This week Workday announced that it is to buy Peakon as it looks to expand its employee listening capabilities. At SAP RISE, Christian Klein CEO of SAP revealed that the ERP giant would acquire Signavio. It will become a key part of its new service offering to help organisations digitally transform. Reputation.com underwent a brand change to Reputation, modernising its logo at the same time. Enterprise Times also published an interview with Mark Woodhams, the new CRO of BlackLine.
Pick of the week
Based on research from EY, ADP called out for an improvement to payroll strategy for global organisations. 2020 was a challenging year for many payroll teams with more than 1,500 global legislative payroll changes. Add to that, the move to work from home and systems that haven’t changed for years exposed a lack of strategic thinking around payroll. Research by EY found 35% of companies do not have a payroll strategy, and only 26% of businesses rate their current payroll provider’s performance as ‘good’.
The weaknesses, exposed by COVID-19 in organisations include:
- Lack of global payroll process
- Poor data quality
- Slow response to regulation changes
- Lack of digitisation and automation
Jeff Phipps, Managing Director of ADP UK, commented, “The rapid move to remote working combined with global economic challenges means there are many reasons why payroll needs to adapt. To be successful in today’s challenging landscape, all parts of your business need to be agile. Customising payment options to remain competitive in the war for talent, supporting flexible working options, and securing employee data remotely are all key reasons why payroll needs to adapt.
“HR and payroll professionals hold some of the most valuable organisation and employee data, and insight from said payroll data must be used to support business decisions. The COVID-19 crisis has shown that a cross-functional team of finance, payroll, and HR, able to make a strategic impact quickly and efficiently, is no longer a ‘nice to have’, but is a necessity.”
Acquisitions
Ivanti is to acquire Cherwell Software, a global leader in enterprise service management solutions. Terms were not disclosed.
Appointments
Conga appointed Grant Peterson as its new Chief Product Officer. Peterson was previously at DocuSign spending 12 years as CTO.
MHR has appointed Jessica Mills, the daughter of founder John Mills as its new chairman.
Jim Prekop was promoted to the role of CEO at PeopleStrategy. He previously worked at Workday and PeopleSoft. Randy Cooper, the founder and former CEO of the company, will become the Chief Strategy Officer.
Business
AccountsIQ has partnered with Chaser, an accounts receivable software vendor to enable Accounts IQ users to automate invoice chasing and streamline their accounts receivable process.
Agiloft announced a partnership with Boomi. A new Agiloft CLM Connector will provide easy integration with large application ecosystems including ERP, CRM, and other enterprise systems.
Alight is to publicly list after it agreed to a merger with Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp. Stephan Scholl will remain CEO, and Bill Foley will become chairman of the board of directors. The deal values the company at $7.3 billion.
Amberjack has added its psychometric testing solution to the CIPHR Connect partner marketplace.
Cleo announced its 2020 results. They include 37% new bookings growth, 36% growth in total subscription revenue and a 63% increase in new cloud customers. No revenue numbers were released.
Microsoft published Q2 results. Revenue was $43.1 billion, an increase of 17% YoY. Net income was $15.5 billion an increase of 33%. Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft, commented: “Accelerating demand for our differentiated offerings drove commercial cloud revenue to $16.7 billion, up 34% year over year. We continue to benefit from our investments in strategic, high-growth areas.”
Panda achieved a 63% growth in revenue in 2020, a record. In a business update the company it now has more than 23,000 customers across 12 countries.
Qualtrics shares will be priced at $30 for its upcoming IPO. Shares will be listed under NASDAQ: XM. 51,695,568 shares of its Class A common stock are on offer.
QuickBooks Capital is creating two ways for eligible customers to apply for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan. The first is for those who received a first loan from QuickBooks Capital. The second is through a new partnership with Cross River Bank, an SBA approved lender.
Accenture and Salesforce expanded their partnership to help companies embed sustainability into the core of their Business with Salesforce Sustainability Cloud. Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO, Salesforce commented: “Every CEO is recognizing their responsibilities don’t stop at the edge of the corporate campus or Zoom. By integrating sustainability deep into the fabric of our companies, our businesses will become more successful, our communities more equal, our societies more just and our planet healthier. We’re incredibly proud to be working with Accenture to help customers more readily drive sustainability programs that benefit all stakeholders and create business value.”
Scoro has nine newly certified partners: Business Continuum in Australia, Sparkwise in Canada, Trenchant Business Evolution in Canada, Deboxify in the US, Pain Free IT in the UK, Click CRM in South Africa, Lean Digital in Estonia, Itero in Latvia and Humble in Lithuania.
ServiceNow published its Q4 and full-year results. Total revenues for the full year were $4,519 million, up 31% year over year. Subscription revenues were up 32% at $4,236 million. Q4 subscription revenues were similarly impressive, up 32% to $1,184 million.
Tray.io revealed it will invest in international expansion in 2021. It will expand its go-to-market operations and presence in EMEA and APAC. It will also add new data centres in those regions to support existing and future international growth.
Visma finished the year with a 23.9% increase in Q4 revenues to NOK 5 142 million. Total revenues for the full year were NOK 18675 million, a rise of 25.7%. Fourteen acquisitions boosted Visma during the year. The company now has 1.2 million customers and 975,000 of those on cloud contracts.
Customer
Co-operatives UK, a 150-year old trade association, has moved from Sage Financials to Accounting Seed. Implemented in seven weeks, it has seen 15% time savings in its finance function.
Aldar Properties will use the Asite project management information solution on its construction projects in the Middle East.
HBT labs Inc achieved FDA validation of Batchmaster ERP managed operations with GMP validation centre’s help.
Mencap, the UK’s leading learning disability charity, is leveraging Blue Prism RPA to automate key processes within the organisation, including HR and Payroll. Services were provided as part of the ‘Blue Prism for Good’ initiative.
Orkla ASA, the Norwegian conglomerate has selected CCH Tagetik for their statutory consolidation, management, and financial reporting, including IFRS 16 Lease Accounting and iXBRL.
Henkel, a global industrial and consumer goods leader, has selected the Ceridian Dayforce platform to deliver its payroll and workforce management needs. Implementation is currently underway in India, Middle East, Africa, and Slovenia.
M.C. Dean, a leading power and technology systems engineering firm, has implemented the cloud-based eCMS v.4.1 ERP solution to optimize operations and achieve greater financial controls.
Vensik Electronics Co Ltd, a Taiwanese manufacturer of high-quality connectors, cable assemblies, and electronic automotive components, has selected Epicor ERP.
Borders College, a further education institution based in Galashiels, Scotland, has upgraded its investment in Infor SunSystems. It implemented version 6.4 with the help of Kick ICT, an Infor partner.
The Kyron V-Bot has helped schedule more than 100,000 vaccine appointments every day for a leading Israeli health maintenance organisation, Clalit Health Services. Having helped Israel become the leader in percentage vaccinated of any country, the solution is now available globally.
Health Insurer Zilveren Kruis has boosted efficiency and reduced operational costs with new portals built with the Mendix Low-Code Platform.
UK law firm Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP is using the OutSystems application platform to deliver innovative client-focused systems that enhance service delivery and achieve award-winning results.
Utz, a leading US manufacturer of branded salty snacks, selected Qualtrics BrandXM and Sage, the UK software firm selected Qualtrics CoreXM
Qlik has saved Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company Novartis over US$100,000 through an optimised budget and resource allocations using Qlik Sense.
India’s leading real estate provider DLF will implement Ramco ERP to transform its business operations end to end digitally.
Skedulo is to be part of the California COVID-19 vaccination strategy “My Turn”, alongside Salesforce and Accenture.
Product
ContractSafe has enhanced its platform with several enhancements including a new custom field to track spending, more AI capabilities, faster search and filtering and improved security.
Mark Systems ERP is now integrated to Avid Ratings, ECI announced. The integration enables Mark Systems users to automatically survey their homeowners about their experience and gather feedback to improve their customer service initiatives.
Fenergo has launched KYC & Onboarding for Salesforce on the Salesforce AppExchange.
NICE has introduced further Microsoft Teams integration to CXOne. CXOne for Teams includes an embedded CXOne agent, a synchronised CXOne directory and customer workspaces.
Oracle added new logistics capabilities to Oracle Transportation Management (OTM) and Oracle Global Trade Management (GTM), a part Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain & Manufacturing (SCM).
The Oracle Cloud Marketplace is now available for U.S. government customers, empowering agencies to fully automate the deployment of certified solutions directly on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
Pipeliner CRM unveiled release v3.8.0. It adds multiple form views and new KPIs to the indicator tabs for manager-level users. It is also possible to share mapping import templates to other users.
Scoro unveiled a new Gantt chart, improvements to the Task Matrix and MS Exchange integration, and several other improvements in its latest update 20.6.
Salesforce launched Vaccine cloud to help authorities across the globe manage their vaccine rollouts.
SherpaDesk has improved its Smart Contracting feature within its ITSM solution. It is now possible to set up global contracts it has created notification for call-off contracts as they set to run out.
SugarCRM launched SugarPredict. It aims to take the guesswork out of lead prioritization, lead Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) alignment, and opportunity-to-close-won scoring. Powered by AI, the new solution is free for Sugar Sell customers and will roll out to Sugar Market, and Sugar Serve customers later this year.
Research
The Nintex Workplace 2021 Study looked at the differences in attitudes across the different generations. A survey of more than 1,000 US workers found.
- Gen Z: 55% desire additional process software to more easily automate work
- Millennials: 50% would like better hardware and equipment to improve their home offices
- Gen X: 56% would most appreciate more work schedule flexibility to care for dependents
- Baby Boomers: 42% prioritize further compensation increases for more work and retirement planning
- 70% of respondents said their experiences of working remotely during the pandemic have been better and more productive than they expected.
Rimini Street published findings from research into the challenges, priorities and strategies regarding the Oracle Database landscape and usage. The top challenges were:
- 97% of respondents said cost was the top challenge
- 51% said license compliance
- 50% identified “regular updates to maintain support.”
Of bigger concern perhaps for Oracle is that:
- 35% are considering or are moving to open source databases
- 34% are considering or are moving non-Oracle Cloud databases
- 41% are actively seeking to reduce their Oracle database footprint mainly due to its cost.
Sage published a report entitled “HR in the moment: Changing expectations and perceptions of HR”. A survey of more than 1500 global HR leaders, business executives and employees found that 87% of c-suite executives say the pandemic has accelerated HR changes.
- 72% of HR leaders say the crisis has increased their value and wider understanding of their business role
- 59% feel they are now playing a more influential role in the company
- 60% of employees have noticed a change in HR’s role
- 57% of employees see COVID-19 as having been a catalyst in that change.
However, while 87% of c-suite see COVID-19 has accelerated the changes in HR. 58% believe the changes started several years ago. Despite this, HR leaders feel they still need more investment in HR Tech. Only 53% believe they have the right tools in place.
