The summer has not stopped the acquisitions, with Deltek acquiring Archisnapper, Salesforce acquiring ServiceTrace and Workiva acquiring OneCloud. There are more below. There were several product announcements; ELMO unleashed Experiences, Accounting Seed unveiled its Lily release, and ODOO looks to improve bank integrations with Salt Edge. Infor produced a flurry of customer wins with Sparrows Group intriguing and ABUS selected IFS, replacing Microsoft solutions.
There is also an interview with Grant Halloran of Planful with insights into the company and his leadership style.
Pick of the week
MineralTree’s 6th Annual State of Accounts Payable report highlights finance teams’ progress in AP and payment automation and the barriers they still need to overcome. Key findings include:
- COVID was a catalyst for the digitization of the finance department for 58% of all respondents
- Top priorities for digitization are Account Payable, Accounts Receivable, enabling a remote workforce, improving cash management, and ensuring business continuity
- 58% said supplier relationships are now more strategically important. For healthcare, that number rises to 73%
- Digital payments are increasing but not the norm. 45% of respondents still make more than half of their business payments via check
- Current work processes are the biggest barrier to AP Automation (32%). Others are lack of budget (18%) and a lack of clear ROI (16%)
- AP automation, where deployed, shows benefits, with 64% able to process more payments with the same team.
MineralTree President Vijay Ramnathan commented, “An end-to-end approach can deliver enormous operational efficiencies, better cash management, better fraud protection, and richer insights–all while accelerating digital payment growth.
“We’ve seen this within our own customer base, where many organizations have reaped the benefits of AP Automation since the pandemic and the percentage of ACH and virtual card spend has grown 31% and 270% respectively. Despite the perceived barriers, the business case for AP automation is actually quite compelling, with a very quick payback and significant short- and long-term ROI.”
Acquisitions
Appian has acquired Lana Labs, developer of the LANA Process Mining Platform. Lana is recognized for its expertise in complex enterprise processes, powerful AI- and machine learning-driven process analysis, easy data integration, and ease of use.
Aptean made two acquisitions this week. It acquired Exenta, creator of enterprise resource planning (ERP), product lifecycle management (PLM), Innovation Lifecycle Management and Shop Floor Control (SFC) solutions to support the fast fashion, apparel and soft goods industries. It also acquired V-Technologies, LLC, a leading provider of integrated shipping software solutions.
Ivanti has acquired RiskSense, a pioneer in risk-based vulnerability management and prioritization, to drive the next evolution of patch management. Ivanti Wavelink, the supply chain business unit of Ivanti, has also acquired an industrial internet of things (IIoT) platform owned by the WIIO Group, one of Ivanti Wavelink’s innovative technology and channel partners based in Paris, France.
ServiceNow is to acquire Swarm64, a Postgress database accelerator. Swarm64 offers a combination of analytical and transactional database capabilities that support large-scale, intelligent workflows and enable best-in-class performance and scalability.
Appointments
Dr Melissa Harts has joined Anthology as Chief People Officer.
Delphix appointed Pritesh Parekh as its Chief Trust & Security Officer and VP of Engineering.
Outreach has appointed Melton Littlepage as its Chief Marketing Officer. Stefan Schulz has also joined the board of directors and will chair the Audit Committee.
OutSystems has appointed Anu Bharadwaj, Vice President of Product at Atlassian, to its board of directors.
Jens Oberbeck has joined Pipedrive as VP of Sales.
Erica Volini is to join ServiceNow in the newly created role of senior vice president of global alliances & channel ecosystem (ACE) go-to-market (GTM) operations. ServiceNow also appointed the former CIO of Deloitte, Larry Quinlan, to its board of directors.
Skillsoft announced several leadership changes. Gary W. Ferrera will become Chief Financial Officer, effective September 20, 2021. Eric Boyer will join in Q4 2021 as Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Ryan Murray, the Company’s Chief Accounting Officer and interim Chief Financial Officer will continue as Chief Accounting Officer. James Gruskin, who has served as the Company’s interim Head of Investor Relations, will continue as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development.
Business
ActiveCampaign launched a Growth Accelerator Program. The Growth Accelerator Program will include best-in-class software providers that have proven they are best in class through reviews, customer feedback, and more. The initial cohort includes Asana, Attentive, Eventbrite, Prestashop, Sendoso, Squarespace, and Zoom.
Agiloft announced an alliance with Factor, a leading alternative legal services provider (ALSP), to solve the complex contract lifecycle management requirements of general counsel and in-house legal teams across the enterprise.
Alteryx announced second-quarter 2021 financial results. It achieved revenues of $120 million, up 25% year-over-year. Annual recurring revenue was $548 million, up 27% year-over-year.
Appian announced its Q2 results this week. Cloud subscription revenue increased 44% year-over-year to $42.5 million. Total revenue was $83.0 million for the second quarter of 2021, up 24% compared to the second quarter of 2020.
Ceridian reported revenues of $250.4 million for the second quarter of 2021, an increase of 30.0%. It raised full-year 2021 guidance for total revenue to a range of $1.008 billion to $1.018 billion.
Trade Hounds, a professional community and hiring platform built for the construction industry, has partnered with Deltek, a leading provider of software and solutions for project-based businesses, including construction firms.
NICE reported total revenue growth of 16% to $456 million and Cloud revenue growth of 32% to $243 million for the Second Quarter of 2021.
Procore revealed strong Q2 2021 results. Revenue increased 27% year over year to $122.8 million. The company gained 481 net new customers during the quarter for a total of 11,149. It also completed its IPO on 24th May 2021, raising $665.1 million.
Qlik and Fortune launched “The Pandemic Effect on the Fortune Global 500” Data Analytics Site. The interactive data analytics site uses visualizations to show the revenue and performance of the organizations and industry sectors that shape the 2021 Fortune Global 500. It also highlights specifics on how the pandemic affected market performance.
Rimini Street saw quarterly revenue increase 16.9% year over year to $91.6 million. The company now has 2,645 active clients as of June 30, 2021, up 22.5% year over year. Revenue Retention Rate was 94% for the trailing 12 months ended June 30, 2021.
Stampli launched a new Partner Program. It is a formalized network for channel partners to expand their offerings with Stampli’s accounts payable (AP) automation and payments software.
Teradata reports its Q2 2021 results. Total revenue was $491 million versus $457 million, an increase of 7%. It has public cloud ARR of $139 million, an increase of 157% year over year. Teradata also published a business update for H1 2021 listing 20 companies that selected Teradata Vantage in the first half of the year including, Activision Blizzard, Juniper Networks and Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Upland increased revenue to $76.3 million, a rise of 7% year over year in the second quarter. Jack McDonald, Upland’s chairman and chief executive officer, commented, “In Q2, we closed the strategic and accretive acquisition of Panviva. In addition, we posted strong free cash flow while continuing to invest in our go-to-market growth initiatives. Our acquisition pipeline remains robust, and we are active in the market for additional opportunities.”
Xero launched the Xero App Store. Available from apps.xero.com, it enables Xero app partners in Australia, United Kingdom and New Zealand to access it and offer customers the ability to trial purchase and manage their apps.
Customer
Genesis, the low-code no-code platform built for financial markets, has been appointed by Banco Bradesco (following the acquisition of BAC Florida Bank), Brazil’s second largest bank by total assets, to drive digital transformation across the bank’s business lines.
St. Vincent Health, a hospital system serving residents and visitors of Lake County in Colorado, has selected Infor CloudSuite Healthcare to manage costs and enable better collaboration across the organization.
glh Hotels, the largest hotel owner-operator in London, has chosen Infor EzRMS to be deployed throughout its estate of 18 properties in the UK. Aqualux Products Ltd., a designer and manufacturer of shower enclosures and related products, has deployed Infor CloudSuite Industrial as the enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology platform for its entire operation.
Vallen has rolled out the Infor CloudSuite Distribution Enterprise solution across four countries and 15 locations in Asia to better manage the complexities of owning and managing inventory. Kingsrose Mining has selected Infor SunSystems and Sapphire Anywhere as its new financials platform.
Nineteen higher education institutions selected Jenzabar’s solutions in the second quarter of 2021. A further six went live during the quarter.
Restaurant group PizzaExpress has deployed Qlik Cloud to enable employees across the business in the UK with access to real-time data for improved decision-making, resulting in annual savings and more empowered restaurant managers.
Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source solutions, has streamlined and consolidated its external workforce program in North America, through a partnership with Monument Consulting, with the SAP Fieldglass Contingent Workforce Management application at its core.
Boston College High School (BC High), a top non-profit college preparatory school, is using SnapLogic’s leading integration platform to remove data-related barriers to education for its 1,400 students.
Seymour Taylor, one of the longest-established accountancy practices and business advisers in the Thames Valley, has chosen Workbooks CRM to help grow revenues and increase operational efficiency throughout the business.
Product
Genesis, the low-code no-code application platform built specifically for the performant, secure & compliant needs of financial markets, today launched their new Application Composer, alongside a number of significant platform enhancements.
ManageEngine solution ADSelfService Plus, its integrated Active Directory self-service password management and single sign-on solution, now offers multi-factor authentication (MFA) for Outlook on the Web (OWA) and Exchange admin centre (EAC) logins to add an extra layer of security to Exchange environments.
NICE launched CXone SmartAssist powered by Amelia, the industry’s leading Conversational AI solution for customer service, to improve conversations across the customer experience (CX) journey.
Oracle is to add support for India to Oracle Fusion Cloud Payroll, part of Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM). It will support payroll in ten countries. They include: Canada, China, Kuwait, Mexico, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States.
SalesLoft introduced Cadence Engine. Cadence Engine creates personalized cadence templates and content to accelerate your revenue workflows.
Zellis is working with Income Group, powered by its strategic partner Mastercard, to bring Faster Payments for payroll to its UK customers.
Research
Automation Anywhere and leading research firm Enterprise Technology Research (ETR) published Now & Next: State of RPA. The impact report explores the present-day impact of RPA and future-looking predictions. Cloud-based RPA is increasing, with 40% saying they will deploy cloud-only solutions. Only 10% say they will have on-premises RPA deployments, a quarter of what exists today.
Mihir Shukla, CEO and Co-founder of Automation Anywhere, commented, “Cloud RPA is clearly the platform of choice for faster deployment, innovation, resiliency, security and the fact that it can be used from anywhere. Customers have told us that as the initial shock of the pandemic waned, they realized that digital transformation was crucial to bolster resiliency, and that cloud RPA has become an essential aspect of that transformation.”
ReaD Group published a report on SMEs and customer data based on a survey of 1,110 respondents. Key findings included:
- 40% of SMEs hold their customer and prospect data (i.e. consumer data) in a CRM and/or other databases
- 60% either do not hold any customer data or hold it in a non-database format. Such as Excel or on paper
- 85% of SMEs are aware of GDPR. 89% are aware that data must be kept clean and accurate or be deleted
- However, 61% said they do not run any data cleaning or update processes on the data they hold
