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Friday 28 June 2024

*UKHotViewsExtra* From peripheral to core business ops – sustainability beds in

We’re looking forward tSustainability Technology Activity Index image o publishing the Q1 2024 edition of the Sustainability Technology Activity Index later in the Summer – TechMarketView’s unique take on sustainability technology and the activities being undertaken worldwide across a range of impact areas.

To prepare the Index each quarter, we examine the sustainability-related activities from our worldwide watchlist of over 1,400 companies (roughly 80% being software and IT services suppliers; the remainder, tech-user organisations with a sustainability angle). Early findings so far, as we crunch the numbers on the 350+ sustainability technology activities we logged globally in the first quarter of the year, reveal a picture that’s – in part – an evolution from the last Index report (which took in data from Q4 2022), but with some notable changes in the landscape for 2024.

One of those (welcome) evolutions – and something we’ve written about a lot in our sustainability coverage in HotViews over the intervening months – is the need for sustainability technology investments to deliver on multiple fronts (rather than being bolted-on to serve a single, not directly revenue-generating, purpose). Such initiatives stand a much better chance of not subsequently being sheared-off when economic times get tough (or management regimes and corporate priorities change) when they’re woven into the very fabric of business strategies and day-to-day operations… thus moving sustainability issues beyond the sole purview of the Chief Sustainability Officer, becoming simply business issues.

TechMarketView subscribers, including UKHotViews Premium subscribers, can read more about this shift in perceptions and operations, and the growing nexus of business and sustainability (enabled by tech), in this new expanded UKHotViewsExtra article: From peripheral to core business ops – sustainability beds inIf you aren't a subscriber – or aren't sure if your organisation has a corporate subscription – please contact Deb Seth to find out more.

Posted by Craig Wentworth at '10:53' - Tagged: trends   integration  

Friday 28 June 2024

TechMarketView event, 26th Sept: Meet up with old friends

At TechMarketView, we speak to a LOT of people. Our analysts are incredibly well networked into the sector (in fact, we consider many of you to be friends!) at the most senior levels.

Those relationships are at the heart of what helps TechMarketView to thrive, and they help us to create and validate what we consider to be the best view there is of the UK software and IT services sector. 

Very interestingly, in several of my recent research meetings, I have been able to piece together the dots of various friendship networks of people who once worked together and who are all coming to our event on 26th September at Mall Galleries, London. pic

I have heard several stories of special friendships made 15-20 years ago (and some even longer than that!), where all parties now have a ticket. This not only delights me but also makes me realise (along with how long I have been kicking around this industry myself) that the TechMarketView event could resemble something of a reunion party. And that is fine by us!

So I wanted to put out a calling…..Maybe you’ve been connecting with old tech industry friends on new websites, such as Friends Reunited and Myspace, but would really rather meet up in person. So how about taking the opportunity to schedule a catch up over a lemonade and in the elegant surroundings of Mall Galleries? The – also elegant – team from TechMarketView will be there to host you and ensure your evening is fun and informative.

We’re working on some really great content – from both our analysts and some special guests – and we’d love to have you along as our guest.


Grab a ticket – or buy a bunch and treat your friends and clients – HERE.

Or drop a fax to Belinda
 

Hope to see you there in September….

Posted by Kate Hanaghan at '09:50' - Tagged: networkingevent  

Thursday 27 June 2024

Celebrating tech entrepreneurs at the 2024 Enterprise Awards

What a joy it was to celebrate founders and entrepreneurs from across the UK tech sector at the 12th Enterprise Awards dinner last night, held at the historic Drapers’ Hall in the City of London.

Many congratulations to the winners of the eight hotly contested awards, which recognise individuals for their vision, growth and innovation, who were revealed as:

  • Enterprise Entrepreneur – Vishal Marria – Quantexa
  • Emerging Entrepreneur – Gege Gatt – EBO
  • Developing Entrepreneur – Thomas McHugh - Finborne
  • ScaleUp Entrepreneur – Sam Horbye – Olsam Group
  • Public Sector Entrepreneur – Emma O’Brien – Embridge Consulting
  • Social Enterprise Entrepreneur – Scott Vincent – Digital Futures
  • Deep Tech Entrepreneur – Darko Matovski – causaLens
  • Female Entrepreneur – Uma Rajah - CapitalRise

As chair of the judging panel and co-host of the awards presentation, I know how high-quality the entrants were this year and how difficult that made the judging process, so many congratulations to everybody who was shortlisted as well, of course, as the winners!

On top of the eight main awards, Vishal Marria, CEO and Founder of Quantexa, also received the Judges’ Award as the only person over the years to have won all three categories for entrepreneurs as they grow their business – Emerging, Developing and now the Enterprise award. A unique achievement and inspiring role model for other UK entrepreneurs.

EA montage

And of course, we were also delighted to see John O’Connell, founder and co-host of the Awards, surprise our esteemed former Chairman and TechMarketView’s co-founder, Richard Holway MBE, with a special ‘Wise Old Owl’ award, to celebrate his lifetime of achievements in the tech sector!

Once again the evening was a fantastic celebration of tech entrepreneurs in the UK at all stages of their scaling journey, ably organised, as ever, by John and the magnificent team at tx2events. TechMarketView is proud to be a long term supporter of the Awards - a big thank you to the clients and award finalists who joined us on our table last night and made the evening so enjoyable.

As well as being a chance to recognise the efforts and successes of tech founders and entrepreneurs, the event also continues to raise money for good causes with the financial surplus going to the WCIT Charity Fund and the raffle alone raising over £8k. Thank you to everybody who gave so generously.

Posted by Tola Sargeant at '08:58' - Tagged: awards  

Wednesday 26 June 2024

*UKHotViewsExtra* Access unveils its AI-powered HR solution

Access Group logoThe Access Group unveiled a new AI-enhanced software solution, Access Evo, at this month's CIPD Festival of Work. TechMarketView spoke to Charles Butterworth, Managing Director Access People, and Oliver Quayle, Senior Director Access Platform, about the upcoming launch and how they think it will support HR professionals. An extended HotViewExtra version of this article is available here

Access Evo will draw upon Access Workspace, the company's cloud-based single sign-on platform, to ensure customers have a common user experience, with the initial focus being on supporting HR professionals. Access People, which is one of the Group's largest divisions, will roll out PeopleHR Evo, its HR solution for SMEs, and PeopleXD Evo, which is aimed at larger organizations. By embedding AI in these solutions, Access is aiming to reduce the admin load of HR professionals by reducing the need for lengthy and repetitive tasks.

Although the initial focus is on HR, Access Evo will be rolled out across the Group's nine divisions in the coming months and learnings from these use cases will feed into the company’s wider AI strategy. 

Like most companies, Access is making a big investment in GenAI. There is a huge amount of hype in the sector, coupled with a fear of missing out if you do not invest. This is leading to many half-baked and disappointing solutions hitting the market. However, Access is taking a considered approach that is based on user requirements and sensibly building upon existing efforts to integrate its industry solutions.  

HVXPremium logoTechMarketView subscribers, including UKHotViews Premium subscribers, can read more about AccessEvo and the views of Charles Butterworth and Oliver Quayle in our expanded UKHotViewsExtra article here.

If you aren't a subscriber—or aren't sure if your organisation has a corporate subscription—please contact Deb Seth to find out more.

Posted by Dale Peters at '08:15' - Tagged: software   hr   AI   interview  

Monday 24 June 2024

What might the manifesto pledges mean for tech?

TMV logoTechMarketView Senior Research Director Dale Peters has pored over the manifestos of the seven major UK political parties analysing the implications of their pledges for the tech sector, so that you don’t have to!

As we get closer to the General Election 2024, make sure you haven’t missed his recent three-part series of UKHotViewsExtra articles, available to all subscription clients including individual UKHotViews Premium subscribers:

  1. Labour and Conservative manifestos: tech implications
  2. Reform, Lib Dem and Green manifestos: tech implications
  3. SNP and Plaid Cymru manifestos: tech implications

Dale concludes that overall, the manifestos of both the Labour and Conservative parties have a broadly similar approach when it comes to technology. There is a big focus on improving R&D, accelerating innovation and boosting productivity.

The Liberal Democrats and Green Party both emphasise the importance of ethical and inclusive technology, particularly in relation to AI, and propose introducing a Digital Bill of Rights. Whereas there is little discussion of technology or innovation in the Reform manifesto.

And Plaid Cymru has much more of a focus on digital technology than the SNP has in its manifesto, claiming that it wants Wales to become more of a go-to location for technological innovation.

But regardless of who wins the General Election, unprotected departments (most departments with the exception of Health, Defence, Education and overseas aid) are likely to be facing a real term cut to budgets from 2025-26, placing public services under even greater pressure to reform.

Technology will play a key role in these reforms, creating significant opportunities for software and IT services suppliers (including consultants), but there is a risk the government (whoever that may be) continues to place too much faith in AI saving the day.

As always, if you’d like details of our various subscription packages, or toHVP enquire about adding a stream of research to your current corporate package, just drop us an email to info@techmarketview.com. Or sign up to UKHotViews Premium here if you’re an entrepreneur or tech professional wanting individual access to selected research.

Posted by Tola Sargeant at '08:55' - Tagged: policy   election   public sector  

Thursday 20 June 2024

*UKHotViewsExtra* SNP and Plaid Cymru manifestos: tech implications

Manifesto coversPart 3 of TechMarketView's General Election 2024 UKHotViewsExtra manifesto coverage looks at the pledges of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Plaid Cymru. 

The SNP and Plaid Cymru manifestos have many similarities, including the desire for independence, fairer funding, increased investment in public services, a more progressive tax system, and changes to the benefits system. There is an acceptance that without independence or further devolution, many of these ambitions will be restricted to demands on the UK Government. There is also a focus on the green economy and its role in supporting the transition from heavy industries. 

Where the two manifestos differ is in their focus on digital technology. The SNP manifesto contains little discussion of the topic, apart from a brief mention of AI; however, Plaid Cymru places a far greater focus on the role of digital technology, particularly connectivity improvements.

UKHVX premium logoTechMarketView subscribers, including UKHotViews Premium subscribers, can read more about the tech policies of the SNP and Plaid Cymru in our expanded UKHotViewsExtra article here.

You can read Part 1, which covered the Labour and Conservative manifestos here, and Part 2, which covered Reform UK, Liberal Democrats and Green Party, here.

If you aren't a subscriber—or aren't sure if your organisation has a corporate subscription—please contact Deb Seth to find out more.

Posted by Dale Peters at '10:16' - Tagged: policy   scotland   government   Wales   general+election  

Wednesday 19 June 2024

Mastek announced as headline sponsor for “An Evening with TechMarketView”

We are absolutely delighted to announce that Mastek, the global digital and cloud transformation specialist, has been named as the headline sponsor for our prestigious "An Evening with TechMarketView" networking event.

Mastek provides digital transformation services for customers across 40 countries, including the UK. The firm’s sponsorship of our event underscores its view that industry peers need to engage in open discussion about how AI is impacting organisations and how it can be most effectively implemented.

"Our event is a fantastic opportunity to meet key decision-makers and listen to influential voices," said Deb Seth, Partner at TechMarketView. "Our guests will be coming along to make new contacts and catch up with old friends for some meaningful conversation in a very elegant setting."

Held at Mall Galleries in London on 26th September, the event brings together industry leaders to hear from TechMarketView's respected analyst team and our special guests. Attendees will also have exclusive access to a private viewing of the Royal Society of Marine Artists annual exhibition.

Join us for an unforgettable evening of networking, insights, and artistic appreciation. Mingle with leaders in tech, hear vital market perspectives from our analysts and special guests, all while enjoying the renowned Royal Society of Marine Artists exhibition.

Don't miss this premier annual gathering for the UK tech community. Book your tickets today to reserve your place at “An Evening with TechMarketView” on 26th September from 6:30pm - 9:30pm at Mall Galleries.

Are you also interested in sponsoring the event?

View the full details on all sponsorship options here or contact Deb Seth for an exploratory discussion.

TMV Evening Image

Posted by Deborah Seth at '09:00' - Tagged: event  

Wednesday 19 June 2024

*UKHotViewsExtra* DXC leverages its banking heritage for BPS success

DXCAs the banking sector continues to evolve, customer advocacy and competitive threats remain high on the agenda, alongside technology modernisation and business process change. Despite recent high interest rates having led to healthy net margins for many banks, for the most part the sector remains cautious about its prospects and there is a widespread focus on efficiency and cost control. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence [AI] is seemingly taking the world by storm and many banks are still at something of a loss as to how to best capitalise on the wealth of data they hold.

With this in mind, I caught up recently with Ross Hignett, Global Client Partner for Banking and Capital Markets at DXC Technology. Ross and I were joined by Paul Sweetingham, DXC’s General Manager for Global Banking BPS for our discussion around the evolving needs of the global banking sector and, against this backdrop, the company’s flexible approach to serving its customers.

Whereas the focus of DXC (and its antecedent CSC before it) was once predominantly concentrated around major systems implementations, more recently, the company’s strategy and approach has matured in line with the changing appetite and needs of the market. Hignett explained that today, the provision of HVPBusiness Process Services (BPS) to banks and financial institutions is a major play for DXC in the global banking space. DXC’s proposition is structured around four main offering areas the most important of which is what Hignett describes as “Intelligent Banking Operations”.

TechMarketView readers can learn more by downloading DXC leverages its banking heritage for BPS success. This HotViewsExtra is available to all our subscription clients, including HotViews Premium subscribers. If you do not currently have access to this material but would like to learn more, please contact Deb Seth for more information.

Posted by Jon C Davies at '06:00' - Tagged: banking  

Tuesday 18 June 2024

*UKHotViewsExtra* Reform, Lib Deb and Green manifestos: tech implications

Manifesto coversPart 2 of TechMarketView's General Election 2024 manifesto coverage. In today’s HotViewExtra article we are looking at the pledges of Reform UK, Liberal Democrats and Green Party. 

The manifesto promises of these three parties span a wide range of approaches to taxation, spending and policy focus. Despite the differences, there are some common themes relating to the role of technology. The Liberal Democrats and Green Party both emphasise the importance of ethical and inclusive technology, particularly in relation to AI, and propose introducing a Digital Bill of Rights. They all discuss the importance of green energy technology, but there are clearly huge differences in approach between Reform and the other two parties, particularly regarding Net Zero targets. All three parties mention the potential for technology to improve public services, such as healthcare and policing, but provide very limited details on implementation.  

UKHV Premium logoTechMarketView subscribers, including UKHotViews Premium subscribers, can read more about the tech policies of Reform UK, Liberal Democrats and Green Party in our expanded UKHotViewsExtra article here.

You can read Part 1, which covered the Labour and Conservative manifestos here. Coverage of the technology-related pledges in the Plaid Cymru and Scottish National Party manifestos will be available later this week.

If you aren't a subscriber—or aren't sure if your organisation has a corporate subscription—please contact Deb Seth to find out more.

Posted by Dale Peters at '09:57' - Tagged: policy   government   general+election  

Monday 17 June 2024

*UKHotViewsExtra* Labour and Conservative manifestos: tech implications

Manifesto coversWith most parties having published their General Election 2024 manifestos, TechMarketView looks at the implications for software and IT services suppliers. In today’s HotViewExtra article we are looking at the pledges of the Conservatives and the Labour Party. 

Both parties have a focus on infrastructure investment, accelerating innovation, community-based healthcare and reducing crime, particularly fraud. Technology plays a role in these plans, but it is not at the forefront of proposals for either party. How these proposals will be funded is given superficial treatment and in both cases relies on an optimistic view of economic growth and an ability to raise funds through a clampdown on tax avoidance and public sector expenditure on external consultants.

Regardless of who wins the General Election, unprotected departments (most departments with the exception of Health, Defence, Education and overseas aid) are likely to be facing a real term cut to budgets from 2025-26, placing public services under even greater pressure to reform. Technology will play a key role in these reforms, creating significant opportunities for software and IT services suppliers (including consultants), but there is a risk the the government (whoever that may be) continues to place too much faith in AI saving the day.

UKHVX Premium logoTechMarketView subscribers, including UKHotViews Premium subscribers, can read more about the tech implications of the Labour and Conservative manifestos in our expanded UKHotViewsExtra article here.

If you aren't a subscriber—or aren't sure if your organisation has a corporate subscription—please contact Deb Seth to find out more.

Posted by Dale Peters at '10:27' - Tagged: policy   government   general+election  

Monday 17 June 2024

*NEW RESEARCH* AI in Supply Chain - Making Supply Chains Intelligent

Global Supply Chains have been under incredible strain since the pandemic, subsequently made worse by raw material and skills shortages, conflicts in the Ukraine and the Middle East, an energy crisis, and inflation. Supply Chains that were traditionally optimised for cost and quality of service have had to become more resilient, sustainable and intelligent.

AI in supply chainTechMarketView has taken a close interest in the role that Software and IT Services (SITS) providers might play in offering solutions to the risks and threats faced by the Supply Chain Management (SCM) industry and its customers. This culminated in the publication of two major reports towards the back end of 2022 – one looking to identify and profile opportunities for SITS providers operating within the supply chain resilience space (Supply Chain Resilience: Opportunities for SITS providers), and the other, focusing on the specific threats and opportunities presented by Cyber Security (Supply Chain Resilience: The Cyber Threat).

The rise of ‘industry 4.0’ has meant that technologies such as automation, AI, robotics and logistics management systems are becoming much more prevalent, and as a result supply chains have become intertwined in the global tech race.

The impact of AI was addressed in both reports but subsequent to publication we have seen a rapidly increasing amount of interest, hype and investment in AI-led supply chain solutions. As a follow up to the Supply Chain Resilience reports we now look at how AI-led solutions (both traditional AI/Machine Learning and Generative AI) can address some of the greatest challenges and opportunities currently faced by global supply chains. Looking forward, we also identify those areas and use cases of greatest opportunity for AI vendors and SITS suppliers looking to serve the supply chain market.

If you are a subscriber to TechSectorViews you can download the report here AI in Supply Chain. If you don’t have a subscription and would like to gain access the report and our other research and services please contact Deb Seth.

Posted by Marc Hardwick at '09:13' - Tagged: newresearch   AI   supply chain  

Friday 14 June 2024

*UKHotViewsExtra* Capita’s big new plan

CapitaYesterday afternoon’s Capital Markets Day presentation was the first opportunity for new Capita CEO Adolfo Hernandez to outline to the 'City' how he plans to fix profitability and get the Group expanding in the all right areas. Hernandez has been on board for less six months but has put together a decent assessment of where the problems lie, a coherent approach to focusing the business on core and growing activities, and a credible commitment to drive the technology enablement of Capita’s service delivery. Questions remain – this is yet another multiyear transformation programme – will the Capita staff team suffer from transformation fatigue? Funding the technology enablement and standardisation of Capita’s services could swallow big bucks. Hernandez is proposing to fund this all through £50m freed up through cost savings and efficiencies – is this enough to really shift the dial?

The theme for the event was a Better Capita – “Better Efficiencies, Better Technology, Better Delivery, Better Company” with Hernandez proposing to assign Capita’s services into three main ‘buckets’ – ‘Star Positions, Transformation Potential and Manage for Value’.

The ‘Star positions’ include services such as training modernisation, low emissions zone delivery, and pensions admin, with a view to developing standardised and repeatable propositions that can drive growth and be actively taken to market. Those areas deemed as having ‘Transformation Potential’ are core offerings that currently have a higher cost to service and where efficiencies would benefit from more technology, offshoring, partnering and/or automation. This includes the contact centre businesses, back-office delivery, Revs & Bens and Risk Assessment. Finally, a third bucket includes businesses that are to be ‘Managed for Value” – read divested, run off or radically transformed. This includes the IT networking business, IT managed Services, closed book L&P and standalone software. However, outgoing CFO Tim Weller made keen to make the point that this should not be seen as a “Portfolio Division Mark 2”.

Hernandez brings to Capita a long tech background (most recently AWS) and is rightly placing his faith in leveraging the big tech platforms to digitise service delivery and drive efficiency and effectiveness gains. Specifically, looking to partnerships with Microsoft, AWS, Salesforce and ServiceNow, as well as the potential of GenAI to transform. By way of example, Capita’s contact centre business is currently barely profitable, and lags the competition on margin. The business has partnered with AWS on CapitaContact using the cloud provider’s Amazon Connect cloud ‘contact centre in a box’ solution to pursue “higher-margin repeatable deals with improved cost predictability”. This coupled with much greater off/near shoring could make a big difference.

TechMarketView clients, including subscribers to UKHotViewsPremium, can read more by downloading the full review of Capita’s Capital Markets Day presentation and new strategy here

If you are not already a subscriber and but would like to learn more or gain access to this or any other of our content, please contact Deb Seth for more information.HVPremium

Posted by Marc Hardwick at '09:12' - Tagged: bps   transformation  

Friday 14 June 2024

Capita’s big new plan

CapitaYesterday afternoon’s Capital Markets Day presentation was the first opportunity for new Capita CEO Adolfo Hernandez to outline to the City how he plans to fix profitability and get the Group expanding in the all right areas. Hernandez has been on board for less six months but has put together a decent assessment of where the problems lie, a coherent approach to focusing the business on core and growing activities, and a credible commitment to drive the technology enablement of Capita’s service delivery. Questions remain – this is yet another multiyear transformation programme – will the Capita staff team suffer from transformation fatigue? Funding the technology enablement and standardisation of Capita’s services could swallow big bucks. Hernandez is proposing to fund this all through £50m freed up through cost savings and efficiencies – is this enough to really shift the dial?

The theme for the event was a Better Capita – “Better Efficiencies, Better Technology, Better Delivery, Better Company” with Hernandez proposing to assign Capita’s services into three main ‘buckets’ – ‘Star Positions, Transformation Potential and Manage for Value’.

The ‘Star positions’ include services such as training modernisation, low emissions zone delivery, and pensions admin, with a view to developing standardised and repeatable propositions that can drive growth and be actively taken to market. Those areas deemed as having ‘Transformation Potential’ are core offerings that currently have a higher cost to service and where efficiencies would benefit from more technology, offshoring, partnering and/or automation. This includes the contact centre businesses, back-office delivery, Revs & Bens and Risk Assessment. Finally, a third bucket includes businesses that are to be ‘Managed for Value” – read divested, run off or radically transformed. This includes the IT networking business, IT managed Services, closed book L&P and standalone software. However, outgoing CFO Tim Weller made keen to make the point that this should not be seen as a “Portfolio Division Mark 2”.

Hernandez brings to Capita a long tech background (most recently AWS) and is rightly placing his faith in leveraging the big tech platforms to digitise service delivery and drive efficiency and effectiveness gains. Specifically, looking to partnerships with Microsoft, AWS, Salesforce and ServiceNow, as well as the potential of GenAI to transform. By way of example, Capita’s contact centre business is currently barely profitable, and lags the competition on margin. The business has partnered with AWS on CapitaContact using the cloud provider’s Amazon Connect cloud ‘contact centre in a box’ solution to pursue “higher-margin repeatable deals with improved cost predictability”. This coupled with much greater off/near shoring could make a big difference.

Growth and margin improvement in Capita Experience will also be aided by “Standardised omni-channel and multi-language offerings”, a push on GenAI and interestingly “expanding the call centre portfolio in adjacent markets in EMEA over time, using existing infrastructure”.

In the larger and better performing Public Service division the focus is also on cost saving, more standardisation and repeatability, and tech partnerships with the hyperscalers. The challenge here is that the services delivered are traditionally big bespoke, complex, multi service deals for government clients. Whilst there is scope for much more standardisation these are not commodity services, and the client base tends to view themselves as unique.

To make all of this happen, Hernandez is putting his faith in further cuts and efficiency savings being able to deliver £160m by Q2 2025, of which some £90m has already been actioned. Capita will then reinvest around £50m of these savings in new technology, propositions and standardisation. The need for digitisation within the group is desperately needed and where Capita is badly lagging much of the competition. This is not going to come cheap, and whilst £50m is unlikely to shift the dial, it is at least a start.

Alongside the strategy and transformation announcements, Capita issued improved medium-term targets for the Group that include low to mid-single digit revenue growth (although 2024 still expected to be flat) and an improved 6%-8% EBIT margin.

Overall, I thought the presentation set out a credible plan for the future of the business, that despite multiple years of transformation still needs fundamental change – most notably around tech enablement and digital transformation. My fear is that the Capita teams, having been through several transformation programmes, will be suffering from “transformation fatigue”. When asked what was different about this programme, Hernandez was keen to point out that the Jon Lewis transformation with more of a restructuring, fixing debt and pensions liabilities and getting the business off ‘life support’. The new programme is much more about developing a platform for growth that should crucially, feed through into the numbers and ultimately shareholder growth. Let’s not forget, the share price is currently still at 14p, at its height it was over £12.

Posted by Marc Hardwick at '09:03' - Tagged: strategy   transformation  

Monday 10 June 2024

*NEW RESEARCH* AI in Supply Chain - Making Supply Chains Intelligent

Global Supply Chains have been under incredible strain since the pandemic, subsequently made worse by raw material and skills shortages, conflicts in the Ukraine and the Middle East, an energy crisis, and inflation. Supply Chains that were traditionally optimised for cost and quality of service have had to become more resilient, sustainable and intelligent.

Supply Chain AITechMarketView has taken a close interest in the role that Software and IT Services (SITS) providers might play in offering solutions to the risks and threats faced by the Supply Chain Management (SCM) industry and its customers. This culminated in the publication of two major reports towards the back end of 2022 – one looking to identify and profile opportunities for SITS providers operating within the supply chain resilience space (Supply Chain Resilience: Opportunities for SITS providers), and the other, focusing on the specific threats and opportunities presented by Cyber Security (Supply Chain Resilience: The Cyber Threat).

The rise of ‘industry 4.0’ has meant that technologies such as automation, AI, robotics and logistics management systems are becoming much more prevalent, and as a result supply chains have become intertwined in the global tech race.

The impact of AI was addressed in both reports but subsequent to publication we have seen a rapidly increasing amount of interest, hype and investment in AI-led supply chain solutions. As a follow up to the Supply Chain Resilience reports we now look at how AI-led solutions (both traditional AI/Machine Learning and Generative AI) can address some of the greatest challenges and opportunities currently faced by global supply chains. Looking forward, we also identify those areas and use cases of greatest opportunity for AI vendors and SITS suppliers looking to serve the supply chain market.

If you are a subscriber to TechSectorViews you can download the report here AI in Supply Chain. If you don’t have a subscription and would like to gain access the report and our other research and services please contact Deb Seth.

Posted by Marc Hardwick at '09:22' - Tagged: newresearch   AI   supply+chain  

Friday 07 June 2024

*UKHotViewsExtra* Spotlight on Einstein AI and Data Cloud at Salesforce World Tour

logoYesterday I attended Salesforce World Tour in London, with the CRM supplier heavily pushing its latest AI features, as it seeks to be a central platform for company data and interactions across Sales, Service and Marketing. The UK is Salesforce’s second largest market outside North America, with a broad industry focus, and its flagship UK event certainly attracted the crowds! Salesforce was keen to show off both its latest innovations and its close relationship with UK customers, most notably car manufacturer Aston Martin who featured heavily in the keynote.

One of the big announcements was the launch of a new London AI center, part of a $4bn investment in AI innovation and growth in the UK over the next five years. The new collaboration space will house up to 300 people with 8 meeting rooms, and while just an initial pilot, the plan is to scale the concept. Salesforce also unveiled a number of new product innovations across its Data Cloud, Slack, Field Service and Sales Cloud solutions. I won’t give a full rundown of all the product announcements, but I thought I would share some observations from the event and talking to a number of end user organisations and Salesforce executives.

The main message that really stood out (other than the expected overwhelming mentions of AI), was the focus Salesforce is putting on enabling any data to be pulled into its platform, analysed and actioned upon. This is all being delivered through its Data Cloud solution, which featured heavily across a number of presentations and on the demo floor. Any data from either Salesforce apps, or third-party sources like Databricks and Snowflake can easily be integrated, with a big focus from Salesforce on building connectors into a number of applications. The new Data Cloud Vector Database can unify and integrate data across PDFs, emails, and other unstructured formats such as call transcripts, online customer reviews, and support tickets, which are all pulled together into customer profiles.

Salesforce want organisations to use their platform to unify and harmonise their data, and were keen to stress their added value over public AI solutions by enabling more contextual responses (through better use of company proprietary data that you wouldn’t get with ChatGPT for example). Data Cloud is seen as the solution to deliver enhanced value for all its other Cloud solutions, bringing more sources of data together and enabling that cross-data analysis regardless of what Salesforce tool you are using. Its Einstein Copilot, which is now a single AI tool that sits across all of its solutions, enables easier access to that data through natural language prompts.

TechMarketView research subscribers can carry on reading the rest of our analysis of Salesforce World Tour and discussions with Salesforce executives in UKHotViewsExtra – click here to continue.

Posted by Simon Baxter at '10:16'

Thursday 06 June 2024

The road to AI: TechMarketView Market Readiness Index

If you haven’t tucked into TechMarketView’s latest Market Readiness Index (MRI) report for tech buyers, you may well be in the minority.

By far our most widely read MRI report to date (this is our fifth annual report), The road to AI was a meaty undertaking by our team of fantastic analysts. mri

The Market Readiness Index is TechMarketView’s flagship research product for tech buyers who want the best understanding of the UK supplier landscape.

This year’s MRI is entitled: “The road to AI: Mapping the readiness of the Top 10 IT & Business Process Services Suppliers”. The companies assessed were: Accenture, Atos Eviden, Capgemini, Capita, Cognizant, DXC Technologies, HCLTech, IBM, Infosys, and TCS

Our analyst team uses TechMarketView’s unique and highly robust scoring framework to rate the suppliers across Corporate Resilience, Suitability of Offerings, Skills & Resources, Partner Ecosystem, Industry Expertise, Delivery & Execution. The Market Readiness Index report is a combination of meticulous scoring and in-depth profiles giving a realistic and honest appraisal of the readiness of each supplier to address the AI – and in particular the Generative AI – needs of the market.

We’ve pored over the data and scoring, grilled the vendors, and spoken candidly with buyers and can now reveal that the Leading Pack (i.e., those suppliers exceeding the average score for the overall group in each category) consists of: Accenture, Capgemini, Cognizant, and TCS. Congratulations.

However, we highly recommended you read the full report for yourself to understand the narrative behind the scoring and which suppliers are best suited to your aims and culture.

Members of the TechMarketView Tech User Programme can READ IT NOW: “The road to AI: Mapping the readiness of the Top 10 IT & Business Process Services Suppliers”.
 

If you are not a member of our Tech Buyer community, you can purchase the report HERE or by contacting Deb Seth.

Posted by Kate Hanaghan at '09:45' - Tagged: AI  

Wednesday 05 June 2024

*NEW RESEARCH* AI in Supply Chain - Making Supply Chains Intelligent

Global Supply Chains have been under incredible strain since the pandemic, subsequently made worse by raw material and skills shortages, conflicts in the Ukraine and the Middle East, an energy crisis, and inflation. Supply Chains that were traditionally optimised for cost and quality of service have had to become more resilient, sustainable and intelligent.

AI in Supply ChainTechMarketView has taken a close interest in the role that Software and IT Services (SITS) providers might play in offering solutions to the risks and threats faced by Supply Chain Management. This culminated in the publication of two major reports towards the back end of 2022 – one looking to identify and profile opportunities for SITS providers operating within the supply chain resilience space (Supply Chain Resilience: Opportunities for SITS providers), and the other, focusing on the specific threats and opportunities presented by Cyber Security (Supply Chain Resilience: The Cyber Threat).

The rise of ‘industry 4.0’ has meant that technologies such as automation, AI, robotics and logistics management systems are becoming much more prevalent, and as a result supply chains have become intertwined in the global tech race.

The impact of AI was addressed in both reports but subsequent to publication we have seen a rapidly increasing amount of interest, hype and investment in AI-led supply chain solutions. As a follow up to the Supply Chain Resilience reports we now look at how AI-led solutions (both traditional AI/Machine Learning and Generative AI) can address some of the greatest challenges and opportunities currently faced by global supply chains. Looking forward, we also identify those areas and use cases of greatest opportunity for AI vendors and SITS suppliers looking to serve the supply chain market.

If you are a subscriber to TechSectorViews you can download the report here AI in Supply Chain. If you don’t have a subscription and would like to gain access the report and our other research and services please contact Deb Seth.

Posted by Marc Hardwick at '12:44' - Tagged: newresearch   AI   machine+learning   supply chain   genAI  

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