NEW YORK, April 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Deloitte today announced it is teaming with UiPath to develop intelligent automation solutions around the Oracle Cloud ERP platform to power digital transformation for the next generation workforce. The new solutions, built by Deloitte and certified by UiPath, will enhance enterprise modernization efforts by optimizing processes around Oracle Cloud ERP to increase organizational efficiency, accuracy, productivity and standardization.

"We believe the ERP transformation journey and the exploration of intelligent automation solutions should be complementary of one another, not siloed," said Anthony Abbattista, principal, UiPath Alliance leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP. "With the development of these new solutions, we can bring these two critical pieces of modernization together as a core strategy to drive value for our clients that use Oracle and UiPath."

According to a recent IDG study, enterprise organizations indicated improving scalability/agility, freeing up IT staff and lowering operating costs were their top-three goals for ERP modernization. Deloitte's intelligent automation solutions for Oracle Cloud ERP environments address those challenges by utilizing a persona-based approach to automate and augment repetitive human actions, saving time and cost for both functional and IT organizations.

"Leading organizations are not simply looking to migrate to a cloud platform they are looking to deliver new and compelling levels of performance across the enterprise," said John Steele, principal and U.S. Oracle offering leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP. "These intelligent automation solutions orchestrate the transformation journey, helping organizations achieve their digital ambitions. Empowering teams to capture value, visualize industry leading processes, and activate the journey through the integrated project delivery platform and collection of project assets with digital solutions and enablers powered by UiPath."

The new solutions from Deloitte and UiPath for Oracle Cloud ERP applications focus on automating deployment and maintenance of Oracle cloud applications, as well as automating the delivery of business processes built on the Oracle Cloud ERP platform and digital workforce components built on UiPath. These solutions help clients with a range of implementation-related activities on their Oracle transformation journeys, including data integration and loading, database migrations, comprehensive testing activities, post-load data validations and other "lift and shift" activities. The Business Process Automation solutions focus on augmenting the human workforce in the delivery of ongoing manual business processes, enabling humans and machines to work together to optimize outcomes around a range of functional areas, including finance and supply chain. The solutions are powered by UiPath's state-of-the-art intelligent automation platform that manages the execution of attended and unattended automations across a broad application and system landscape.

"The deep domain knowledge and extensive capabilities of Deloitte's Oracle practice is a perfect match to enable customers to potentially realize value from the accelerators, activity packs and integrations we have built," said Dhruv Asher, senior vice president, Technology Alliances, UiPath. "Deloitte and UiPath collaborated on ensuring that the quality bar and security and governance standard of what customers expect from a UiPath certified solution was met. We look forward to customers deploying these solutions in their automation journey to help them scale faster."

Each solution developed by Deloitte receives a UiPath certification validating that they follow UiPath best practices and governance. Together, these new solutions can enhance and power an organization's ERP Cloud modernization and transformation efforts while redefining how humans and machines can work together to create smarter, stronger and greater overall value.

Visit Deloitte.com for more information on Deloitte's UiPath alliance.

About Deloitte Deloitte provides industry-leading audit, consulting, tax and advisory services to many of the world's most admired brands, including nearly 90% of the Fortune 500 and more than 7,000 private companies.Our people come togetherfor the greater good and work across the industry sectors that drive and shape today's marketplace delivering measurable and lasting results that help reinforce public trust in our capital markets, inspire clients to see challenges as opportunities to transform and thrive, and help lead the way toward a stronger economy and a healthier society. Deloitte is proud to be part of the largest global professional services network serving our clients in the markets that are most important to them.Building on more than 175 years of service, our network of member firms spans more than 150 countries and territories. Learn how Deloitte's more than 330,000 people worldwide connect for impact at http://www.deloitte.com.

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee ("DTTL"), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as "Deloitte Global") does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the "Deloitte" name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see http://www.deloitte.com/aboutto learn more about our global network of member firms.

SOURCE Deloitte Consulting LLP

http://www.deloitte.com

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Deloitte and UiPath Team on Intelligent Automation Solutions Built for the Oracle ERP Platform - PRNewswire

The "Robotic Process Automation Market - Forecasts from 2021 to 2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The robotic process automation market was evaluated at US$2.039 billion for the year 2020 and is projected to witness a CAGR of 31.5% over the forecast period.

Robotic Process Automation refers to the process of automating the tedious and repetitive tasks in an organization through the use of robots. According to UiPath, a global software company that develops platform for Robotic Process Automation, RPA can be defined as "A technology that allows anyone today to configure computer software, or a 'robot' to emulate and integrate the actions of a human interacting within digital systems to execute a business process." The adoption of emerging technologies like RPA to automate the mundane, rule based repetitive tasks has resulted in accelerated work, reduced human error, and increased output. Combining RPA with advanced cognitive technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) etc. will allow organisations to automate even those tasks which generally require human decision making capabilities

By using RPA, organisations can reduce their staffing costs as well as human errors by limiting the number of people working on these mundane repetitive tasks. It also increases job satisfaction of employees as they can now focus on tasks and processes which generate value for the organisation and actually make use of their intelligence and capabilities. Processes like web scraping, opening emails and attachments, making calculations, logging into applications among others can be automated with RPA. Given the advantages, some key tips should be kept in mind to derive maximum benefits from the implementation of RPA such as setting and managing goals that the organisation aims to achieve through RPA, putting RPA into the whole development lifecycle of the organisation and considering its impact on the business of the organisation among others.

Story continues

Although RPA has promising benefits across industries, it has its pitfalls too. With the automation of repetitive tasks, a huge chunk of the population might get redundant leading to widespread unemployment. Moreover, the economic outcomes of RPA implementations are far from assured as installation costs of large number of bots may not be as economically viable as it might have expected to be.

Companies Mentioned

Market Dynamics

Growth Factors

Restraints

Impact of COVID-19

The coronavirus pandemic has had a positive impact on the global robotic process automation market. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the global robotic process automation market has witnessed a sudden rise in 2020 as the pandemic is being a game-changer for the robotic process automation solution providers as industries, especially manufacturing, accelerating the use of bots for repetitive tasks. Also because of the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, more and more businesses got encouraged to adopt automation systems. Also due to the dispersed workforce and ever growing consumer engagement, businesses need systems which can automatically carry these necessary but repetitive tasks.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Introduction

2. Research Methodology

3. Executive Summary

3.1. Research Highlights

4. Market Dynamics

4.1. Market Drivers

4.2. Market Restraints

4.3. Porters Five Forces Analysis

4.4. Industry Value Chain Analysis

5. Global Robotic Process Automation Market Analysis, By Type

5.1. Introduction

5.2. Software

5.3. Service

6. Global Robotic Process Automation Market Analysis, By Enterprise Size

6.1. Introduction

6.2. Large enterprises

6.3. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

7. Global Robotic Process Automation Market Analysis, By Application

7.1. Introduction

7.2. BFSI

7.3. Pharma & Healthcare

7.4. Retail & Consumer Goods

7.5. Information Technology (IT) & Telecom

7.6. Communication and Media & Education

7.7. Manufacturing

7.8. Logistics, and Energy & Utilities

7.9. Others

8. Global Robotic Process Automation Market Analysis, By Deployment

8.1. Introduction

8.2. Cloud

8.3. On - Premise

9. Global Robotic Process Automation Market Analysis, by Geography

9.1. Introduction

9.2. North America

9.3. South America

9.4. Europe

9.5. The Middle East and Africa

9.6. Asia Pacific

10. Competitive Environment and Analysis

10.1. Major Players and Strategy Analysis

10.2. Emerging Players and Market Lucrativeness

10.3. Mergers, Acquisitions, Agreements, and Collaborations

10.4. Vendor Competitiveness Matrix

11. Company Profiles

11.1. UiPath

11.2. Automation Anywhere Inc.

11.3. NICE

11.4. Blue Prism

11.5. Pegasystems

11.6. KOFAX INC.

11.7. NTT Advanced Technology Corporation

11.8. EdgeVerve Systems Limited

11.9. FPT Software

11.10. OnviSource, Inc.

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/9pd6v6

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210401005529/en/

Contacts

ResearchAndMarkets.comLaura Wood, Senior Press Managerpress@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

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Worldwide Robotic Process Automation Industry (2021 to 2026) - Featuring Automation Anywhere, NICE and Blue Prism Among Others -...

To realize the benefits of test automation,organizations have to take full advantage of smartertools, according to theThe World Quality Report 20202021.

Smart tools are those thatinclude more features based onartificial intelligence (AI)and machine learning (ML). These, along witha proliferation of JavaScript-based testing tools, more API testing, andmore emphasis on skills, are the trends to watch this year, experts say.

Here's what your organization needs to know about the state of test automation tools.

One of last year's predictionsthat'shappening now is the increased use of AIand MLin testing tools to make test automation easier, said Diego Lo Giudice, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.

"The trend that everybody was expecting was that developers would take over testing. But developers don't really like testing. We can give them some testing to do, but the rest of the testing is done by other personas, such as the business testing persona."Diego Lo Giudice

However, while expectations of the benefits that AI and ML in testingcan bring to quality assurance remain high, and adoption is on the increase, there are few signs of significant general progress, as the World Quality Report noted:

"Partly, this is because relevant skill sets still aren't in place; and partly, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted schedules, budgets, and plans.Nonetheless, enthusiasm hasn't diminished [and] organizations are putting AI high among their selection criteria for new QA solutions and tools."

The reason: Smart technologies will increase cost-efficiency, reduce the need for manual testing, shorten time to market, and help create and sustain continuous quality improvements, the report found.

Otherbenefits of AI-basedtest automationincludereducing test creation time, boosting test coverage, increasing resiliency of testing assets, and cutting down on test maintenance efforts, said Nick Mears, product marketing manager for functional testing at Micro Focus.

Additionally, new ML techniques are being applied to determine the scope of optimal automation tests; the goal is"to reduce the exponential growth in test scripts," according to the report.

Another new automation technique is the use of AI-based, self-healing scripts to automatically modify scripts during runtime, in case of object and page element changes, the report noted.

Although more tools are sporting AI capabilities, adoption has been limited to this point, said Malcolm Isaacs, a testing evangelist at Micro Focus. But that's about to change.

"We're at the point where I think we're going to take off. The tool set that we've had up until now has enabled a certain amount of AI-based automation. [But now] is kind of the inflection point where we can take it to the mainstreamit's now production-ready."Malcolm Isaacs

One of the most prominent trends in 2021 will be the increaseof JavaScript-based testing tools, such as Jest, Cypress, Puppeteer, and Playwright, said Nikolay Advolodkin, CEO and senior test automation engineer at Ultimate QA.

This is happeningbecause a lot of front-end web development is done with JavaScript. And when writing code in JavaScript, it is just mucheasier to alsotest that code in JavaScript, according to Advolodkin.

"All of this tooling that easily integrates with your software development practices just makes a very low barrier of entry, whether for developers or even testing individuals, who just enter and start testing the code."Nikolay Advolodkin

Another factor is the tight integration between application code and testing code, he said."You can do things like writing unit tests or component tests in JavaScript,Advolodkin said. "But then whenever you find testing gaps that you can't fulfill with either one of those strategies, you can start using stuff like system tests with Cypress, for example, which is just another extra tool inside of your JavaScript repository."

The use of Cypress, an end-to-end testing tool for browser-based apps,is growing in popularity because JavaScript has gained users, Advolodkin said.Another plus is Cypress' feature set. Among other features, the tooloffers browser automation,application programming interface (API) automation, and component testing for React web applications, he said.

"So it covers multiple layers of testing applications, as opposed to many other tools that kind of just focus on a single aspect."Nikolay Advolodkin

Tools like Selenium and Puppeteer areonly for browser-based front-end automation, so if you want to start doing API testing or component testing, now you have to pick up all their tools."Cypress has all of that," he said.

Since the majority of information sharing that occurs within Internet of Things (IoT) devices is via APIs, it's critical to test the APIs of IoT-enabled devices to ensure they're secure, saidAdvolodkin.

"As more of the world brings us devices onlineand we have smart thermostats, we have Alexa, we have smart light bulbs, TVs, and all of thatit becomes increasingly more important to test those things. And the way that we test them is using APInot browser-based tools, but API testing. So I think that's going to be huge."Nikolay Advolodkin

The QA community appears willing to consider using natural-language processing (NLP)-based automation tools. These provide benefits includingscriptless automation, model-based testing, the use of plain English statements to generate scripts, and a shallower learning curvethat allowsdifferent project stakeholders to contribute to automation efforts, as the The World Quality Report noted:

"Options such as self-healing capabilities are going to increase gradually, but there is no doubt that these are the future of automation. While the promises are big, we understand these automation tools aren't yet sufficiently mature."

Forrester'sLo Giudice said everybody talks about self-healing, but the reality is that it's not there yet.

"It's improving. There are some tools that do it better than others, but it's at a superficial level. It's nothing huge yet."Diego Lo Giudice

Although there are plenty of tools on the market, the trend is going to be less on tools and more on people just skilling themselves up because they want to be marketable, said Michael Fritzius, president of Arch DevOps.

"You're going to see more manual testers that want to get into automation. You're going to see more automation engineers that want to get into the architecture of automated testing solutions."Michael Fritzius

Rather than being the people developing the actual tests, they'll be overseeing and guiding teams about how to do it properly. "So they're going to try to do what they can to make it on their own," Fritzius said. "It's skilling yourself up to write software, mainly."

Adoption of commercial tools won't pick up until next year at the earliest, as a result of the investment involved, saidFritzius."It takes a lot of time and money."

Tools, on average, run at least$250,000. And then youhave to learn it and change the processes to integrate the tool into their system, he noted.

It's going takea while for companies to be willing to really risk that much moneyto improve theirprocesses,"knowing that it might take a while for us to see a result on that."

There will continue to be fragmentation in the test automation landscape throughout 2021 and likely into 2022, said Paul Grizzaffi, principal automation architect at Magenic.

Although there are different technologies,frameworks and stacks coming out, they are generallyattached to one browser or API.

"They need to be glued together by users. Or you have to go and get an additional framework or stack piece that would help bring all of that stuff together so that you can work with one technology, if you will, to do different types of automation."Paul Grizzaffi

Forrester's Lo Giudice said that companies prefer integrated platforms over best-of-breed testing tools.

Testing has many aspectsunit testing, functional testing, performance, load, security, integration testing, test data management, API testing,he said.

"Clients don't wantone tool for each, and they don't care about having a best of breed for each. They want an integrated platform because they're looking for a uniform, consistent experience going from one type of testing to another."Diego Lo Giudice

As with life in general, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a monkey wrench into the test automation landscape. As such, it's important for you to take these trends into consideration as you review your test automation tools and capabilities this year before investing time and money in anything new.

Continued here:

Test automation tools: 8 trends and techniques to watch - TechBeacon

We know, we know.How many words can technologists add hyper too? But dont roll your eyes just yet.

Trust us, if you work in banking, hyper-automation will likely be the latest buzz word you hear in boardrooms (whether physical or remote) in 2021 and beyond.

Lets find out more!

The changing face of banking

Deloittesuggests that the post-pandemic bank will emerge a lot different to the one that went in. They forecast that banks will need to continue to focus on improving the digitisation of their operations, remain flexible to new business models and (most importantly) put customers at the heart of their digital strategy.

Day-to-day, customers have become much more accustomed to instant action, engagement and information from their interactions with brands and as such, trends like banking as a service (BaaS), the rapid proliferation of fintech solutions and regtech innovations, suggests that the time is right to consider the potential for hyper-automation.

However, If weve learned anything over the last year, its that humans still want to be well, human. As machines take over more roles in day-to-day operations, its critical banks keep people at the heart of their approach.

What is hyper-automation?

Coined byGartnerin 2019,hyper-automation is the full automation of the business processes and customer processes. It achieves this through an advanced ecosystem of operational and customer facing digital solutions that look to leverage the flexibility and scalability of modern IT infrastructure, which ultimately frees up staff to inject their creativity into delighting customers outside of said processes.

The automated business, combined with agile frameworks, provides opportunities for better-informed decision making, generated through a more holistic data picture throughout the organisation.Without getting too techy, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is being enhanced and refined by technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), process mining, advanced analytics and more, to reduce costs, maintain accuracy and speed up processes.

Why its a fit for Banking

Banks who havent had the chance to start as a digitally native organisation have built up complex systems of legacy tools, which have been bolted onto an operational structure defined when they were a telephony or branch network bank.With new challengers flooding the market with cloud infrastructure and a mobile-first, digital proposition, the fight for market share has intensified. This is what makes automation such a compelling proposition, as any opportunity to slim down the operational costs will be welcomed to drive increased profitability.

From automating onboarding processes in lending to improving data quality and utility for better decision making, hyper-automation has the potential to augment workers ability, whilst reducing operational costs and human error.

The Benefits of hyper-automationIntegration

Productivity

Flexibility

Demonstrable ROI

What Makes It Hyper?

With your brain whizzing on the potential for these benefits in your business, you might now raise a valid question. We already have some automation in our business, whats the difference with hyper?

Tools working together

AdHoc vs Integrated

AI & ML

Narrow vs Large

Automation Use Cases for Banking

Lets look at a few ways automation can improve banking experiences:

Regulatory Reporting

Accentures 2016 compliance risk study found 73% of respondents thought RPA would be a key enabler for compliance in the next three years. Since then, automation has been deployed sporadically. However, the regulatory environment becomes more complex year-on-year, meaning standalone RPAs may become less useful. Complete automation, as advertised by hyper-automation, will require complex, multi-year implementation as well as culture phase shifts, but will be key to better risk and compliance.

Lending

Lending processes can still be slow and manual, even in 2021. There are a multitude of blockers from credit checks to employment verification that impacts turnaround times. Automation technologies can, with ease, extract or approve all the relevant loan data in seconds, validating customers from multiple sources.

For instance, mortgage processes sometimes take up to 50 days to approve. Automation, paired with emerging technology like blockchain, could combine to validate customer data from multiple sources automatically or reduce attrition from customers pulling applications due to minor errors on forms that caused delays.

Back-Office

As is usually the case, new technology is often deployed to customer-facing processes first to impress the market. However, back-end processes are ripe for automation possibilities. This is driven by the sheer volume of records and documents many banks continue to add to, even in the digital age.

On average retail banks have between 300-800 processes, all of which can be improved with business process management (BPM) platforms which can reduce human error or inefficiencies negatively impacting the customer experience. However, the key here is not to place a bandaid over something that is no longer fit for purpose.

Sales & Distribution

Retail branches of the future are due a makeover. Its reasoned a shift from contact centres to customer care platforms enhanced by intelligent routing provided by automation will occur. Similarly, embedding distribution on partner platforms through API and banking as a service (BaaS). All empowering frontline staff to harness their creativity and passion for serving customer needs.

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The benefits of hyper-automation for banking - Finextra - Finextra

As industrial companies connect plant-level software and devices to internet-connected enterprise systems, cybersecurity has become a critical operations issue for manufacturers of all sizes. While the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) greatly expands the efficiency of plant floor operations, it also introduces countless new vectors for potential cyberattacks. With more data flowing in and out of plants, the concern is that once localized networks will become more vulnerable.

The threat actors seeking to exploit these new loopholes include disgruntled employees and criminals attempting to steal intellectual property or other sensitive information for purposes of extortion, hacktivists who desire to garner public attention for their causes, and state-backed foreign agents engaged in espionage activities for political purposes.

Unfortunately, the risk of many of these types of attacks has only grown since the onset of COVID-19, according to cybersecurity company CrowdStrikes recently released 2021 Global Threat Report. This increased hacking activity stems from several sources. For one, as lockdowns took hold in early 2020, many workers migrated to home offices that lacked the cybersecurity protections of commercial workplaces equipped with dedicated information technology (IT) staff. In addition, as remote access boomed, the potential attack surface available to hackers was broadened. Finally, fear and uncertainty surrounding the pandemic has increasingly been exploited to engage in phishing attacks and other forms of social engineering designed to trick users into granting malevolent actors access to proprietary systems and information.

CrowdStrikes report details recent efforts engaged in by state-sponsored adversaries looking to steal valuable data pertaining to vaccine research and government responses to COVID-19 as well as targeted intrusions, sometimes referred to as big game hunting. In these latter efforts, e-criminals identify high-value individual targets for extortion and blackmail via infection with ransomwaresoftware that locks users out of a system until a fee is paid. The report notes that ransomware attacks on manufacturing facilities have proven uniquely effective, as the time-sensitive nature of their production schedules often renders paying the fee less expensive than losing critical throughput.CrowdStrike has observed a strong uptick in cybersecurity breaches in the past year. Manufacturing alone saw 228 ransomware incidents in 2020.

In addition to individual manufacturing facilities, healthcare and the supply chain also stood out in 2020 as particularly vulnerable. In the healthcare space, phishing attacks currently pose the greatest risk, with tactics and techniques taking a plethora of forms, including: exploitation of individuals looking for details on disease tracking, testing, and treatment; impersonation of medical bodies requesting information, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and offering financial assistance or government stimulus packages in exchange for private information.

Meanwhile, cyberattacks on the supply chain have relied on more sophisticated methods. For instance, in December of 2020, public reporting revealed a complex supply chain attack against the update deployment mechanism of the SolarWinds Orion IT management software. Those responsible for this attack were able to distribute malicious code which had the ability to collect information about the host, enumerate files and services on the system, modify registry keys, and terminate system processes. According to CrowdStrikes report, supply chain attacks represent an especially pernicious tactic because they allow malicious actors to propagate their attack from a single point of intrusion to multiple downstream targets. Following from this, CrowdStrike identifies the securing of cloud environments as a priority for cybersecurity professionals in the years to come.

To chart ongoing threats, CrowdStrike has also created an eCrime index based on various observables which are weighted by impact and continuously monitored. The index will allow users to remain aware of the changing mechanisms and tactics used to exploit vulnerable systems and will include additional analysis provided by CrowdStrikes subject matter experts.

Access CrowdStrikes full 2021 Global Threat Report.

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CrowdStrike Releases 2021 Cybersecurity Global Threat Report - Automation World

March31, 20215 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

I recently took part in The EMS (Eric Miscoll Show), a biweekly panel discussion exploring all things manufacturing, and perhaps more specifically, all things EMS. This particular episode explored the topic of autonomous manufacturing and had two visionary founders and CEOs who believe that the next revolution in manufacturing goes way beyond automation to autonomy.

Those panelists were Theo Saville of CloudNC and Yoav Zingher of Launchpad.build. Both startups are leveraging complex computational algorithms and AI to build autonomous manufacturing solutions, CloudNC for CNC parts and Launchpad for new products introduction, or NPI, in the electronics space.

Related:The Big Reset for theManufacturingIndustry -- Get Ready for 2021

Much of the revolutionary talk over the last seven or so years has been around Industry 4.0 and the idea that connected factories using data and automation can substantially improve their performance, but to be frank, it has been way too much talk and not enough action. As Elvis Presly said, a little less conversation, a little more action please!

Theo Saville doesnt believe that these concepts around automation and data are revolutionary. In his view, industrial revolutions come less frequently, typically every 100 years, are life-changing, and deliver performance benefits that are orders of magnitude. He suggests that much of these so-called Industry 4.0 principles are merely tweaks or extensions of Industry 3.0, the computer and digital revolution that started decades ago and continues to deliver incremental benefit. This is evolution, not revolution.

Theo and his co-founder Chris Emery recognized that the CNC industry had sophisticated machines, capable of producing parts with incredible accuracy, but with a less than sophisticated method of programming and managing those machines. They saw a huge multi-billion-dollar industry underperforming and ripe for disruption. Their strategy was to start at machine autonomy, next to pull those machines together in an autonomous facility and eventually into an autonomous ecosystem of facilities around the world that deliver parts ast speed and at a substantially lower price. This ecosystem would use multiple copy and paste versions of their first autonomous facility.

Yoav Zinghers desire to shake things up comes from an even more personal place. Before starting Lanuchpad.build, with his co-founders Ofer Ricklis and Bill Gross, Yoav ran an energy business in the UK. His team needed to get a piece of hardware, in this case, a smart-meter, manufactured, and was stunned by the level of complexity and difficulty he encountered getting his new product developed, manufactured and fulfilled. He knew there had to be a better way and when he sold his energy business, he decided to tackle the very problem he had encountered. Thus Launchpad.build was born with the ambition to create an autonomous platform that would take a CAD (computer-aided design) package and provide costing, build instructions and a complete supply chain solution quickly, simply and economically. Launchpad also decided to tackle the issue of manual electronic assembly at the same time and designed the Digiline, their own adaptable automation module that would also be programmed directly from their front-end software.

When Theo and Yoav talk about autonomous manufacturing, they are not talking about the end of human operators;they are talking about autonomous decision-making, autonomous programming and autonomous supply chains. Take for example an autonomous system like an Amazon fulfillment facility. It is not lights-out with no human operators. In fact, its a vibrant and busy workspace where machines and humans are working in harmony. What makes it special is the software managing everything from order to final delivery, instructing both operators and automated systems like conveyors, packers and AGVs. Imagine a manufacturing ecosystem that operates like that!

Related:Technological Innovations theManufacturingIndustry Should Scale

Manufacturing autonomy is not just a good idea, its a timely idea, offering a chance to democratize both manufacturing and innovation. By creating autonomous and automated manufacturing solutions, it is possible to substantially reduce the labor cost element in manufacturing, allowing higher labor cost regions to bring manufacturing home. This is extremely timely given the desire of most nations to use manufacturing as part of their post-pandemic recovery strategy.

And the pandemic isnt the only driver or acceleration. The Covid-19 pandemic came on the back of a bitter trade war between the US and China, creating a perfect storm of disruption that has led to a real desire to restore supply chains to make nations more resilient to future risk.

Both Theo and Yoav agree that autonomous and automated manufacturing solutions offer the only route to competitiveness for the USand for Western Europe, where the benefits of massive consumer markets are offset by high labor rates.

Consumers want to buy products made locally, but they dont want to pay more for, or get less from, those products. Manufacturing autonomy might be just the solution the industry needs to create shorter, local supply chains that are more agile, resilient and sustainable.

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Is the Future of Manufacturing Automated or Autonomous? - Entrepreneur

Although virtual estimating is definitely not new to automotive claims the pandemic has dramatically considered its adoption, said Olivier Baudoux, Mitchell International global product strategy and artificial intelligence senior vice president, as he began describing how the claims process has changed in an industry webinar. I think its fair to say, just like the pandemic has taught us a lot that we can be more efficient working from home than working from the office, weve learned that virtual estimating can be efficient and effective. The online event, How Claims Automation is Transforming the Appraisal Experience, was hosted by the Collision Industry Electronic Commerce Association (CIECA) and gave insight on how the claims process will continue adapting through virtual methods.

According to LexisNexis Risk Solutions, 95% of auto insurance carriers are already using or are considering using a virtual claims process. Meanwhile, 79% of carriers are considering the idea of touchless claims.

Transforming Appraisals

Baudoux said virtual estimating is mostly human-driven during the webinar and said the pandemic was a contributing factor to the sudden boost in interest. Especially with social distancing [caused by the pandemic] being able to write an estimate from anywhere comes in handy, but it doesnt have anything to do with artificial intelligence (AI). He added that thanks to technology people are able to use resources, like cloud based systems, to get an appraisal in less than 10 minutes.

Guided Estimating

When human and machines collaborate it drives efficiency without compromising accuracy, according to Baudouxs presentation, and Jimmy Spears, head of Automotive North America for Tractable.

When we think about whats really driving this rapid change theres really four things, said Spears. Number one, it vastly improves the customer experience; number two, AI is now fast; number three, it really helps with the touchless environment that we have; and number four, it really helps people with the increasing complexity of the technology in vehicles to be able to help them really focus on customer service.

Spears said when looking at the overall customer experience millennials should be considered. Why? He said its because they grew up with technology at an instant, and that this new breed of customers is becoming the reality across the board. More customers like to have information faster, as it relates to their vehicle.

I believe that AI can really bring that service up for customers, said Spears.

Automated Estimates

Baudoux simplified automated estimating by using four steps, which are:

By capturing as much data as possible in the first step will allow for the remaining steps to work smoothly, according to Baudoux. He also mentioned that the goal is to standardize the second step.

This will allow for any AI partners to power automated estimates, the set of standards will allow any AI engine to be plugged in, which will drive further automation, said Baudoux.

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Diving Into the Boost for Automation in the Claims and Appraisal Process - glassBYTEs

Kevin Surace, co-founder and CTO of AppvanceAppvance makes a platform called Appvance IQ, or AIQ for short. The platform is all-encompassing web, API and native mobile, functional, compatibility, performance, load, security tests. It becomes a centerpiece of your quality initiative.

We break test creation into two buckets.

In Test Designer, you have a world-class rapid script creator that uses English or JavaScript to write tests at the UX and API level. And, its compatible with every major UI library like React and Angular. We see people create base-level scripts their first day 20X faster than writing in Selenium. Test Designer alone garners a 300% productivity improvement across the QA effort (dev or QA engineers).

RELATED CONTENT:Automated testing is a must in CI/CD pipelinesA guide to automated testing providers

AI-based Autonomous testing is 4 years old and augments specific use cases. You simply train an AI engine to act in certain ways with your web or mobile apps. Once it has learned what is important to you, it builds a baseline of your application and then on each new build it will look for bugs, differences, issues, failed validations. It is data-driven or will create its own data, generating 1000s of tests by itself in minutes. In addition, its able to simulate the flows of real user activities. Everyone who is using this says its a game-changer for quality. Find up to 10X more bugs with 98% less effort.

Guy Arieli, QA CTO, Digital.aiDigital.ai Continuous Testing (formerly Experitest) enables organizations to increase release velocity while providing their customers with satisfying, error-free experiences across all devices and browsers.

With Digital.ai Continuous Testing, users can test their mobile apps remotely from their browsers across 2,000+ real iOS and Android devices, emulators, and simulators hosted in Digital.ais global data centers. Manual testing features full device control, and large-scale automated testing is easily created and run using these cloud-based devices.

Automated and live cross-browser testing capabilities are offered for testing web applications remotely with secure manual interactions. Perform large-scale parallel test execution across real desktop browsers of any type and version.

Digital.ai Continuous Testing also seamlessly integrates with best-in-class tools throughout the DevOps pipeline. The hassles around managing resources like Appium, Selenium, XCUI, Espresso, and Cyprus are removed, and your QA and testing teams can work comfortably and efficiently using the tools they are already most familiar with.

Once your web or mobile app is fully developed, Digital.ais Performance Monitoring tool helps you analyze performance by simulating different servers, measuring transaction duration, and speed index.

Digital.ais Accessibility Testing Cloud features real devices and browsers with full voice, talkback, and gesture support to help ensure that you deliver accessible web and application experiences for people with disabilities. Using the Appium integration, you can even automate your accessibility testing for faster compliance with all international web accessibility standards.

Finally, Digital.ai Test Analytics comes with a complete, consolidated view of the test execution results using advanced testing analytics with AI. Cloud managers can then use the customized dashboards to improve the test automation quality and ensure that scripts are stable.

Learn more about how Digital.ai helps make digital transformation deliver business value with automated testing and more at http://www.digital.ai

Chris Haggan, Product Management Lead, HCL OneTestHCL OneTest supports a DevOps testing approach with UI testing, API testing, performance testing, data fabrication, and service virtualization. The solution is designed to automate and run tests early and more frequently to discover errors faster.

HCL OneTest helps with the connections and dependencies between services and components to help plan integration test strategies. With features like system modelling providing the overall visibility of the system under test architectures to help derive more comprehensive and cohesive tests.

Covering the complete test landscape, from mainframe to mobile, HCL OneTest also includes HCL OneTest Embedded for testing microcontrollers and validating standards conformance, e.g., MISRA-C.

Recent additions to the HCL OneTest platform include cloud-native technologies that offer users a solution that is both secure and offers discoverability of tests to enable simple re-use and collaboration. As an open platform, HCL OneTest enables users to bring existing open-source tests into a single execution environment, retaining the investment in open-source tests, while adding value with HCL OneTests robust reporting and integrated script management.

As part of HCL Software DevOps, HCL OneTest supports a DevOps deployment life cycle through a wide range of integrations. With the increase in value stream management focus for many clients, being able to collaborate with all parts of the delivery life cycle through HCL Accelerate provides the complete transparency teams need.

Dan Belcher, co-founder at mablAt mabl, were focused on solving an essential challenge: enabling software teams to innovate quickly while meeting high customer expectations for quality. In other words to build useful things faster with fewer mistakes. Mabl is the simplest, most capable intelligent test automation solution on the market thats designed to give software testers a centralized platform for end-to-end testing

Mabls low-code interface for test creation and maintenance requires up to 80% less effort than alternatives, improving collaboration and reducing the programming expertise required to write and maintain automated tests. Our auto-healing capabilities harness the power of AI and machine learning to automatically detect changes throughout the UI and update tests accordingly, significantly reducing the burden of test maintenance.

The mabl desktop app also enables users to run browser, API, and local web tests in the cloud or locally through a single unified experience. Rather than worry about recreating a clean testing environment in a new browser every time they start a new test, the mabl app automatically opens a fresh browser, reducing the risk of faulty tests and allowing testers to move faster.

Mabl offers integrations with Slack, Jira, and Postman that make it easy to integrate automated testing into existing workflows, including shift-left initiatives that bring developers into the testing strategy. Additional integrations with tools like Segment allow testers to align automated testing with actual user journeys, making it easier to connect testing success to business success.

Quality professionals are quickly taking on a new and critical role in the enterprise as the keepers of product quality. To do so, they need solutions that enable them to automate routine tasks, embrace a data-driven testing strategy, and focus their talents on high-level quality initiatives. Mabl is the only end-to-end test automation solution designed to meet that challenge.

Mark Lambert, vice president of Strategic Initiatives at ParasoftAccording to a recent Forrester survey, quality continues to be a priority and the primary metric for measuring the success of software deliveries. With the continued pressure to release software faster and with fewer defects, its not just about speed its about delivering quality at speed.

Managers must ask themselves if they are confident in the quality of the applications being delivered by their teams. Continuous quality is a must for every organization to efficiently reduce the risk of costly operational outages and to accelerate time-to-market.

A critical element to reaching your quality targets is a scalable and maintainable automated testing strategy. When automated tests can be easily created and maintained, your team can focus on the overall quality of the application and verify the use cases, rather than the test scripts themselves. Parasoft solutions leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to enable rapid test creation, self-healing, smart test execution, and other capabilities that streamline your test automation workflows.

A leader in the Forrester Wave: Continuous Functional Test Automation Suites 2020 report, Parasoft provides a complete and integrated quality suite. From deep code analysis for security and reliability, through unit, API, and UI test automation, to performance testing and service virtualization, which enable verification of nonfunctional business requirements, Parasoft helps you build quality into your software development process.

Parasofts continuous testing shines in API testing, service virtualization and integration testing, and the combined automation context, Forrester wrote in its Wave report. According to the report, if you are looking for a genuine partner in testing, with strong and long-living roots in the testing space and complex technical systems to test, [you] should take a serious look at Parasoft.

Learn how Parasoft helps increase confidence and accelerate delivery of reliable, secure, and compliant software. http://www.parasoft.com

Anand Sundaram, SVP Products, UI, Device Cloud and Performance Testing at SmartBear SoftwareSmartBears mission for over 10 years, making us leaders in this space, has been to

meet organizations where they are and help them achieve quality. We help primarily in three journeys, serving everyone from manual testers to developers.

First, we help those moving from manual testing to automation. Next, our tools help organizations accelerate by scaling automation as they embrace agile techniques with CI. Then, we help organizations as they shift left and shift right to release, manage, secure, and improve quickly in a DevOps/NoOps context. Our products cover the most critical aspects of quality across the product development lifecycle.

Our suite of Zephyr test management solutions enables teams to deliver quality software, resulting in tighter collaboration, end-to-end visibility, and faster releases.We have tools that enable you to easily create, manage, and execute automated API and UI tests.

The ReadyAPI platform accelerates functional, security, and load testing of web services right inside your CI/CD pipeline, ensuring end-to-end quality for all your web services. Manual

testers to automation engineers can use code or codeless test creation with TestComplete to ensure quality across every desktop, web, and mobile application, including enterprise applications. CrossBrowserTesting and BitBar give testers instant access to thousands of browsers, devices, and configurations to achieve the quality consumers demand.

A common thread that binds our products is the injection of AI/ML to advance test coverage, authoring, maintenance, execution, and collaboration. Our tools easily integrate with each other and with the ecosystem vendors youre already using, so that we can be seamlessly embedded into your workflows.

Clinton Sprauve, director of Product Marketing at TricentisAgile and DevOps have made Continuous Testing essential. Yet, software testing is still dominated by legacy tools and outdated processeswhich dont meet the needs of todays digital transformation initiatives.

Also, enterprises today are still performing over 80% of their testing manuallymostly at the UI layer. As a result, testing occurs late in the software development life cycle, leading to high costs, inefficiency, and delayed innovation. With Tricentis Tosca, customers can achieve over 90% test automation and shift left testing much earlier in the software development life cycle.

One distinctive Tricentis innovation is Vision AI, a next-generation AI-driven test automation technology that allows teams to automate UI test cases independent of the underlying technology.

Through machine learning, Vision AI sees and steers any UI just like a human user, making your automation future proof and as adaptable as the human brain. If you can see it, Vision AI can automate it. This includes anything from an app using now-deprecated technologies to an app using emerging technologies, to apps you access remotely. You can even start building test automation from mockups or whiteboard drawings. This brings a new meaning to test-driven development.

Another key advantage of the Tricentis Continuous Testing platform is that it helps enterprise organizations break through the automation barrier. Companies take automation further by using our complete platform for continuous testing across their UIs, back end, and even their data. With an extensive set of integrated tools for designing, optimizing, and maintaining resilient automation, they achieve scalable, sustainable success.

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How does your company help customers with their automated testing initiatives? - SDTimes.com

SAN MATEO, Calif. & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New research published today by SnapLogic, provider of the #1 Intelligent Integration Platform, reveals that 78% of businesses plan to increase their spending on automation initiatives in the coming 12 months. The new study also found that this increased spending comes after a year in which 48% of IT Decision Makers (ITDMs) already accelerated their automation projects as a result of the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new research, which was conducted across the US and UK, found that cost savings were the primary driver behind new automation initiatives, according to 63% of ITDMs. However, other benefits were cited, with 60% employing automation to increase customer engagement and satisfaction, and 59% using automation to drive employee productivity. Notably, signaling a difference in how the two markets may view the benefits of automation, 63% of US ITDMs adopted automation to grow topline revenues in comparison to just 38% of those in the UK.

In conversation with customers, as well as peers in the industry, its clear that automation has helped many businesses adapt and respond to the disruption caused by COVID-19, said Craig Stewart, CTO at SnapLogic. Automation has not only saved organizations time and money, but its also facilitated faster response times to business demands. This has enabled employees to focus on value-adding tasks over the mundane, repetitive ones, which in turn has helped organizations more quickly meet changing customer expectations. With uptake anticipated to increase in the coming year, it is essential for IT and business leaders to equip themselves with the right strategies, tools, and best practices to implement automation to its full effect.

Automation is occurring within IT and across different lines of business. According to ITDMs, 68% focused their initial projects on automating IT processes before extending their learnings to lines of business. However, again, there were differences between the UK and US respondents, with those in the UK almost four times more likely to focus their first projects on financial processes or sales processes compared to those in the US. But, encouragingly, nearly all (98%) agree that its important to take an enterprise-wide approach to automation rather than rushing into one-off, isolated projects that wont scale.

While businesses acknowledge the benefits of automation and are investing accordingly, there are still hurdles to overcome. When asked if anything was hampering the rollout of their automation initiatives, legacy technology (55%), a lack of internal skills (40%), a shift to remote working (40%), and compliance issues (37%) were called out as the biggest challenges for ITDMs.

Getting the right technology stack in place is essential for those undertaking automation initiatives. The most critical items for that toolkit were an integration platform as a service (iPaaS) solution (54%) and BPM (business process management) technologies (53%). Notably, just 21% called out RPA (robotic process automation) technologies as a required part of their enterprise automation toolkit.

SnapLogics Intelligent Integration Platform uses AI-powered workflows to automate all stages of IT integration projects design, development, deployment, and maintenance whether on-premises, in the cloud, or in hybrid environments. The platforms easy-to-use, self-service interface enables both expert and citizen integrators to manage all application integration, data integration, API management, B2B integration, and data engineering projects on a single, scalable platform. With SnapLogic, organizations can connect all of their enterprise systems quickly and easily to automate business processes, accelerate analytics, and drive transformation.

The research was conducted in February 2021 by 3GEM on behalf of SnapLogic. 400 IT decision makers were surveyed, including 200 in the US and 200 in the UK.

About SnapLogic

SnapLogic powers the automated enterprise. The companys self-service, AI-powered integration platform helps organizations connect applications and data sources, automate common workflows and business processes, and deliver exceptional experiences for customers, partners, and employees. Thousands of enterprises around the world rely on the SnapLogic platform to integrate, automate, and transform their business. Learn more at snaplogic.com.

Connect with SnapLogic via our Blog, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

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78% of IT Leaders Plan to Increase Spending on Automation Initiatives Post-Pandemic - Business Wire

Automation is at the center of a lot business processes for companies looking to enhance their efficiency. As more companies in the Nordic region adopt this growing trend, one ETF to keep an eye on is the Global X FTSE Nordic Region ETF (GXF).

Large enterprises in the Nordics have been implementing business process automation over the last three years, and more organizations now see the urgency of adopting these technologies to stay competitive as COVID-19 strains the regional economy, according to a new report published today by Information Services Group (ISG), a leading global technology research and advisory firm, a Businesswire press release noted.

GXF seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the FTSE Nordic 30 Index. The fund invests at least 80% of its total assets in the securities of the underlying index and in American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) and Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs) based on the securities in the underlying index.

The underlying index is designed to reflect the equity market performance of companies in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. The funds expense ratio comes in at 0.51%.

GXF offers investors exposure to the Nordic region of Europe by investing in securities that trade on the national stock exchanges of the four Nordic countries of Sweden Denmark, Norway, and Finland, an ETF Database analysis said. Since many of the large caps in this fund are likely to be found in other EFA holdings, the fund is not appropriate for investors seeking broad diversification across Europe.

For investors looking for high levels of exposure to the Nordic markets in particular, GXF is probably the best pure play option available, the analysis added.

In early goings of a business cycle, early adopters benefit the most from emerging technologies. GXF companies are reaping the rewards of an agile approach.

The press release noted that Nordics finds banking, financial services and insurance companies have led the region in adopting business process automation, seeking higher productivity, cost savings and improved customer experience. Manufacturing, retail and other sectors are also embracing the technologies, which include conversational AI, natural-language processing and AI for IT operations (AIOps).

Early adopters of automation in the Nordics are stepping up digital transformation to gain an advantage when they need it most, said Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research. We are seeing a majority of service provider customers increasing their automation spending, not despite the economy, but because of it.

For more news and information, visit the Thematic Investing Channel.

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As Automation Expands in the Nordic Region, Look to 'GXF' - ETF Trends

TipRanks

Working the stock market is a data game. Getting the best information, in a timely way, and knowing how to use it, are keys to success. So, here are some numbers to think about. According to industry market research, artificial intelligence companies and products are on the verge of explosive growth. The AI market was valued at $9.5 billion in 2018, over $27 billion in 2019, and is projected to exceed $250 billion in 2027. AI refers to the use of data to simulate human intelligence processes including learning, reasoning and self-correction by machines. AI is making its way into almost every industry. Data collection and collation, automation systems from factories to self-driving cars, even online shopping site they all benefit from AI applications. And this has not been ignored by Wall Street. Analysts say that plenty of compelling investments can be found within this space. With this in mind, weve opened up TipRanks database to find two AI stocks that have gotten the seal of approval from 5-star analysts, stock pros rated among the top 3% of their peers. Lets find out why they recommend these two AI plays. Veritone, Inc. (VERI) The first AI stock we're looking at is Veritone, a software company whose flagship product, an AI-powered operating system called aiWARE, allows the user to coordinate machine learning models and integrate disparate data sources including audio and visual into actionable intelligence results. The system boasts an open architecture, and has been applied in the entertainment, government, legal, and media sectors. At the beginning of March, Veritone released its 4Q20 earnings, showing record quarterly revenue at $16.8 million a year-over-year gain of 35%. The increase was driven by yoy sales gains in aiWARE SaaS, which was up 53%, and Advertising, which was up 50%. However, Veritone stock saw a 49% fall from the peak value it hit in February. Investors liked the strong financials, but there is some worry about the companys future guidance. Management is predicting a non-GAAP net loss in the range of $3.9 million to $4.4 million in 1Q21, and while that represents a 38% improvement at the mid-point from 1Q20, investors do want to see a profit. Roth Capital's 5-star analyst Darren Aftahi, however, thinks this new, lower stock price could offer new investors an opportunity to get into VERI on the cheap. Aftahi sees this stock as a well-positioned AI growth story. VERI put up better 4Q results, but more importantly, accelerating topline growth in both AI SaaS and Advertising (both over 50%). If our assumption about its Content and Licensing business returning to 2019 levels (with modest growth) is correct in 2021, it implies its 2021 guide (which was much better by the way) for advertising and AI SaaS is north of 40% growth (~30% for Advertising and ~low 60%s for AI). Most importantly, its AI SaaS line was guided to 60-65% growth, showing a doubling of growth y/y, Aftahi noted. In line with his comments, Aftahi rates the stock a Buy, and his $50 price target implies growth of 104% in the year ahead. (To watch Aftahis track record, click here) All in all, with a share price of $24.53 and a consensus average price target of $38.75, VERI shares offer investors a chance for 58% share growth this year. The analyst consensus rating, a Moderate Buy, is based on 3 Buy reviews and 1 Sell. (See VERI stock analysis on TipRanks) Verint Systems (VRNT) Verint stock has appreciated 107% over the last 12 months, with a large part of that gain coming in a 31% jump at the beginning of February. That jump came in reaction to the companys split into two entities Cognyte, the spin-off, took on the parents intelligence and cyber operations, while Verint continued as a pure-play, AI-powered customer engagement service. The company uses its combination of market experience and AI and analytic products to enable customers to optimize their automation, knowledge, and workforce. Verints fiscal year 2021 ended on January 31, the day before the split, and the company reported its Q4 and full year results at the end of March. Those results beat expectations for the quarter, with $349 million in total revenue a 3% year-over-year gain. For the full year, however, the $1.27 billion in revenue was a shade below the $1.3 billion reported in the previous year. The Q4 data bodes for the Verint in its pure-play customer engagement incarnation, as those AI cloud sectors grew more than 30% year-over-year in that quarter. Calling Verint a "unique AI engagement company," Oppenheimer's 5-star analyst Timothy Horan sees the new Verint in a strong position to move forward. VRNT reported solid 4Q21 earnings and is now a pure play customer engagement AI company following its split. VRNT is successfully executing its transition to a SaaS/ Cloud model. New perpetual license bookings (PLE) was up 15% this quarter. The transition away from licensed sales is difficult but largely behind it as revenue growth should accelerate from this quarter onward. Cloud demand has seen a healthy 50/50 split between existing and new customers. Getting to the bottom line, Horan adds, It exited the year with strong momentum in cloud and bookings. We think it can continue to sign large cloud deals across contact center and other verticals. These are upbeat comments, and Horan backs them with an Outperform (i.e., Buy) rating, and a $60 price target indicating room for ~32% growth in the next 12 months. (To watch Horans track record, click here) Overall, there is broad agreement on Wall Street that Verint is a stock to Buy, as shown by the unanimous Strong Buy analyst consensus rating. This is based on 6 recent positive reviews. The shares have an average price target of $59.33, suggesting ~30% upside potential from the current trading price of $45.50. (See VRNT stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for AI stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

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Rockwell Automation Stock Appears To Be Significantly Overvalued - Yahoo Finance

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today at the companys virtual product launch event, Klaviyo, the leading customer data and marketing automation platform, unveiled two new products to support the growth and success of its customers, Personalized Benchmarks and Conversational SMS. Personalized Benchmarks is a tool that offers merchants data-driven insights on marketing efforts, comparing performance to their peers, and offers tangible recommendations for improvement. A new version of Klaviyos conversational SMS marketing platform helps online brands to communicate with customers in fast, casual format.

We continually use data to inform and evolve our technology, guiding retailers to better performance and results. Because our platform can bring in and analyze massive amounts of data from ecommerce platforms and about customer engagement, brands are able to create personalized experiences and improve the customer experience, said Andrew Bialecki, co-founder and CEO of Klaviyo. Benchmarking how you are doing against your peers gives relevant insight into where real possibilities lie. Being able to communicate with customers on the platform they prefer helps to deepen frequency and quality of engagement.

Benchmarks for Growth

The Personalized Benchmarks tool is built natively into Klaviyos platform and evaluates the performance of online businesses in comparison to other similar brands. The function was born out of customer requests asking for performance feedback. Previously solved manually via customer service representatives, Klaviyo developed technology to automate and scale these data-driven insights.

Data is aggregated from Klaviyos more than 65,000 global customers, which span from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. A report is created keeping other brands' identities anonymous and is customized for merchants based on six key business attributes: industry, average price point, revenue, growth rate, channel, and frequency. The metrics are delivered via Klaviyos Benchmarks dashboard and offer visibility into where individual businesses are performing strongest, and where there are opportunities for improvement. The tool also offers suggested courses of action. Merchants can better understand how they competitively fare on average order values, open rates, click-throughs and abandoned carts, which can be used to inform and prioritize future marketing efforts.

Comparing your brand to others within your cohort is essential, continued Bialecki. A small business with less than 50 SKUs looking at data and best practices from a Fortune 500 company with thousands of SKUs is irrelevant and useless. By providing a true benchmark, online merchants can make smart decisions and deliver positive results.

Omni-Channel Customer Engagement

Klaviyo empowers entrepreneurs and online businesses to deliver customer experiences that produce measurable results without relying on platforms like Facebook or Amazon. Klaviyo provides direct access to customer data in a single source and allows brands to communicate via multiple channels such as email and SMS from one intuitive platform. Klaviyos SMS marketing product was introduced in 2020 to allow e-commerce retailers a faster, more intimate way to reach customers and initiate conversations when they are most likely to engage with the brand. Today, the addition of Conversations improves the mobile-first experience and further personalizes brand and customer exchanges over SMS. The feature allows real-time text responses within the platform, so retailers dont need to move between various software dashboards to collect information and respond. The functionality is built-in, with data and action residing together on the platform.

Additional Text Messaging updates include:

Headquartered in Boston, Klaviyo employs more than 600 people. It has raised $358.5 million in funding to date, from lead investors Summit Partners and Accel. Klaviyo continues its rapid growth through R&D, hiring, increased sales, customer support and international expansion.

ABOUT KLAVIYO

Klaviyo is a world-leading marketing automation platform dedicated to accelerating revenue and customer connection for online businesses. Klaviyo makes it easy to store, access, analyze and use transactional and behavioral data to power highly targeted customer and prospect communications. The companys hybrid customer-data and marketing-platform model allows companies to grow by fostering direct relationships with customers, without giving up their valuable data to Facebook or Amazon. In 2020, Klaviyo reached coveted unicorn status with a robust Series C of $200m at $4.15B valuation. Over 65,000 innovative companies like Unilever, Custom Ink, and Huckberry sell more with Klaviyo. Learn more at http://www.klaviyo.com.

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Klaviyo Unveils New Marketing Automation Innovations with Personalized Benchmarks Tool and Conversational SMS - Business Wire

Automated Password Resets Benefit Your Entire Organization

What occupies the biggest chunk of an IT staffs time? Its not finding data breach risks, maintaining hardware and software or improving It processes. Heres a hint: its something that requires no special skills, but youre paying handsomely for someone to do it. Heres another: It only takes a few minutes, but it can occupy up to half of a tech staffers day. If you guessed resetting passwords, youre right. Every time someone puts in a ticket for a password reset, youre paying a premium for it. Thats costing you time and money that could be better spent elsewhere and automated password resets enable you to do just that.

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Even though more than 40% of companies need to improve their password practices, most have overlooked the impact that password resets have on their IT teams ability to innovate. Take a look at these numbers to see the awful cascade effect of manual password resets on businesses, especially IT teams.

IT Payroll How much does your lowest paid IT staffer make per hour? Thats how much youre paying for a single password reset. If highly skilled personnel are doing password resets, youre paying even more. Plus, youre paying for someone to do a simple task that doesnt require their level of skill disastrous with huge backlog of pandemic-delayed security work to do. In a world where IT teams are consistently understaffed because of the IT skills gap, thats a tragedy. Tech support services on average cost $70 per hour.

Staff Productivity If an employee is waiting on a helpdesk ticket to reset their password, theyre not working and youre losing revenue. For an average law firm, one tech support ticket for a simple reset password could suck up $500 in revenue. The IT team member doing the resetting is losing productivity too, which is especially onerous because it impacts your IT staffs ability to perform needed maintenance and vulnerability investigation, increasing your risk of a data breach. This productivity loss is even more problematic if everyones working remotely.

IT Employee Retention An average service desk receives 492 tickets per month and up to half are password resets. If your IT employees spend an inordinate amount of time on petty issues like that, theyre not going to be very happy about it. No one wants every day to be Groundhog Day at work. On average, every one of a companys employees is going to call the helpdesk 11 times per year. The number one reason that IT support staff quit is stress, and ballooning ticket volumes play a huge role in that calculation.

Resetting passwords is not going to go away, but you can quickly and cheaply take it off the IT teams plate. Your IT team has enough to do. In a recent survey, more than 80% of IT professionals said that they believe that working in IT will get more difficult in the next 12 months, and 55% said that the stress of working in IT has impacted their physical and mental wellbeing. Cut some of that out by choosing a secure identity and access management solution that includes automated password resets and Passly delivers.

Passly includes an array of features designed with IT team satisfaction and productivity in mind to make their jobs easier and increase your security at the same time.

Make the switch to automated password resets with Passly today to save time, money and headaches. Youll also increase security and cyber resilience. Its a win for everyone. Contact one of our experts to get started.

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*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Blog ID Agent authored by Amelia Paro. Read the original post at: https://www.idagent.com/save-time-and-money-with-automated-password-resets

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Save Time & Money With Automated Password Resets - Security Boulevard

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The subjects of security and privacy continue to provoke passionate debate among users, enterprises and governments alike. With the growth in working from home (WFH), endpoint security is becoming a major concern among enterprises embarking on a digital transformation journey. COVID-19 has forced companies to create remote workforces and operate from cloud-based platforms. These factors have increased the risk of endpoint devices becoming the subject of attacks from malicious actors propagating viruses. The massive shift towards work from home has forced businesses to remodel their business strategies and increase their spending on security. This will lead to increased demand for unified endpoint security solutions post pandemic, as hybrid modes of working become the norm, according to a new Strategy Analytics report, Unified Endpoint Security in a Work-From-Home World.

According to Gina Luk, Principal Analyst, Mobile Workforce Strategies at Strategy Analytics, and author of the report, As the digital economy expands, both in size and complexity, so too do its points of vulnerability that may be subject to attack. The work from home culture presents an opportunity to breach security controls, as companies adapt to this new mode of operating. Many of the security problems plaguing physical networks have translated over to the virtual ones. Therefore, the growing demand for BYOD and work from home policies are creating multiple challenges for IT organizations to provide a secure networking environment. The need for unified endpoint security (UES) is being driven by IT demand for a single console for all security events.

Andrew Brown, Executive Director of Enterprise Research at Strategy Analytics, added In addition, UES complements unified endpoint management (UEM) to provide a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and better operational productivity. This also provides better security outcomes by reducing the complexity for IT to secure devices, improves visibility across all device types, and offers the potential to detect previously unknown threats all within a single console. Furthermore, critical data protection and IoT growth boost demand for endpoint protection in Healthcare, Finance, Telecom, Media, and Technology (TMT), and government sectors.

Moving forward, enterprises should expect a substantial increase in cyber-attacks in 2021, exacerbated by automation, the IoT, cloud growth and 5G. We foresee cybersecurity budgets in 2021 climbing to higher levels than pre-pandemic limits.

The Strategy Analytics MWS Strategies Report Unified Endpoint Security in a Work-From-Home World is available at the link to subscribers.

A complimentary Executive Summary is also available for download here

About Strategy Analytics

Strategy Analytics, Inc. is a global leader in supporting companies across their planning lifecycle through a range of customized market research solutions. Our multi-discipline capabilities include: industry research advisory services, customer insights, user experience design and innovation expertise, mobile consumer on-device tracking and business-to-business consulting competencies. With domain expertise in: smart devices, connected cars, intelligent home, service providers, IoT, strategic components and media, Strategy Analytics can develop a solution to meet your specific planning need. For more information, visit us at http://www.strategyanalytics.com.

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Strategy Analytics: Automation, IoT, Cloud and 5G Accelerate the Growth of Unified Endpoint Security Adoption - Business Wire

The report, titled Global Robotic Process Automation in Finance market defines and briefs readers about its products, applications, and specifications. The research lists key companies operating in the global market and also highlights the key changing trends adopted by the companies to maintain their dominance. By using SWOT analysis and Porters five force analysis tools, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of key companies are all mentioned in the report. All leading players in this global market are profiled with details such as product types, business overview, sales, manufacturing base, competitors, applications, and specifications.

The global Robotic Process Automation in Finance market is expected to expand at a CAGR of +12% over the forecast period 2020-2026.

Top Key Vendors in Market:

WorkFusion, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, UiPath, Thoughtonomy

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Various factors are responsible behind the markets growth trail, which are studied at length in the report. In addition, the report lists down the restraints that are posing threat to the Robotic Process Automation in Finance market.

Different global regions such as North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and India have been analyzed on the basis of the manufacturing base, productivity, and profit margin. This Robotic Process Automation in Finance market research report has been scrutinized on the basis of different practical oriented case studies from various industry experts and policymakers. It uses numerous graphical presentation techniques such as tables, charts, graphs, pictures and flowchart for easy and better understanding to the readers.

Different internal and external factors such as, Robotic Process Automation in Finance Market have been elaborated which are responsible for driving or restraining the progress of the companies. To discover the global opportunities different methodologies have been included to increase customers rapidly.

The reports conclusion leads into the overall scope of the global market with respect to feasibility of investments in various segments of the market, along with a descriptive passage that outlines the feasibility of new projects that might succeed in the global Robotic Process Automation in Finance market in the near future.

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Key questions answered in the report include:

Table of Content:

Global Robotic Process Automation in Finance Market Research Report 2020-2026

Chapter 1: Industry Overview

Chapter 2: Robotic Process Automation in Finance Market International and China Market Analysis

Chapter 3: Analysis of Revenue by Classifications

Chapter 4: Analysis of Revenue by Regions and Applications

Chapter 5: Analysis of Robotic Process Automation in Finance Market Revenue Market Status.

Chapter 6: Sales Price and Gross Margin Analysis

Continue for TOC..

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Latest innovative report on Robotic Process Automation in Finance Market by 2026 with top key players like WorkFusion, Automation Anywhere, Blue...

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Building Automation and Controls Market by Product Type, Offering and Industry Vertical: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2020-2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global building automation and controls market is expected to reach $215.59 billion by 2027 from $101.91 billion in 2019, growing at a CAGR of 11.10% from 2020 to 2027.

Building automation and controls system is an automaticcentralized control system. This system finds application for heating, ventilation, & air conditioning, lighting, and security & access control. Increased demand for energy efficiency and maintaining a secure & safe environment with enhanced user convenience in various industry verticals, such as industrial, enterprises, retail, hospitality, residential, and others, boost the market growth.

The major players in the building automation and controls market are Siemens and Honeywell. This report features information on intelligent building solutions offered by key vendors. Furthermore, the report also highlights the strategies of the market players to improve their market share and sustain the competition.

The global building automation and controls market is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period, owing to the surging need for advanced energy-efficient interventions, growing deployment of building automation systems, and rise in demand for convenient user experience. Moreover, constant development of the supportive regulatory structure and legislative requirements fuel the demand for intelligent building solutions.

In addition, development of smart cities in emerging countries and government initiatives are expected to boost the growth of the building automation and controls market in the coming years. However, lack of interoperability between devices hampers the growth of the building automation and controls market.

The global building automation and controls market is segmented on the basis of product type, offering, industrial vertical, and region. On the basis of product type, the market is divided into HVAC control, lighting control, and security & access control. Based on offering, it is bifurcated into integration and services. Based on industry vertical, it is classified into residential, enterprise, industrial, hospitality, retail, and others.

Region-wise, the building automation and controls market trends are analyzed across North America (the U.S., Canada, and Mexico), Europe (Germany, the UK, France, Italy, and Rest of Europe), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, India, South Korea, and Rest of Asia-Pacific), and LAMEA (Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa). Europe accounted for the highest share, owing to the development of wireless technology and increase in construction of smart cities.

Market Dynamics

Drivers

Restraint

Opportunities

Key Players

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/oyb1eh

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Global Building Automation and Controls Market (2020 to 2027) - Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecasts - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Business Wire

A new informative report on the global DIY Home Automation market, titled as, DIY Home Automation has recently published by Infinity Business Insights to its enormous database. The reliable data of this global market has been gathered through some significant research methodologies such as qualitative and quantitative analysis. It offers a comprehensive analysis of various business factors such as global market trends, shares, revenue, financial and business overview.

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Major Market Players:

Various leading key industries are profiled to get informative data of various successful industries. It also gives data on successful strategies carried out by them. It includes an overview of the company, sales patterns, marketing channels as well as the contact information of the companies.

DIY Home Automation Market -By Application

DIY Home Automation Market By Product

Worldwide DIY Home Automation Market, by Region

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Furthermore, it offers regional outlook of global DIY Home Automation market in the research report. North America, Latin America, Middle East, Asia-Pacific, Africa, Europe, and India have been examined for in-depth elaboration on the global market. It also gives more focus on dominating regions of the global market.

Different key questions addressed through this global research report:

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DIY Home Automation Market Research Report 2021 | Industry Analysis, Share, Growth, Trend and Top Key Players KSU | The Sentinel Newspaper - KSU |...

Twenty-six years on from its launch, Ward Automation remains at the cutting edge of automated production machinery for pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers.

With annual revenues of 8 million and 60 people employed at two facilities in Sligo and Galway, the family-run company continues to invest in robotics, leveraging artificial intelligence to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market.

Now Ward Automation is entering a new phase in its development, following the recent launch of a large-scale automation system for inspecting pre-filled syringes.

The company has designed a robot that can test, label and palletise 600 syringes a minute. For John Ward, its founder and managing director, the move opens up fresh opportunities in new markets.

From a technical point of view, our big focus now is on standard platforms like the syringe inspection machine, Ward said.

Our business to date has been mainly bespoke, where every machine we make is unique. The syringe inspection machine is different. It could potentially be used by any pharmaceutical company manufacturing syringes. Thats a new area for us.

Ward is in the early stages of scoping out potential opportunities for standardised systems like this outside Ireland.

Theres a lot of competition in our market now in Ireland. We are looking at expanding out into other countries, he said.

Building standard platforms we can sell to more than one manufacturer creates opportunities. We want to find out about customers out there who might have a use for the same kind of platforms in their manufacturing.

A mechanical engineer by trade, Ward established Ward Automation in 1995 with his wife Celine. They ran the business starting out from their home in Bundoran, Co Donegal, signing the lease on their first premises in Sligo the following year.

We were one of the first automation companies to set up in Ireland. I suppose I was in the right place at the right time. Id worked for 14 years in technical design and project management for a multinational medical device manufacturer on the west coast, Ward said.

Id seen the amount of automation equipment that was being brought into Ireland from countries like Germany and Italy, and Id gained a lot of experience designing and programming these machines to bring them up to production standard. I thought we could do the same kind of automation here in Ireland.

His very first job was worth IR80,000, he remembers. It was for a traditional CAM assembly machine. It was very basic, because computer controls were at a very early stage, he said.

The type of equipment we build these days is completely different. We use a lot of high-tech integrated systems and robotics for inspection. They have vision systems nearly as good as the human eye.

These machines are what we call Industry 4.0. They know when they need maintenance and they tell you. We have three- to six-axis robots and cobots that can work with people. The technology we work with has changed enormously over the years.

Ward Automations main production site in Sligo is a 20,000 square feet facility in Finisklin Business Park, which opened in 2019 at a cost of 2.5 million.

A smaller 8,000 square feet factory in Galway specialises in equipment for minimally invasive device manufacturers, such as Boston Scientific and Medtronic.

The vast majority of our business, about 80 per cent, is in Ireland. We do business with almost all of the medical device manufacturers based here, Ward said.

We built up the business gradually, starting out with medical devices, and then we moved into the pharmaceutical industry about five or six years ago.

The company has annual revenues of about 8 million. Although just 20 per cent of its sales are outside Ireland, it has worked with clients as far afield as Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Weve done some work in the US and in Germany as well, Ward said. A lot of our exports originate in Ireland. Multinationals here tend to have global sourcing departments. They find out about companies like us through their different sites around the world.

Ward Automation is a client company of Enterprise Ireland, the state agency. Theyve supported the company all through the years, particularly with employment grants and marketing, Ward said.

Weve been supported by a lot of strong staff as well over the years. We hired our first two people back in 1996, and theyre still with us today. We have a lot of people whove been with us for a long time.

Now, at the age of 62, Ward is readying the business for the next generation. Ours is very much a family business, he said.

My wife Celine started the business with me. Our daughter Shauna and Kenny, Aaron and Ashley, our three sons, are all involved as well. Im 62 now, so theyre really running the show at this stage, doing the heavy lifting. Being able to pass the company on to them is very important to me.

Link:

Making It Work: Automation firm stays sharp with robotics for use in pharma industry - Business Post