This week Infor issued a flurry of customer announcements with Enterprise Times covering VR Fleetcare, more below. Mesh payments received $13 million in a funding round. This was dwarfed by the Nextthink $180 million series D round though, which saw it attain a unicorn+ valuation. Navint, the enterprise software consulting firm is setting up in Europe. Enterprise Times also published an interview with Jonathan Richards who talked about Breathe launching in Australia, following its acquisition last year by Elmo Software.
Pick of the week
Smartsheet took a look back over the last year in a business update. It is worth a full read and is why this article highlights that “11 analysts out of 16 who provided ratings for Smartsheet Inc declared the stock was a ‘buy.’” An Oppenheimer analyst gave a further explanation in an article on CNBC.com.
Mark Mader, President and CEO of Smartsheet, commented: “The world is changing rapidly, and to thrive in the new hybrid work environment, companies must go beyond the pursuit of productivity gains. This new imperative places productivity in the context of digital work transformation. That’s why progressive leaders are improving corporate agility and unlocking value from more employees, realizing the benefits of what a dynamic platform for project execution, automation, and customer engagement can do for the enterprise.”
Smartsheet is now used by 80% of the Fortune 500. These include such firms as the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Domino’s, Cisco, Colliers International, Domino’s, Dell Boomi, McGraw Hill, Mimecast, and San Diego State University. The company has extended its platform through acquisitions such as 10,000ft and Brandfolder. It has also strengthened it with integrations to applications such as Microsoft Teams, Adobe Creative Cloud, Salesforce, and Jira. This adds to existing integrations with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Box, Dropbox, Google, Microsoft, Slack, ServiceNow, and Workday.
With organisations looking move to either a full work from home model or most likely a hybrid model, Smartsheet dynamic work platform is even more relevant. Mader concluded: “The future of work is about empowering people to rethink how work gets done and then empowering them to make it so. The ability to take action and have impact is an incredibly powerful motivator for people. Enterprises that use technology to harness this energy and drive a distributed, dynamic workforce toward shared goals, will see a massive payoff.”
Acquisition
TotalMobile acquired Goepal to strengthen its field management offering for infrastructure and utilities markets.
SAP SE has acquired AppGyver Oy, a pioneer in no-code development platforms that enable users with no coding skills to build applications for Web and mobile uses.
Appointments
Alteryx appointed Suresh Vittal as Chief Product Officer. Vittal was previously senior vice president, platform and products, at Adobe.
Erik Randles has joined Ivanti as the SVP, Global Channels, and Alliances. Randles comes from VMware and previously worked at HPE, SimpliVity, Symantec, and Veritas.
Kerridge Commercial Systems (KCS) has appointed Tim Bennett as its Partner Alliances Manager. Bennett came from IRIS Software Group where he was Senior Strategic Alliances Manager.
Reputation has further strengthened its leadership team with Dave Mingle’s appointment as Vice President of Customer Experience. Mingle previously worked at General Motors, Nissan and Chrome Systems.
Tier1 Financial Solutions announced Manish Patel as the new Chief Operating Officer for its CRM business.
Business
Alteryx published its Q4 and full-year 2020 results. FY2020 Revenue was $495.3 million, up 19% year-over-year. Notably, ARR increased to $492.6 million, up 32% year over year.
Stellar Services, a capital project management software solutions company, has joined the Asite Ecosystem.
Ceridian published Q4 and full-year results. Despite the pandemic the company fared well, Dayforce recurring revenues were up 19% year over year. Dayforce revenue for the full year was $500.2 million, an increase of 16.6%. Total revenue was $790.2 million, up 6.2%.
Cleo published a business update for the Cleo Integration Cloud for Logistics and Transportation. CIC L&T now serves more than 500 businesses, growing the customer base by 175% in the last year.
Datamount has become a partner of IFS. Abdullah Al-Kindi, Oman Country Manager at IFS, commented: “The Omani government has in recent years invested heavily in specific sectors in order to realizes its 2040 vision, including food and beverage, energy, manufacturing and logistics. These industries align very well with IFS’s and Datamount’s expertise, and we look forward to leveraging our combined skills to offer joint customers unparalleled value and service both in Oman and internationally.”
Intuit revised Q2 guidance down with the tax year opening later this year with the IRS delaying filing from Jan 27th in 2020 to Feb 12th in 2021. Revenue is forecasted to be in the range of $1.570 billion to $1.575 billion, down from the prior range of $1.935 billion to $1.965 billion. It did not revise full-year guidance.
Jitterbit, the API transformation company, today announced it had joined CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion, the growing coalition pledging to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Nexthink has raised $180 million in a Series D funding round led by Permira. The deal saw Nextthink valued at $1.1 billion.
Prophix published a business update that revealed its Q4 cloud billings increased by 150% in 2020. Prophix now has more than 90,000 customers and is seeing strong growth outside North America.
Rimini Street has become an approved supplier on the New Zealand Government Marketplace through a Collaborative Marketplace Agreement (CMA) for Oracle & SAP maintenance and its Salesforce implementation practice.
Sage announced several new partners that have brought their applications to the Sage Accounting ecosystem. For end-users, they include Castaway for Small Business, a budgeting tool and Quote management tool Quote Onsite for small businesses. For accountants, there is the Castaway Advisor Edition, Intelligent forecasting software and Syft Analyticst which helps businesses understand financial data, create reports, forecast, track progress and benchmark performance.
Forward Advances, a UK revenue-based financing solution for e-commerce and SaaS businesses, has partnered with Salt Edge. In doing so it will get instant access to aggregated bank data enabling them to make better lending decisions.
Teampay announced a new partner program with three categories: Issuer Partners, Technology Partners, and Consulting Partners for its spend management solutions.
ThoughtSpot has partnered with Microsoft to help Azure Synapse customers tap into their cloud data through augmented analytics. ThoughtSpot Cloud will be made available on Microsoft Azure as part of the agreement.
Customer
Thomas Miller, the international insurance services provider, has leveraged Blue Prism’s turnkey cloud-based Intelligent Automation platform to deploy digital workers. It has added digital workers for renewals and fleet transfers, automating processes and saving three weeks of person-hours.
Lozier Corporation, a leading manufacturer of retail store fixtures, specializing in shelving, has selected Cloud Inventory from DSI to improve its inventory management. It will install it alongside Oracle’s E-Business Suite (EBS).
Norwegian energy company Lofotkraft has selected the Hypergene financial planning solution its partner Arribatec will assist with the implementation.
The Dutch Ophthalmic Research Center (DORC) will deploy a fully integrated business solution from IFS in the cloud across its global organization.
Sanmar will use cloud-based Infor Nexus Financial Supply Chain Management solutions to automate purchase orders, invoice approvals, payments and financing. The five-star hotel, El Palace Barcelona has chosen Infor Hospitality Management System (HMS) and Infor Sales and Catering System (SCS) to help provide a premium customer experience. Botanique Hotel Prague, a newly independent lifestyle hotel in central Prague, has implemented Infor EzRMS to optimize revenue for its 214 rooms.
Belgian legal tech scaleup Legal Studio has used the Mendix low-code platform to create its new Klea, “Knowledgeable Legal Entity Automation,” platform.
Fusion BPO has selected the NICE Workforce Management (WFM) solution in the cloud.
Indiana University Health, Northwell Health, CarolinaEast Health System, Atrium Health, a large New York health system and a nationally recognized integrated healthcare provider, have gone live on Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM). Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBY) announced it selected OracleCloud ERP as part of a $250 million technology investment. Mexican retailer Grupo Nazan is transforming from a physical store and catalog-based operation into a digital omnichannel enterprise with Oracle Retail Cloud.
FC Bayern, has successfully implemented the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central solution. It will now standardize and optimize its core human resource (HR) processes and improve its 1,000+ employees’ experience. SAP Ariba solutions have helped Middle East agribusiness Al Dahra save 10% to 15% in procurement while helping the region avoid a potential food shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ferguson, the largest US distributor of plumbing supplies and a major distributor of HVAC equipment, has selected Salesforce to power its digital transformation. Ferguson will deploy Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Tableau CRM, and Experience Cloud. Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness in Kentucky has selected Salesforce to manage nearly one million residents’ vaccinations. In North America, Coca-Cola bottlers will deploy Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud to help streamline operations at contact centers across their territories and provide a 360-degree view of the customer.
Product
BlueConic, the leading pure-play customer data platform, has introduced the ability to centrally manage first-party server-side cookies to continue to build their first-party data assets and untether their marketing tactics from technologies that rely on third-party cookies.
DDI released Inform ERP Version 22. The release includes drag and drop scheduling and adds warehouse transfer shipments alongside customer delivery orders using Inform’s unique Truck Manifest. Track daily and operator picking status and completion rate for both warehouse transfers and customer sales orders on the Order Picker Progress screen.
ECI Software launched lot reservation functionality for its LotVue lot management software.
Oracle revealed a series of updates for its Oracle Cloud Customer Experience (CX) suite of applications. It included new B2B selling capabilities, B2B service capabilities and loyalty and marketing capabilities. Also, Oracle announced Oracle Construction Intelligence Cloud Service. OCIC is a new suite of AI and analytics applications for the engineering and construction industry.
Pandle now alerts users when imported bank feed transactions are within a company’s locked period. It has also introduced additional transaction error checking on currency transactions to help improve accounting accuracy.
Shopmonkey auto shop management software can now access the Epicor Integrated Service Estimator (ISE) solution to help increase revenue, boost productivity and strengthen customer satisfaction and loyalty at the service counter and in the repair bay.
Research
Bullhorn published its annual staffing trends report and found that 43% of global recruitment firms now have a digital transformation strategy in place, compared to 25% a year ago. While 67% of recruitment firms saw a downturn in H1 2020, that figure dropped to only 53% for the full year. Not surprisingly, the top challenge for the recruitment market was the impact of COVID (63%). However, 55% cited talent shortage, and 44% cited this as the top challenge. The top priorities for 2021 remain familiar:
- 54% reported candidate acquisition as a top priority of 2021
- 45% want to win new clients
- 30% are looking for more candidate engagement
- 22% increased marketing and brand development
- 19% improving client relationships
The newcomer in the top ten was optimizing remote work, which has never appeared before. Remote working will also remain, with 30% continuing to work remotely during 2021, and 15% intending to permanently. This shift to remote working was cited by 56% as the biggest impact of COVID in the longer term.
The latest Coupa Business Spend Index revealed that business sentiment gradually improved for the third consecutive quarter. Year on year figures show the impact of the pandemic. Year over year spend shows:
- 96% decrease in business spending on air travel
- 25% decrease in business spending on office supplies
- 5% increase in business spending on technology, including hardware, software, and services
- 8% increase in contingent workforce spend
- 3% increase in business spending for shipping and freight
Some sectors are improving slower than others (Retail, Manufacturing), while Financial Services and Hi-Tech have almost recovered completely. The exception is Health and Life Sciences where spend sentiment declined, possibly due to COVID cases’ resurgence.
A global study by Oracle found that people trust robots more with their money than people. The study looked at the relationship between finance, home and work. Key findings included:
- 67% of consumers and business leaders trust a robot more than a human to manage finances
- 90% of business leaders worry about the impact of COVID-19 on their organization, with the most common concerns centering on a slow economic recovery or recession (51%); budget cuts (38%); and bankruptcy (27%)
- 87% of consumers are experiencing financial fears, including job loss (39%); losing savings (38%), and never getting out of debt (26%)
- 67% of consumers and business leaders trust a robot more than a human to manage finances
