Another big week for news with several more product updates announced and a few more to come in the coming days. Asana announced Asana Goals, Cleo launched CIC studio and Oracle made a big announcement around Fusion ERP (see below).
There was also acquisition news with KCS buying Unit4 Wholesale and IFS changing hands within EQT. Another potential divestment in the future includes Epicor with the New York Times reporting that KKR is launching a US$ 2.75 billion two-part transaction in the syndicated loan market. The loan is transferable. It may be the first step to KKR trying to sell some or all of its stake in the resurgent ERP company.
Pick of the week
Pulseway has delivered a ticketing system inside Pulseway RMM. Users are now able to create and edit tickets within Pulseway Mobile apps. In time it will release the solution in WebApps and will also provide integration to Zendesk. The solution is available for both Andriod and iOS. Marius Mihalec, Founder and CEO of Pulseway commented: “Pulseway is known for its mobile-first approach, so it was important to us that users of our mobile app should have full access to ticketing – not just a subset of the functionality available to users of the desktop app.
“The ability to manage and resolve tickets from the same device, wherever the user happens to be, really improves the efficiency of the technician – and the level of service to their customers. This is going to significantly cut down the time spent on ticketing and allow technicians to focus on other key tasks, without the need to switch dashboards and logging in other portals.”
Appointment
Cornerstone has appointed Trish Coughlin, Cornerstone’s Chief Accounting Officer since January 2019, as interim CFO. The appointment comes as Brian Swartz, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is leaving the company as of 14th August to assume a new role elsewhere.
Proggio, a project collaboration solution vendor, has appointed Avinoam Nowogrodski as CEO. Nowogrodski was CEO of Clarizen for more than ten years between 2005-2016.
Rimini Street has appointed Gerard Brossard as COO, he will report to CEO Seth Ravin. Brossard was previously executive vice president and general manager of Rackspace’s Global Solutions and Services group. He spent 24 years at HP including a stint at HP Software. Rimini Street also appointed Alejandro González as general manager for Mexico and Central America. In the newly created role, he is responsible for the expansion in the region that Rimini Street is undertaking in both sales and service. It also has 230 clients in central and South America.
Tangoe has appointed Dave Hansen as interim CEO after Bob Irwin announced he is to leave the company.
Business
Asite is to sponsor BIM Academy Africa’s online learning platform. Through its sponsorship of Exceptional BIM, Asite will support the growth of BIM in the region and help train the future leaders of the industry. It will also help with its brand awareness in the region in the medium and long term as it looks to expand there.
Under Kevin Samuelson as CEO, and ownership of Koch, Infor is now the strongest financially it has ever been since its founding in 2002. In the last few months, it has repaid $5 billion in debt, and Infor achieved an investment-grade rating from Moody’s and S&P. Samuelson noted: “Koch has been a key Infor enterprise customer for more than a decade, and a key investor since 2017. Now, as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch, Infor has the benefit of scale, access to capital and the ability to make long-term decisions with implications over the next decade. For customers contemplating our software, these are commonly partnerships that last for years. So, our industry-leading financial strength and commitment to innovation make Infor a great partner for key operational software.”
Samsung and Microsoft are to collaborate on an integrated solution for the real estate and property development market. It will bring together Samsung smart home technology with the Microsoft Azure IoT platform, Azure Digital Twins and Dynamics 365 field service. Oxford Properties is one of the pilot customers. Dean Hopkins, chief operating officer, Oxford Properties commented: “We are excited about the collaboration of Microsoft’s Digital Twins technology and Samsung’s range of connected devices, and the potential of these instruments to deliver meaningful new insights across the commercial real estate value-chain. Microsoft and Samsung coming together to accelerate the value that digital twins are bringing to the commercial real estate ecosystem is a great step forward.”
OutSystems has launched a new partner program. It is offering new benefits, including a new solution catalogue for ISV’s to add reusable apps, widgets, themes, templates, and connectors.
Peoplestrategy has partnered with Finfit, a FinTech company that provides a unique financial wellness benefit platform. Finfit is now available to 200 Peoplestrategy customers and enables employees to access earned wages ahead of the monthly pay cycle.
Procore, in partnership with Arcoro, has launched a Construction Career Board. The new job board enables construction firms to publish jobs for free and will disseminate the positions to other trusted job sites such as BirdDogJobs, Glassdoor, and Indeed. The site is available in both English and Spanish.
Qlik announced a global strategic program in conjunction with Microsoft. The aim is to accelerate the analysis of SAP data by combining the automated data delivery capabilities of Qlik Data Integration with the agility and openness of the Microsoft Azure platform.
Irish fintech firm OnlineApplications has partnered with SaltEdge to simplify the process for mortgage applications. It is leveraging the Sal Edge data aggregation solution.
Siemens and SAP have partnered to bring complementary software solutions for product lifecycle, supply chain and asset management. SAP will offer Siemens’ Teamcenter software as the core foundation for product data management. Siemens will offer SAP Intelligent Asset Management solutions and SAP Portfolio and Project Management applications. They will also work together to bring more joint solutions to market.
Customer
Chuo Spring Co, a Japanese automotive components manufacturer, has implemented Infor CloudSute Industrial ERP at its Indonesian plants.
Jersey Oil and Gas plc has selected Progressive TSL to implement Infor SunSystems, Infor EAM and Infor OS. Vicary Gibbs, CFO of Jersey Oil and Gas plc commented: “Progressive TSL have turned around the implementation of the finance and procurement system for Jersey Oil and Gas in an entirely remote access way, given the Covid-19 restrictions, in the promised timeframe.”
Nold Trading, a NSW-based eCommerce company, is to deploy JCurve ERP, based on NetSuite. The solution is targeted at SME companies. The implementation will integrate with Shopify, which runs the companies two retail sites.
Nintex successfully delivered a fully-automated, student roll call solution in 48 hours to support remote learning and student safety programs at Sydney’s Trinity Grammar School.
Red Ball Oxygen has selected Prophet 21 to deliver end to end distribution management at the industrial gas and welding supplies distributor.
Qualtrics continued its customer announcements this week. General Mills and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology selected Qualtrics CoreXM. Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries selected Qualtrics Employee XM.
Hunter Health, a federally qualified health centre, increased its finance team efficiency by 75% and reduced its annual overheads by $100,000 thanks to Sage Intacct ERP. The organisation revealed that it achieved this after moving from Dynamics GP to Sage Intacct in a recent case study.
Pennsylvania State University, with the help of SAP partner LSI Consulting Inc, has virtually completed the implementation of SAP S/4HANA.
Freenome Holdings, Inc, a biotechnology company dedicated to early cancer detection, has chosen SYSPRO ERP Software to streamline and enhance its business for optimal growth.
Product
Accelo improved the synchronisation with Microsoft365, Jira, Xero and Hubspot this week. It also fixed several issues in its latest update.
Aderant unveiled the latest update for iTimekeep, its mobile time capture platform for the legal industry. iTimekeep is now embedded in Outlook as well as other enhancements.
Alight has launched Alight Total Health and Alight AMS as a Service. Alight Total Health combines data and analytics to provide a solution that helps employees make better healthcare decisions for themselves. Alight AMS, as a Service, provides a strategic and consultative approach to cloud-based ERP. Colin Brennan, president of global solutions & services at Alight commented: “Drawing on Alight’s vast human capital and business data for thousands of organizations and tens of millions of employees and their family members, we’re creating solutions that we know will have a meaningful impact on our clients’ business and employee outcomes.”
Ascender has partnered with QSuper, a leading superannuation fund, to launch an enhanced Onboarding platform. Stuart Clements, Head of Strategic Partnerships and Growth at QSuper, explains, ”Partnering with Ascender means that we can offer businesses right around Australia direct access to QSuper. Using the onboarding feature, employees can set up a new QSuper account in a matter of minutes, and their account details automatically integrate in the payroll system; saving employers hours of administration and ultimately improving their proposition to new hires.”
Boomi launched Boomi Blueprint, a framework to ensure that customers’ digital ambitions are realized and implemented effectively and efficiently, thus enabling them to achieve faster ROI. The framework includes leadership guidance, design practice, and implementation practices.
Cornerstone has launched Plan Z: Managing Digital Natives. This is a new Cornerstone Original Learning Series that serves as a manager’s guide for coaching, mentoring and leading Gen Z employees, also known as Digital Natives.
DronaHQ has unveiled the Control Marketplace where customers can access ready to use UI components to assist users with building high-performance applications.
LandscapeHub has announced plans to integrate the LandscapeHub sourcing, estimating and purchasing solution into the Epicor Eagle product in fall 2020. This is the first output of the strategic partnership the two companies announced earlier this year.
Monday.Com unveiled several updates to make the life of project managers easier. These include the ability to split the workload between two assigned owners. All users can now manage who is subscribed to workspaces. For students managing projects, there is now a dedicated support page as Monday.com looks to win over students before they become employees.
Oracle has launched Oracle Channel Revenue Management, part of Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain Management (Oracle Cloud SCM). Oracle Channel Revenue Management will help organisations efficiently manage their trade programs by automating processing and settlement in the cloud. It will allow distributors to manage special pricing agreements with suppliers to help ensure that all potential sales are realized, claims are efficiently handled, and supplier rejections and disputes are minimized. Other updates to Oracle Cloud SCM include updates to the planning and management capabilities.
Oracle unveiled the latest updates to Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). ERP is strengthened with several AI capabilities, and new industry solutions include Joint Venture Accounting and Project-Driven Supply Chain.
OSAS has rebranded Traverse Master to Traverse Global Service. Kent Stallo, Director Service Division, OSAS stated: “We have been dedicated to providing the service repair industry a robust business management solution that streamlines workflows and automates processes since the release of ACS in 1979, and throughout the advancements to Traverse Master. This update will allow us to strengthen the brand identity in the service marketplace while continuing to enhance the product to remain ahead of industry demands.”
Pegasystems introduced X-ray vision, a self-healing RPA solution. The new product, available in Q3 will help organisations mend broken bots, it will also improve the efficiency of how complex bots are created. Francis Carden, vice president, digital automation and robotics commented: “While RPA is an important piece of the intelligent automation journey, most organizations eventually discover that bots can often be quite fragile and need constant and costly maintenance – which can negate some of the advantages RPA brings to the table. With X-ray Vision, Pega has solved yet another key piece of the automation puzzle by deploying advanced RPA on a global scale. By making bots faster, easier to deploy, and more durable, RPA will become an even more reliable part of any enterprise’s end-to-end automation strategy.”
Pyramid unveiled the latest version of its analytics platform, v2020.10. It includes a better data discovery environment, enhancements to data modelling, improved UI for report authoring, and a new content migration wizard.
SAP is to offer the new SAP Fieldglass External Talent Marketplace at no charge in the US until 31st December 2020. SAP Fieldglass External Talent Marketplace provides a single, central place where businesses looking for temporary workers and staffing firms with vetted candidates can find each other to more quickly fill open jobs.
Salesforce announced three updates to Marketing Cloud. Interaction Studio now leverages Einstein with three enhancements: Einstein Personalization recipes, Einstein personalization decisions and A/B/n Testing. There is a new premium version of Pardot to support complex B2B marketing teams. Salesforce has also added a Datorama integration with Tableau to connect marketing and enterprise data for enhanced analytics.
Bridge, a new no-code automation engine is now available from Smartsheet. Bridge will enable customers to automate multi-step cross-platform processes. It includes connectors for s Google Hangouts Chat, Microsoft Teams, and Slack.
Tally released 6.6.3 of its ERP solution. It continues to enhance reporting with a new connect company setup for browser with seamless configuration and optional security controls to improve the onboarding experience. There are also several bug fixes.
TigerGraph is now available on Microsoft Azure. This now gives companies a choice between AWS or Azure.
TrueCommerce unveiled an enhanced purchasing integration for SageX3. TrueCommerce president, Ross Elliott explained: “The updated solution opens new unified commerce channels for Sage X3 users. This set of new integrated transactions will help Sage X3 users increase collaboration and visibility with their supplier community. It opens the door to new omnichannel opportunities, which is especially important for businesses right now.”
Research
ManageEngine published a report entitled: The State of ITSM in the COVID-19 Pandemic. The survey focused on five facets of ITSM – impact of employees working remote, financial and asset management implications, security and governance issues, third-party services and technology assistance, and business continuity success levels. The 500 respondents indicated that 78% overcame the hurdle of on-premises solutions by migrating to cloud-based ones.
