Enterprise Times recently sat down with Matt Middleton-Leal, Managing Director of EMEA North and South at Qualys, to understand the importance of the Risk Operations Centre (ROC) for MSPs. The podcast dives into the difference between a SOC and a ROC, and he explains what the business opportunity is for MSPs.
Appointments
Pacvue, a leading commerce acceleration platform, has appointed Ross McNab as its Chief Revenue Officer. Zoe Lu was promoted to Executive Vice President and General Manager of Helium 10. And Sunava Dutta has been appointed Chief Product Officer.
Sigma, a leading business intelligence platform, has appointed Fred Studer as its new CMO.
Business and finance
Panasonic has announced that Panasonic TOUGHBOOK is to invest in expanding its services and solutions centres in Cardiff, Wales and Budapest, Hungary.
FourKites has announced a partnership with Chorus, a new company that emerged from Alphabet’s X, the moonshot factory. The strategic alliance will deliver FourKites access to the real-time data from Chorus.
Customer
The West Brom Building Society has announced that it will work with Deloitte to help deploy the 10x Banking cloud-native meta core banking platform.
Product
At Epicor Insights, Epicor unveiled a new patent-pending Carbon Cost Rollup solution. It is available as part of the latest release of Epicor Kinetiq 2024.2.
Epicor also announced the general availability of its latest agentic AI capabilities of Epicor Prism and predictive ML of Epicor Grow AI.
Makip has announced a significant update to its Unisize clothing size recommendation engine. The update lets online shoppers see clothes on a 3D avatar of themselves, which is specific to their body shape. Already available in Japan, it is now available in the UK and the US.
Unit4 has announced the launch of Ava, an Advanced Virtual Agent that connects users through Microsoft Teams to the Unit4 ERPx platform.
11:11 Systems
11:11 Systems announced the successful closing of a significant debt financing lead by Fifth Third Bank. The new debt facility, which is supported by a syndicate of leading financial institutions, was oversubscribed and is larger than 11:11’s prior debt facility. It replaces and extends 11:11’s prior financing, which fuelled eight acquisitions, significant organic growth and technology investments.
The new facility, which includes an undrawn revolving credit line, will be used to fund 11:11 Systems’ aggressive roadmap and growth strategy.
Mark Shalhoub, CFO, 11:11 Systems, said, “Despite the challenges of the current macroeconomic environment, 11:11’s strategic vision, burgeoning market opportunities within our core end markets, diverse go-to-market routes and committed customer base helped to garner a new, oversubscribed debt facility with attractive terms.”
Brett Diamond, CEO, 11:11, added, “This transaction is key to executing our growth strategy, which includes both organic growth through innovative new solutions and partnerships and pursuing additional M&A opportunities.
“As our customers and the larger market continue full speed towards digital transformation and hybrid cloud while simultaneously protecting and preparing their organizations against cybersecurity threats, the need for our services has never been greater.”
AccountsIQ
AccountsIQ announced that Triathlon Ireland has selected AccountsIQ as its new finance and insights partner. The partnership will see Accounts IQ power Triathlon Ireland’s My Tri Ranking Ireland pages for 2025 and 2026.
Darren Coombes, CEO at Triathlon Ireland, commented, “We are delighted to welcome AccountsIQ Group on board as our new Finance and Insights Partner. Data is a key element for us as an organisation, as well as for our triathlon community, who utilise the numbers to gauge performance at all levels. As a long-time user of ExpenseIn to track our expenses, there is a natural synergy between our organisations.
“I’m really excited to see our partnership develop and what we can achieve together over the next two years. AccountsIQ is also going to be powering our My Tri Ranking pages going forward, an increasingly important area for our sport in providing accurate and timely updates for the Triathlon and Duathlon National Series as well as athlete rankings.”
BlackLine
BlackLine announced the continued expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. Including new agents, delivering on its vision to power future-ready financial operations.
Owen Ryan, Co-CEO and Chairman of the Board at BlackLine, commented, “For more than 20 years, BlackLine has been the trusted innovation partner for the Office of the CFO. Our differentiated AI approach helps customers accelerate time to value and make smarter decisions, without compromising data integrity.
“The Office of the CFO runs on trust, and trust begins with clean, reliable data. By ensuring data quality at the source, we empower CFOs to lead with speed, precision, and confidence.”
BlackLine outlined six key features:
- Document Description Summarizer: Automatically summarises document contents to improve support and reduce compliance gaps.
- Journal Risk Analyser: Detects anomalies in journal entries and highlights potential audit risks.
- Variance Automation & Footnote Generator: Creates first-draft explanations for fluctuations and reporting footnotes.
- Summarization Agents: effortlessly summarise financial statements and turn raw financial data into actionable insights for F&A teams.
- Intercompany Predictive Guidance: Prevents intercompany transaction failures before they reach the ledger.
- AR Payment Forecasting: Utilises machine learning to precisely forecast customer payment behaviour for improved cash flow accuracy.
The company will continue to work on new features that will be made available in the coming months, including:
- Matching Agents: Accelerates time-to-value, enhances accuracy and transparency in transaction matching by suggesting new, and improving existing pass rules.
- Variance Anomaly Detection Agent: Automatically detects variances and outliers in real-time and suggests variance explanations.
- Remittance Processing: Extracts remittance data with no invoice template setup, enabling seamless cash application.
- Summarization & Translation Agents: Enhance AR efficiency with AI-generated summaries and multilingual translation.
Cybage
Cybage Software announced that Colin Barlow, currently global COO for Omnicom PR, has joined the Cybage Board of Advisors.
Two more customer stories were published last week. The first saw a leading supplier of custom parts, helped by Cybage, to streamline its workflow for high-touch quotes on its Salesforce CPQ platform. Cybage streamlines its workflow for high-touch quotes. It also improved integrations with solutions such as Slack and Conga. This was to improve and optimise the UX experience for quote updating in Salesforce.
Cybage also helped Southeast Asia’s Largest Bed Bank by implementing scalable bed bank technology to scale by five times without any impact to throughput. The Cybage tech stack included a revamped booking engine, upscaled user management, master information, markup management, reservation management, logs and audits, etc.
The results are impressive with 10% improvement in markup, 99.5% uptime and 24×7 booking availability and 1.5 millisecond response time for searching over 5 million properties.
Deltek
Replicon Release
Deltek published details of the latest release of Replicon. The update includes smarter timesheets, time off validation rules, shift scheduling and expanded global pay rules coverage.
Managers can assign timesheets in advance to new employees or transfers to their department, improving the employee experience.
Replicon now allows project managers to allocate shifts to workers where they manage both functions, delivering greater efficiency. A new audit report highlights any changes to employee shifts, enabling better oversight of what is happening for managers.
Project managers have better visibility of time off, which enables them to plan more effectively. There have also been some improvements to the administration of historic time-off bookings.
For Belgian customers, there is better support for Maternity leave with a new validation rule. Other localisation changes include modifications to support pay rules in the United States, Uzbekistan and the British Virgin Islands.
FGM Architects
Deltek published an interview with FGM Architects. FGMA has been a customer of Deltek solutions for several years. It recently decided to improve its specification management by implementing Deltek Specpoint.
Leonard Debickero, Vice President/Technical Director of FGMA, who oversaw the project, commented, “We jumped in feet first. Learning and implementing Specpoint was straightforward and quick to get started with. This intuitive learning curve has simplified team onboarding and training.”
The firm takes advantage of the integration with AIA MasterSpec. Using the Specpoints Level of Specifications (LOS) feature has allowed its architects to adjust specification detail based on the project phase. This adaptability has been key to success. Thus, enabling the firm to attain a level of quotation excellence far higher than it had before.
Van Meter Williams Pollack
Van Meter Williams Pollack, a 46-person, award-winning architecture and urban design firm with offices in San Francisco, Denver, and Minneapolis, has deployed Deltek Ajera. In an interview with Matthew Kaea, the Business Manager at Van Meter Williams Pollack, he revealed key insights that would enable others to benefit similarly.
Historically, the firm struggles with a combination of QuickBooks, Harvest and Excel to manage billing and financial data. After a search, Pollack selected Deltek Ajera. Now, implemented, Pollack alone is saving a full day of work every week thanks to the features enabling autonomy from finance.
Project Managers no longer need to request information from finance. Pollack gives one clear tip for those looking to replicate the success the firm has had. Have a team committed to the change, as a firm-wide commitment to learning and embracing the new system is essential.
Søren Jensen Rådgivende Ingeniørfirma
Søren Jensen Rådgivende Ingeniørfirma A/S (Søren Jensen), a prominent Danish engineering consultancy, has chosen Deltek Maconomy as its enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.
Looking to replace its ERP solution, the engineering firm saw four key features as an importance reason for its selection:
- Optimised accounting processes: Automating reminders and enabling project managers to send invoices seamlessly.
- Enhanced project management: Improve the elegance and functionality, including the ability to create subcases for a better overview.
- Streamlined time management: Enabling detailed time tracking directly within the system will significantly reduce administrative burden, enabling employees to focus on high-value activities.
- Greater AI capabilities: Utilising the solution’s AI capabilities to further optimise operations and enhance decision-making.
Johannes Pham, IT Director, Søren Jensen commented, “We are delighted about our partnership with Deltek. Maconomy is a top-tier ERP solution tailored for professional services firms, and I am convinced it is the ideal choice for us. I believe Maconomy will bring rigor and consistency to our project management process, ultimately enhancing our financial performance.
“We are also eager to explore Maconomy’s AI capabilities with Dela, which can automate routine tasks, improve forecasting, and enhance decision-making through data-driven insights.”
FourKites
FourKites announced Alan, an AI-powered Digital Worker for scheduling, and AutoGate AI, a computer vision technology solution. These will integrate with the company’s Intelligent Control Tower to eliminate manual bottlenecks and transform the way facilities manage arrivals and departures.
Alan serves as a scheduling expert, handling the entire appointment lifecycle across all communication channels. Including those outside of a scheduling system, like shipper emails, carrier updates, and receiver portals.
AutoGate AI’s computer vision technology slashes check-in times from 10+ minutes to under 2 minutes, eliminating manual gate processes. Together, these solutions create a seamless flow between transportation and warehouse operations.
Priya Rajagopalan, FourKites President of Product, Technology and Operations, commented, “While companies have invested billions in warehouse robotics and transportation systems, the yard remains a costly bottleneck where 92% of facilities still rely on clipboards and radios or legacy systems.
“Our AI solutions eliminate this constraint by automating routine decisions 24/7, transforming yards from passive storage areas into active participants in supply chain orchestration.”
Infor
Abdul Latif Jameel Machinery
Infor has revealed that Abdul Latif Jameel Machinery’s rental division has completed the implementation of its Infor ERP solution within seven months.
Saeer Michael Koury, Director of Operations at the firm, commented, “Going live with our new Infor ERP system in record-time was a critical milestone in our journey towards greater efficiency and scalability. It’s empowered our teams with real-time visibility, streamlined our operations, and positioned us to meet the growing complexity of our business with confidence and agility.”
SENNEBOGEN Maschinenfabrik GmbH
As one company completes its implementation, another starts. Infor also announced that SENNEBOGEN Maschinenfabrik GmbH has chosen Infor’s unified Industry CloudSuite ERP solution to replace 16 different applications it currently uses.
Alexander Aumer, CIO SENNEBOGEN commented, “We are redefininig how SENNEBOGEN operates, tearing down silos, making processes smarter, more connected ad innovation driven to set new industry standards.”
Panasonic
Kemptron Oy (Kemptron) has deployed a brand-new production line using Panasonic Factory Solutions’ NPM-GP/L printer and NPM-W2 pick-and-place machines. Installed by longstanding Panasonic partner and specialist SMT equipment provider, SMT House, the automated turnkey solution future-proofs Kemptron’s production capabilities, delivering the agility required to thrive in the hyper-competitive electronics manufacturing sector.
Jari Takala, General Manager, Kemptron Oy, commented, “We needed an automated solution that increased the speed of assembly, whilst reducing changeover times. Panasonic Connect’s autonomous factory solutions were exactly what we were looking for.
“Furthermore, the flexibility of renting these machines from SMT House – not to mention the fantastic service afforded to Kemptron before, during, and after installation – made this an easy decision.”
Zoho
WorkDrive 5.0
Zoho revealed the latest features of WorkDrive 5.0. The application now comes with a sophisticated workflow builder. There are some significant improvements to security and access control permissions.
Deeper integration with Zia enables WorkDrive to generate transcripts automatically for audio and video files. Other Zia features added include summarisation. With Zia extracting key insights from meetings, and support for multilingual collaboration.
The new version also includes better integration with Zoho CRM and Zoho Projects Plus. WorkDrive is now an integral part of the suite, including Zoho Projects, Zoho Sprints, Zoho Analytics and Zoho WorkDrive. There is also a new add-in for Microsoft Outlook that enables users to share WorkDrive files and save email attachments directly to WorkDrive—all without leaving the Outlook app.
Further enhancements to productivity include version retention features, bulk version deletion to clear up space and the ability to securely share files on WorkDrive with non-Zoho users, who can even have edit access. There is also a built-in image annotator and several other features.
Zoho Backstage supports badge printing
Zoho has rolled out support for SUNMI smart mobile terminals (Android only). Integrated with the Zoho Backstage Organiser, it enables firms to quickly print badges for events.
Expansion in Edinburg
Zoho recently purchased land north of Edinburg and the famous Echo Hotel in Edinburg. Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez and Edinburg Mayor Ramiro Garza revealed more plans to the Rio Grande Guardian. On the 1,050-acre parcel of land to the north of the city, Zoho plans to build a tech campus. Within the hotel, Zoho plans to convert the space to a modern office, retaining the existing structure.
Raudel Garza said, “This is the kind of transformative project the EEDC works every day to help make possible. We are thrilled to welcome a company of Zoho’s calibre to Edinburg. Their investment not only strengthens our local economy but also sets the stage for long-term innovation, workforce development, and opportunity in our community.”
