleman" artificial intelligence (AI) platform for the company's "CloudSuite" applications.