Research is now turning to the outlook post-COVID-19. Several countries are returning, at least in part, to a sort of lockdown. Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism and Nintex share similar findings. Business leaders turning to digital transformation initiatives to survive in the future. Meanwhile, Ceridian notes that in the US employees are turning to loans and credit cards to pay their monthly bills. That does not bode well in the event of a significant downturn in the global economy.
Acquisitions
ServiceNow announced it is acquiring Sweagle a configuration data management company based in Belgium. The solution will strengthen the ServiceNow DevOps and IT Operations Management portfolio. ServiceNow did not disclose terms, and it expects the deal to close in Q3 2020. Sweagle was founded in 2017 by CEO Mark Verstockt and CTO Benny Van de Sompele. It last raised funding in 2019, raising $3 million in a seed funding round led by Xange. It already has offices in London, Paris, New York and Brussels.
Appointments
Datto has appointed Radhesh Menon as Chief Product Officer. Radhesh was previously CMO at Robin.io and before that General Manager at Red Hat.
Kronos has appointed Chris Mullen, director of HCM strategic advisory services, Kronos to become the new executive director of The Workforce Institute. He will assume the role when Joyce Maroney retires in June.
Business
Blue Prism announced H2 2020 results with a 70% increase in revenue to £68.5 million. It now has £11.6 million in monthly recurring revenues. It has also maintained a 98% gross revenue retention rate from existing customers.
elastic.io and ABM Cloud have formed a strategic partnership to facilitate ERP to Inventory integration. Leveraging elastic.io, ABM Cloud can integrate to business applications such as Shopify, Marketo, Salesforce, SAP ByDesign or Microsoft solutions.
Epicor formally announced the partnership with ETQ. It is using the ETQ Reliance quality management solution to power Epicor QMS. This was recently launched as part of Epicor ERP 10.2.6.
FinancialForce hosted a successful virtual event this week. One announcement not included in our coverage was the strengthening of its partnership with Gainsight, the customer success vendor. The agreement will see data exchanged between the two solutions to deliver integrated insights to joint users.
FreshBooks is now available on the North American Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace. It allows Ingram Micro’s US-based channel resellers to offer their customers FreshBooks accounting solution. The question is who will deliver any professional services in such an engagement. There seems to be no training in place for this extended partner network. FreshBooks hopes to extend this to Canada, UK and Australia in due course.
Ivanti Wavelink announced it has teamed with Procensis, a leading mobility and network design solutions provider and Ivanti Wavelink partner, to bring to market a new bundled solution for modernizing warehouse picking. The new solution is called the Wearable Picking Bundle. It combines Ivanti Velocity, powered by Wavelink, with ProGlove’s MARK display wearable scanner and the Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro. It claims to increase productivity, accuracy and efficiency when deployed in modern warehouses.
Kaufman Hall has spun off its software division with investment from private equity firms Thoma Bravo and Madison Dearborn Partners (MDP). The new firm is Syntellis Performance Solutions LLC. Kermit S Randa will be the new CEO. It includes the Connected Analytics practice of Change Healthcare and its Enterprise Performance Management software.
Planful has raised additional funding in an equity round led by Vector Capital. The round included the participation of existing investors StarVest Partners and Monroe Capital. Planful expects to use the proceeds to meet growing global demand for its cloud-based FP&A solution and interest in its Continuous Planning vision. Vector Capital only acquired Planful in 2018. Did it raise the money to boost cash flow or accelerate growth?
Rand Group has announced a partnership with Workday that will see it sell and implement Workday Adaptive planning as part of its new Data Sciences practice. Brian Petersen, VP of Data Sciences, Rand, commented: “We’re very excited to announce our partnership with Workday. When I came onboard at Rand, I wanted to make sure we had the best solutions for reporting, planning, and analytics for all of the core ERP systems we support at Rand Group. We had solutions for the Microsoft suite of products as well as SAP but realized that we didn’t have a seamless solution for NetSuite. This partnership allows us to better address our NetSuite clients’ needs around reporting, planning, and analytics, while also giving all of our clients access to a best-in-breed solution as well.”
SAP launched the SAP Learning Hub, enhanced student edition. Available to students globally, it includes all the tools, practice sessions and resources needed to become a certified SAP professional. Eva Zauke, chief knowledge officer, SAP SE commented: “As the next generation of SAP professionals looks to begin their careers, we are committed to preparing them with the right knowledge and practical skills needed to excel with digital and intelligent solutions as part of our SAP ecosystem. That’s why we’ve tailored SAP Learning Hub, enhanced student edition, to feature our most innovative, forward-looking solutions, technologies and content, as well as hands-on practice and the opportunity to earn SAP Global Certification digital badges.”
SAP and IBM have announced the next stage of their partnership. They plan to develop more joint offerings building on the success of the 400 digital transformation engagements already completed together.
ServiceNow has added two new data centres in Europe: Newport, United Kingdom and Dublin, Ireland. The provides pairings to prepare for Brexit. London/Newport for the UK and Dublin/Amsterdam for the EU.
Siemens and Salesforce announced a strategic partnership that will see Salesforce Work.com and Siemens’ Smart Infrastructure solutions, including Comfy and Enlighted, combine to help create safe, connected workplaces for the future. Roland Busch, Deputy CEO and member of the managing board of Siemens AG commented: “The safe return of people to the workplace is a global challenge, and it’s vital that companies protect their employees to build trust and confidence. Together with Salesforce, we can swiftly support businesses around the world to implement technology which supports employees as they return to the office while laying the foundations of long-term digital transformation in workplaces.”
SDWorx is to offer the TalentSoft cloud-based talent management and learning solution. Bastien Swÿsen, Portfolio Manager Partnerships at SD Worx commented: “For eBlox Talent, we work with Talentsoft, a strategic player and expert in Talent Management. They are the European market leader not just because their software is the frontrunner but also because they know how to manage the diversity of European practices and regulations. This allows companies with operations in several countries to take a streamlined, international approach in all their departments, for example. The flexible and intuitive Talentsoft digital platform offers great prospects.”
Trintech has announced a partnership with Visma. It has launched a pre-built connector to Visma for Adra Balancer and Adra Matcher.
Weoptit, a Visma company, has become a partner of Gurobi Optimisation, a leading mathematical optimization solver. Joonas Ollila, Weoptit’s CEO, commented: “The partnership highlights the deep expertise of Weoptit. We use Gurobi because, for us, the quality of the results is everything. An improvement of just a few percentage points in the results and the speed of the optimization may lead to cost savings of millions of euros for our customers.”
Xero has partnered with DBS Bank in Singapore. DBS will provide Xero as part of a DBS Start Digital Pack to help SME firms start digitally. The pack includes a six months free license for participating organisations.
Customer
Ceridian celebrated winning a significant customer in Mauritius. IBL Group, the largest conglomerate in Mauritius, has selected Dayforce to modernise and run its HR processes.
Silversoft, the Deltek partner has announced that draftLine has selected Deltek WorkBook. Julia Parry, Head of Operations at draftLine, commented: “Our traffic and client service departments needed a tool that could increase efficiency and agility, thereby providing value to our brands. WorkBook is by far the best solution for us”.
Aviva has selected Fenergo to transform KYC, CDD and AML Processes, replacing multiple systems with a single holistic solution.
FloQast revealed that its solution helped streamline and establish important financial processes for ZoomInfo ahead of its successful IPO on June 3, 2020. It helps cut its monthly close from an average of 30 days to five
Panino Giusto, the Italian restaurant chain with operations in five countries is leveraging Oracle technology to provide the new operating models it needed as the hospitality industry emerged from lockdown. Using Oracle Food and Beverage Simphony and MICROS Point-of-Sale it is preparing to deliver a safer, but still pleasurable experience to customers. In collaboration with Oracle, Smart Technologies Limited, Get Your Bill and Tas Group it reimagined its processes including extending its loyalty app My Panino Giusto in weeks.
Qualtrics continues to announce customer wins; Discord selected Brand XM, EF Education and RAA selected Customer XM, Illumio selected EmployeeXM and Hanover Research selected Core XM
Europes largest floral supplier has implemented Infor CloudSuite M3 to modernise its operational processes. Michel van Hout, CIO at Dutch Flower Group, commented: “After a thorough analysis, we selected Infor because of their proven industry-specific solution and great fit with the team. If you undergo a major operation, you look for a professional surgeon that you trust and feel comfortable with; that’s what we have with Infor. After matching Infor’s license model to our needs and dynamics, we have some exciting times ahead, and we are happy Infor is supporting us in this new adventure. For Dutch Flower Group, this means that we can review and rethink our processes and benefit from an ERP system that has a higher level of integrated capabilities. For Infor, we challenge them to help us make process improvements in our industry through greater use of automation.”
Hydraulic Engineering firm IMH-UK has successfully completed the first phase of an ERP project with Priority ERP.
Downies Collectable reduces its software maintenance bill by 50% by its recent move to Rimini Street Support for its SAP ECC ERP solution. Chris Sealey, Operations Director, Downies Collectables commented: “Rimini Street was brought to my attention by a network of people, and we discovered just how significant the savings would be if we made the switch. From there, the process to switch was smooth, and our discussions were always open with Rimini Street’s team – there were no agendas. And with Rimini Street, we now have access to a higher value, around-the-clock, personalised support for half the cost.”
Office Depot Europe B.V. has extended its strategic collaboration with SAP by selecting multiple SAP Customer Experience solutions to replace existing systems.
Tipalti announced it has successfully streamlined mass payments and AP capabilities for several gaming customers including DLive, a live streaming platform, Gen.G, a leading esports operation, and Holy Fire Games, an independent PC game developer.
Product
Blue Prism relaunched Blue Prism Digital Exchange (DX). The revised marketplace has more than 500 assets available to download from more than 100 active partners. Linda Dotts, Chief Partner Strategy Officer at Blue Prism, said: “We’re thrilled with the momentum that our market-leading community continues to experience. In less than one-year Blue Prism has amassed a community of 28,000 users and 3,000 customers, driving more than 35,000 downloads. This redesigned version of our Digital Exchange builds on this foundation while extending intelligent automation capabilities in a collaborative and secure way.”
Bullhorn has unveiled a new Unified workforce management solution for staffing companies. The announcement was made during Bullhorn EngageX 2020. The brings together a mix of existing and new modules onto a platform that will roll out over the next few months and into 2021.
CezanneHR has launched a new version of its leading HR Solution with a completely new user interface. The updated design introduces clearer screens, simpler navigation and more options for HR to own-brand the system.
Dean Dorton launched mConnect, a custom-built integrator for ConnectWise Manage and Sage Intacct. This will allow larger MSPs stuck on QuickBooks to upgrade to a more sophisticated accounting and ERP solution as their business grows.
Jesta has rolled out improvements to Vision CRM in its latest release. Arvind Gupta, President of Jesta I.S., commented: “Jesta’s Vision CRM is a one-stop, customer experience management platform for enterprises in a multichannel retail environment. By offering a 360-degree view of each and every customer journey across all shopping channels, we’ve leveraged best-of-breed technologies to give retailers advanced abilities to drive personalized promotions, memberships and other shopper incentives that give customers real value.”
Kofax launched a Global Trade Finance Solution. This low-code, configurable framework built on the Kofax Intelligent Automation platform accelerates end-to-end automation of trade finance workflows. The solution automates the processing of paper and electronic trade transaction documents. Thus enabling banks and other financial institutions to improve efficiency, enhance compliance and reduce processing times.
Mulesoft has announced a new accelerator for Healthcare. The solution includes pre-built APIs and integration templates to facilitate connections between external public health data and common electronic health records (EHR) systems like Epic and Cerner.
Pandle has enhanced the creation of bank rules by enabling users to create a project mid-way through the process. This allows them to track and complete them at a later date if they require more information.
RapidMIner announced the release of RapidMiner 9.7. The new version provides a new project-based framework to enhance collaboration and improve governance of AI initiatives.
Qualtrics has released a contact tracing solution that streamlines and automates the contact tracing process. The City of Houston is one of the early adopters. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said: “Contact tracing is a vital part of containing the spread of disease, preventing broader spread in our community. Supplementing our traditional contact tracing efforts through Qualtrics gives our health department more resources to reach out to people who were potentially exposed to COVID-19, helping protect countless Houstonians.”
Ramco launched the latest version of its Aviation Suite. V5.8.9 includes features enhanced by advanced Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML). The new release includes a new user interface and automation, including Discrepancy Reporting & Corrective Action, Frequently Ordered Part Recommendation and Auto Codification. There is also a significant update to the mobile application.
Salesforce unveiled Salesforce Anywhere a new solution that will enable companies to continue working regardless of whether their employees are in lockdown or have returned to an office. Based on the Salesforce 360 platform, it provides the majority of what organisations require with the integrations connectors for further expansion. Bret Taylor, President and COO Salesforce commented: “The COVID-19 crisis has taught us that companies must be able to sell, service, market and collaborate from anywhere, and that won’t change in a post-pandemic world. With Salesforce Anywhere we’re empowering customers of every size, location and industry to digitally transform with confidence in this all-digital, work-from-anywhere world.” The solution is generally available in Q4 2020.
simPRO now supports an accounting link to MYOB Essentials. For New Zealand customers there is now an automatic supplier invoice syncing for Ideal Electrical. The updates came as part of its 20.2.7 release which also sees several other minor improvements and bug fixes.
Research
Automation Anywhere revealed new research. It shows a significant shift towards intelligent automation and RPA to increase business productivity. That shift also reduces operational costs in a post-COVID-19 world. More than 80% of 5,000 senior executives from mid-sized to large organizations in over 20 countries in IMEA and South East Asia plan to invest in digital technologies.
Blue Prism published its annual survey report titled, “The Impact of a Digital Workforce on Business Agility & Survival”. The report looks at how organisations are tackling the challenges through training. It also found there is still anxiety about RPA. However, C-suite executives are embracing automation:
- 92% are looking to deploy and extend these capabilities throughout their organizations,
- 81% indicated RPA and/or automation is critical in scaling technologies such as AI across their business.
Ceridian released findings from a study conducted by The Harris Poll in May 2020. It found more than half of working Americans have struggled to cover their expenses in the last six months. They are turning to credit cards or payday loans, ironically further exacerbating the problem in future months. One answer, according to David Ossip, CEO and Chairman, Ceridian: “We believe a much-needed, employee-centric change to payroll is far overdue, and in the next few years, all leading organizations will pay their people on a daily basis.”
Namely has published findings from its own data sets around the likelihood that employees will take vacation time. While it found that vacation days dropped during the lockdown, it believes that they are now increasing. Furthermore, Namely, CEO Larry Dunlan suggests that this is a good thing. He argues: “With travel restrictions in place, it might seem counterintuitive to take time off; however, taking a break from work can be restorative. Giving managers visibility into schedules in advance and communicating the ground rules to everyone ensures employees can leverage their PTO benefits. In helping employees achieve some of those restorative benefits, Namely added two company holidays and offered summer hours in July and August to encourage employees towards this objective.”
Research by Mendix revealed that nine in ten Financial IT leaders believe only through digital transformation can their firm survive beyond 24 months. The report, entitled ‘the Bottom Line: Simplifying Digital Evolution In Financial Services’ has several other findings of interest.
