As people start to drift away for Summer vacations, the news seems to have slowed. There were some interesting announcements still though: Freshworks added a new global consulting partner in Hexaware. Epicor launched an ArcGIS integration for DocStar. NetSuite published its third Finance Priorities survey.
Pick of the week
Appian, with help from LTM Research, surveyed HR professionals and found that technology is being left out of the return to work processes. 97% of respondents feel that they do not need to invest in technology solutions to aid a safe return back to the workplace. 89% of survey participants feel that they do not need new software solutions to manage their return to work COVID-19 response policy.
Perhaps surprisingly, only 23% of respondents reported feeling concern that their return-to-work technology does not incorporate contact-tracing. While this may indicate that companies can provide new processes without any need to invest in new technology, it raises concerns. Trace and trace technology can certainly help slow down any infection that arises. If social distancing is not maintained in the workplace, then this could become an issue.
Despite the findings, Appian believes that HR Technology is fundamentally important for organisations returning to work. Matt Calkins, CEO of Appian commented: “Software is essential for a safe return to the workplace. When dealing with the health and well being of hundreds or thousands of people, businesses need the speed that software delivers in tracking daily health updates, monitoring test results, identifying potential exposures, and conducting contact tracing.”
Appointments
Sage appointed Paul Struthers as EVP and Managing Director, UK & Ireland. Sabby Gill is leaving the company for a new CEO role. Struthers previously led the global medium segment team at Sage.
SirionLabs has appointed as Puneet Bhakri as Head of Global Alliances & Partnerships. Bhakri previously led the contract risk & compliance solution for EY North America.
Business
Alteryx and UiPath announced a partnership to speed end-to-end automation across data-driven business processes. Dean Stoecker, co-founder and CEO of Alteryx, commented: “Businesses have a heightened urgency to digitally transform, creating market demand for end-to-end automation and an avenue for humans and machines to work together as a means of amplifying intelligence and driving remarkable outcomes. We are proud to partner with UiPath to help business leaders and data workers realize the benefits of APA and RPA when they work together, advancing analytic innovation.”
Bringing Smiles, the CSR program of Brillio, a leading global digital consulting and technology services company, announced its partnership with STEM Learning to organise the second edition of the ‘National STEM Program 2021’.
Cornerstone announced Q2 2020 results. Its revenues have climbed 30% year over year to $184.4 million. This was only partially due to the acquisition of Saba. Phil Saunders, CEO commented: “Q2 was one of the most important quarters in Cornerstone history, as the acquisition of Saba was completed and we began operating as one integrated company while delivering strong results. We are now embarking on a brand new chapter in Cornerstone, and we’ve already started the transformation from a great company into a great business.”
Clearlake Capital‑backed Ivanti announced a strategic investment from TA Associates to accelerate the company’s growth. The funding will close in H2, but no figure was announced.
Jenzabar Inc announced Q2 2020 results. While it refrained from noting any figures, including revenues or even growth, it named several new or upgraded customers in the education market. These included the deployment of Jenzabar SONIS at the University of the Potomac in Washington, DC; San Juan Bautista School of Medicine (SJBSM) in Puerto Rico; and Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Morocco.
Procore has joined the Tech Library of AXA XL’s Construction Ecosystem, an integrated digital platform helping clients manage risks on their job sites and across their organisations.
Qlik and Fortune launched the “History of the Fortune Global 500” data analytics site. Available now, it enables people to analyse in-depth the history of the Fortune 500.
Rimini Street announced an underwritten public offering of 6.1 million shares priced at $4.50 to raise approximately $25.1 million after costs.
Salesforce has granted $20 million to San Francisco, Oakland, Indianapolis, Chicago and New York City school districts to support remote learning. This brings its investment in education to $118 million. Salesforce also announced that the University of Kentucky would leverage Work.com to assist the university returning to work and education. Also, the Work.com platform was further strengthened through a partnership with CVS Health. CVS Health’s Return Ready, a COVID-19 testing process, is now available through Work.com.
Salt Edge has become a member of the SME Finance Forum. Matthew Gamser, CEO of the SME Finance Forum, commented: “40% of small and medium businesses worldwide struggle to get access to the credit and capital that they need to grow their enterprises. We are delighted to welcome Salt Edge to our network of more than 190 members who are working to eliminate the finance gap for SMEs.”
Upland is offering up to 3.5 million shares of common stock in an underwritten public offering. It has priced the stock at $34 and is expecting to raise $119 million in total. The offering was set to close on 14th August.
Workday has extended its partnership with IBM and made available a joint solution that combines Workday Adaptive Planning, Workday HCM with IBM Watson Works. The solution will help organisations plan their return to work. Kareem Yusuf, PhD, general manager, AI Applications, IBM Cloud and Cognitive Software commented: “Keeping employees safe during the return to workplace process is of critical importance to business leaders across industries. By partnering with Workday on a joint solution, we’re extending the capabilities delivered by Watson Works to help customers gain greater agility to respond to ever-changing working conditions and evolving business needs. Together we are helping organizations overcome the complexities involved in continuous planning to ultimately improve workplace readiness.”
Customer
Briess Malt & Ingredients Co. selected Aptean Food and Beverage ERP. It will deploy the cloud-based solution to centralise its systems.
Rebel Energy, a disruptor in the Energy market is leveraging the Blue Prism cloud capabilities to power a new organisational model based on digital innovation.
Mendix published a Total Economic Impact report by Forrester Consulting that showed the Mendix platform has yielded total quantified benefits of $20.52 million over three years. It broke these down into four key segments:
- $8.1 million in application delivery savings,
- $6 million in operational efficiencies from applications developed using the Mendix low-code platform,
- $3.3 million from accelerated time to market for new products and services, and
- $3.1 million in incremental revenue from improved customer engagement.
Standard Chartered has signed a three-year strategic partnership with Microsoft. The bank will leverage the Azure cloud platform to co-innovate on open banking and real-time payments. Standard Chartered hopes to be completely cloud-based by 2025.
Nissan is migrating its on-premises HPC workloads to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure In doing so; it expects to speed up the design and testing of cars.
Marshall Retail Group (MRG), a leading retailer in the airport, casino and resort marketplace has migrated its retail platform to Oracle Retail Xstore Point-of-Service (POS) in just 100 days, a year after it deployed Oracle Retail. BTM Global, an Oracle partner, assisted with the upgrade.
Qualtrics revealed that Trent Hypermarket selected BrandXM and Health Union selected Qualtrics CoreXM in a shorter customer win list than usual this week.
GoAeroMx, a leading provider of MRO, CAMO, Parts Manufacturer Approval (PMA), and Fleet Management support has selected and will implement Ramco Aviation M&E MRO Suite V5.8 across the organisation.
Sage Intacct has published a case study which reveals how GRAMMY Museum Mississippi, has leveraged Sage Intacct and increased the efficiency of its finance team by 30% and supported the growth of rental profits by 64% and museums admissions double. It has selected Sage Intacct over Oracle NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, and Blackbaud Financial Edge.
TigerGraph announced that Myntelligence selected its graph database for the Myntelligence Media Automation platform.
Valley National Bank (Valley Bank) has chosen SAP S/4HANA Cloud with EY helping it through its digital transformation.
New Zealand’s Hawke’s Bay Regional Council has signed a five year deal with TechnologyOne to deploy its OneCouncil solution.
West Valley Water District (WVWD) in Rialto, California, has successfully implemented Tyler Technology Incode and Tyler Content Manager solutions, which will help provide for better human resources and financial management for the agency.
Product
Ivanti unveiled its latest Enterprise Service Management 2020.2 release. The update includes:
- Automatic Asset Discovery and population of asset management and configuration management databases,
- Biometric Authentication and push notification enhancements to mobile applications.
- An integrated self-service Chat for internet browsers and mobile applications.
- It has extended out-of-the-Box content for Facilities Management. This adds to HR and other department use cases beyond IT.
- Automation Connectors to the Epic EMR (Electronic Medical Record) software application and IBM environments.
All for One Steeb – eInvoice Integration application is now available for purchase on SAP App Center. The application integrates with the SAP Business ByDesign and delivers xInvoices (XRechnungen) to customers.
Tableau 2020.3 is now generally available. The release adds a new Write to Database feature in Tableau Prep Builder. The update includes simplified enterprise administration and a new predictive modelling function. It also adds connectors to a Tableau Extension gallery initial connectors include Actian, Dremio, Elasticsearch, Ocient, Qubole, SQream, and Yellowbrick. There is also an enhancement to the SAP HANA connector.
Trintech released Cadency 9.0. The update includes several UI improvements, new APIs and accounts reconciliation enhancements.
Research
Blue Prism released the Singapore findings from its annual survey report titled “The Impact of a Digital Workforce on Business Agility and Survival”.
Domo published it’s eight “Data never Sleeps” infographic. It looks at online user behaviour across high traffic platforms such as Zoom, TikTok, Skype and Netflix. It found that in the US home working has increased from 15% to 50% and use video and streaming solutions have also increased.
A new global survey from Kronos Incorporated, of 3,903 employees across ten countries, reveals that the majority of employees welcome contact tracing and trust their employer to create a safe and healthy workplace. The survey looked at attitudes of different track and trace methodologies with 71% somewhat comfortable with trace and trace mobile apps.
Oracle published results from a survey that highlights consumer views on restaurants during COVID-19 and what brands should expect in terms of take-out and dine-in experiences. In a welcome boost to restaurateurs, 59% of US and 47% of UK consumers plan to dine-out as soon as they are able. There are some interesting differences in the report between attitudes to restaurants and delivery services. The generational divide and local restaurant potentially seeing the biggest support.
SolarWinds published a study entitled: “COVID-19: Impact and Response” which showed the operational impact of the current pandemic on managed services providers (MSPs) and future growth opportunities in the market. Based on 500 respondents from across Europe, North America and ANZ, it found over half (59%) have taken government funding, and 80% have retained historical staffing levels. The report looks at the challenges faced during the crisis and what they expect to face in the coming year.