Monthly Archives: September 2021

Robotic Process Automation, also known as RPA, is an up-and-coming trend in the business world that involves using automated pre-programmed software to perform repetitive and time-consuming daily tasks.

With RPA, businesses can save time and resources that would otherwise be wasted if a human executes such assignments. Even though this technology might sound complex at first glance, most entrepreneurs would probably be surprised by how easy it is to incorporate it into the day-to-day operations of their companies.

In the following article, we describe in detail what RPA is, how it works, and why small business loans can be an excellent alternative to finance implementing these innovative solutions.

The goal of RPA technology is to mimic the actions of a human user by following a set of algorithms that are executed within the boundaries of specific rules. RPA solutions are designed to increase productivity and efficiency as companies can focus their human talent on more strategic tasks while leaving robots to solve and complete the less intricate day-to-day assignments.

One example of how companies are using RPA these days is chatbots. These programmable robots are designed to respond when a customer types specific keywords when interacting with the company through its contact channels.

These bots can be implemented in different platforms, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and web-based live chat software. They serve as a filter to either redirect the customer to the correct representative or reduce the queue by quickly solving the most common or simple queries.

Meanwhile, other businesses have taken things to a whole new level by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into their RPA software via machine learning. The purpose of these solutions is to improve the bots' responses by allowing them to "learn" from previous interactions, patterns, and other available data that the system compiles regularly.

1: Saves money and time

Assign the bot with multiple repetitive and often time-consuming tasks that would have to be otherwise performed by a human. The company can save money in the form of lower payroll expenses. Moreover, bots can filter out and respond to the most straightforward requests while leaving the most complex tasks to a human.

2: Allow the company to focus on strategic assignments

By delegating time-consuming tasks to an automated robot, the company's personnel can focus on matters that contribute to accomplishing the firm's mission and long-term vision. This is particularly advantageous for startups with a low headcount.

3: Increases response times

Robots don't eat lunch, get sick, or take time off. Therefore, they can be available to customers and perform tasks 24/7. That allows the business to deliver faster response times which typically translates into higher levels of customer satisfaction.

4: Tangible return on investment (ROI)

It is easy to measure how profitable an RPA solution can be since business owners can calculate the amount of money saved against the cost of implementing the solution to estimate its ROI.

This facilitates the process of analyzing small business loans as a potential alternative to finance the price of RPA software, as those savings will go toward paying the interest expenditures associated with the loan.

Small business loans can be an appealing alternative to cash-strapped businesses seeking to incorporate RPA technology into their processes. As mentioned earlier, business owners can easily estimate the ROI of these solutions, making it easier to present their case to their co-founders, investors, and team.

Companies like Camino Financial, a California-based online lender, offer flexible loans with flexible repayment periods to fit an RPA implementation project. With the four benefits we previously outlined in mind, entrepreneurs should consider the possibility of applying for this financing alternative to automate their company's processes.

Have you thought about incorporating RPA solutions into your company but don't have the resources to do it? Camino Financial can become your partner in taking your company to the next level. Find out more about their portfolio of loans and other financing alternatives here.

See more here:

4 Reasons Why Your Business Should Invest in Robotic Process Automation - Industrial Distribution

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--FinancialForce, the leading provider of customer-centric business applications across finance, services, and customer success teams, today announced that it will be bringing their ERP and Professional Services Automation (PSA) cloud solutions to organizations on the Salesforce platform in APAC and EMEA region.

As part of this, FinancialForce will be joining hands with Infosys, a global leader in next generation digital services and consulting, to help organizations accelerate transformation projects to run digital businesses and put customers at the center of everything organizations do. As more companies throughout EMEA and APAC seek agility and flexibility for business success, FinancialForce and Infosys will speed access to customer-centric ERP and PSA solutions that allow them to streamline, simplify, and automate operations.

I'm delighted to announce this partnership with Infosys which is critical to our continued expansion across EMEA, said Stewart Monk, VP and General Manager, EMEA, FinancialForce. Infosys' global presence, combined with their Salesforce expertise and the European Fluido practice, creates a fantastic opportunity for delivering value and supporting the growth of our joint customers.

Dinesh Rao, Executive Vice President and Global Head, Enterprise Application Services, Infosys said, Today, digital transformation forms the bedrock of any organization for enabling customer success and furthering business growth. We are pleased to collaborate with FinancialForce as we believe that this will provide a wide range of benefits to enterprises who are looking to navigate the Salesforce ecosystem and embrace the power of FinancialForce's ERP and PSA platform.

FinancialForce ERP Cloud and Professional Services Cloud are built natively on Salesforce and allow companies to connect front and back-office functions around a single customer record and data set, providing a true 360 view of the customer.

About FinancialForce

FinancialForce accelerates business growth with customer-centric ERP, Professional Services Automation (PSA), and Customer Success solutions. Run on the leading cloud platform, Salesforce, FinancialForce enables organizations to see their customers in full color, to unlock customer insights, deliver innovative experiences, run a digital business, and achieve agility and resilience. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in San Francisco, FinancialForce is backed by Advent International, Salesforce Ventures, and Technology Crossover Ventures. For more information, visit http://www.financialforce.com.

Most adopted PSA solution in SPI Researchs 2021 PS Maturity Benchmark; most adopted PSA solution by Technology Services Industry Association in 2020; leader in IDC MarketScape for Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Midmarket Finance and Accounting Applications, 2020; #1 PSA by G2.

See the original post here:

FinancialForce Expands Delivery of ERP and Professional Services Automation in EMEA and APAC - Business Wire

Automation is taking over in a big way. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of ways to automate your life. You can set your phone to stop notifying you at a certain time. There are ways to automatically backup your camera roll. The list goes on and on. Unfortunately, there are only a few way to automate stuff right now. We hope this segment grows more over time because its quite nice when it works right. Here are the best automation apps for Android.

Price: Free

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

Action Blocks is an autmoation app from Google. Its a direct integration with Google Assistant. You can tell the app do a thing at a certain time and Google Assistant performs the task at the appointed time. You can do quite a bit of things like turning your lights and off. It can also do simple things like remind you to call a family member. Basically, it can do what Google Assistant does, but you can determine when it happens. It definitely needs more polish and we hope Google sticks with it. Action Blocks isnt the best option on the list, but its worth a try if you use Assistant a lot.

Price: Free / $3.90

Automate is another decent automation app. It focuses more on basic tasks. For instance, it can text your significant other when you start driving home. Some other functions include automatically uploading files to Google Drive on a schedule, changing your audio volume at night, and other simple stuff like that. It uses a flow chart system and we quite like how easy it is to mess with. There are apps with a lot more power, but this one is surpremely easy to use for easy stuff.

Price: Free / $1.99

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

AutomateIt is a competitor to automation apps like LlamaLabs Automate. It automates a bunch of basic, small things. You can do stuff like change your audio volume at night, enable and disable WiFi, and other basic stuff like that. It boasts dozens of overall functions. You can also see stuff like your stats. It can also do stuff like auto-respond to SMS messages while you drive. The app seems to struggle on some devices and has the occasional bug. Its otherwise pretty good.

Price: Free / $3.99 per month

IFTTT is where we start talking about the big dogs in automation apps. IFTTT is a pretty big deal with an absolute ton of integrations and functions. It can do the simple stuff if you need it. One popular example is downloading Instagram photos whenever they post. However, it integrates with Google Drive, Dropbox, work message things like Slack, and tons of smart home tech like Philips Hue, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and others. The list of things you can do is too crazy to even begin to list. The pro version unlocks more applets but the free version lets you tinker around long enough to figure out if you want to pay for it.

Price: Free / $2.49

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

MacroDroid is an interesting automation app. It uses if-then statements kind of like computer programmers. You can set up some fairly complex tasks. For instance, you can set the app to reject phone calls when you flip your phone face down. These super granular actions are fun to play with and can make a lot of stuff easier. One of the funner ones that actually works is having the app auto-skip every skippable ad on YouTube. It can even do security stuff like snapping a photo every time your PIN is entered incorrectly. Little things like this can improve the user experience quite a bit and even replace some apps in some cases.

Price: $3.49

Tasker is one of the most powerful automation apps for Android. Like IFTTT, it has a crazy number of things it can do by itself. There are also a ton of apps and add-ons that increase functionality. Think of it as a more powerful version of MacroDroid. However, there is a bit of a trade-off. All of that power is quite difficult to harness. The learning curve on this app is pretty intense. There are plenty of videos showing you how to do various things, but its definitely not user friendly at the start. This one is also free via Google Play Pass if you use it.

Price: Free / Varies

A lot of apps have some sort of automation setting for their primary function. There are several good examples. Photo backup apps like Amazon Photos or Google Photos can be set to upload photos automatically when your phone is on WiFi and also on a charger. Most to-do list apps can do recurring tasks that automatically populate when you clear one. Some SMS apps and third party social media apps let you send messages or post updates on a schedule. There are too many of these to list here, but hopefully this gives you an idea to go scouting around the settings menu in some apps to see if there are any native automation features.

Price: Free (usually)

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

One of the most popular examples of automation apps is smart home apps. The whole point of having a smart home product is to improve your experience with basic stuff. That holds true for this list. Philips Hue lights can be set to turn on and off on specific schedules. Smart thermostats can manage your homes temperature in a variety of ways. Even stuff like Amazon Alexa and Google Home can help out by letting you speak directly to your house. Most of these products have automation of some sort.

Price: Free

Even Android OEMs are getting in on the action to some extent. There arent a lot of examples for this and the biggest one is, by far, Samsungs Bixby. Bixby has a Routines function that lets you automate things on your Samsung devices. Its a direct competitor to Googles Action Blocks and Apples Shortcuts. This is a relatively new thing that, again, doesnt have a ton of examples. For now, Samsung owners should check out Bixby Routines. I use the function to turn off fast wireless charging at night to keep my phone cool while I sleep. Thats just one example.

Price: Free

The Android OS has a few things you can automate. Most of the things are doable across every modern Android device. Some examples include turning things like Do Not Disturb and blue light filters on and off at certain times. More modern versions of Android include digital wellbeing features that can trigger nightly to encourage you to turn your phone off and go to bed. Of course, there are classics like Smart Lock that turn your security on and off depending on your GPS location. Its worth digging through your settings menu just to check.

If we missed any great automation apps (or other things), tell us about them in the comments. You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists.Thank you for reading! Try these out too:

Read more from the original source:

10 best automation apps for Android - Android Authority

The major objective of deployingrobotic process automationtechnology is to reduce the amount of time and effort required by people to execute time-consuming and repetitive operations.RPAallows software robots to take over routine activities that would otherwise be performed by clever humans, decreasing mistakes, saving money, and freeing up resources to focus on the most essential tasks that require human interaction. With the combination ofartificial intelligence(AI) andmachine learningtechnologies for its growth, therobotic process automationindustry is booming.RPAdevelopment services and solutions can handle time-consuming, repetitive, and rule-based activities. This implies that when businesses userobotic process automation, they can better allocate their resources and maximize their return on investment. Top RPA predictions and trends for 2022 are listed below.

Security must be a top issue when use cases extend beyond pilot projects andRPAis employed in internal and external operations. Companies will have powerful data sets accessible to acquire critical insights as a result of further optimization throughrobotic process automation. Please keep in mind that this information must be kept private. The security architecture surrounding your operations must satisfy the highest industry requirements, whether its to maintain confidentiality in areas like healthcare or to safeguard consumer data from hackers and identity thieves.

RPAtrends have progressed past the pilot stage with organizations that are devoted to automation this year. Organizations, on the other hand, will struggle to expandRPAacross the company to go from pilot projects to a large digital workforce. The difficulty to grow will be largely due to the high maintenance andRPA support load necessary to serve a large number of automation in production.

Looking at the most recentRPAtrends, its apparent that any firm that has fought automation up until this point has fallen behind. In an increasing number of business domains,RPAis critical for getting the most out of your workforce and streamlining procedures. Even though some organizationsRPAimplementations were a little rough. The number ofRPAsuppliers who are qualified and knowledgeable is growing. As more businesses adopt industry best practices. The types of issues that some people encountered last year while using automation will effectively be a thing of the past.

Because of the high cost ofRPAmaintenance and support, more companies will adopt automation best practices and buildRPAcenters of excellence (CoEs). The rise in popularity of RPA CoEs will help to standardize and controlRPA, reducing bot faults, maintenance, and lost business value when bots are removed from production.

RPAis a type ofrobotic process automationthat follows a set of established rules to automate structured data. However, as technology advances, a component or function ofmachine learningis included in theRPAsystem that prepares SPA bots.RPAbots may also benefit from the capabilities of other developing technologies, likeartificial intelligence (AI)and big data, thanks to SPA.

RPAproviders have exaggerated the simplicity of adoption and automated execution, leaving users and consumers dissatisfied. Despite the claims of majorRPAvendors, it turns out that identifying, designing, and developing robust, automated processes is not straightforward. Organizations will abandon theirRPAsuppliers for alternatives that can deliver on the promises they make in 2022, resulting in a substantial number of competitive account transfers.

RPAwill be more integrated withArtificial Intelligence(AI) andMachine Learningtechniques by 2022. The line between bots and digital workers, such as software, will become clearer.RPAbots will focus on tasks that are based on logged procedures with rules. Meanwhile,AIthat mimics human behavior will aid in the completion of increasingly difficult jobs. This will also aid in connecting automation islands and achieving more seamless process automation and departmental interconnection.RPAs increasing cognitiveAIapp development will also help to prevent bottlenecks. However, this can happen if a UI update isnt instantly incorporated into the bots guidelines for achieving its goal.

Consolidations and acquisitions will rise in 2021 and continue to rise over the next three years. Automation providers will combine their foundations to handle all parts of the robotization value chains usefulness, rather than focusing just on providing the greatest standalone capabilities.

The endeavor to make automation available to citizen developers in 2022 has shown serious issues with automations fragility, security, and value delivery. Greater leniency in IT will be the answer, allowing IT to express greater ownership of shared automation and contribute. Its technical knowledge of automations limits and the complexity ofRPAdevelopment and deployment.

The advantages ofRPAmay lag while businesses deal with frequent maintenance cycles, according to the mobile app development provider. And automation downtime, as well as the importance and maturation ofRPAinitiatives. However, corporations credo of achieving more with less will persist in reaction to the pandemic. Its reasonable to assume that 2022 will be the year when companies finally get it right and turn their attention to better-automated design, planning, and delivery. It does, however, produce the expected returns on the technology.

RPAbots and clever mechanization (AI) solutions have grown more vital in recent years to survive and thrive. In these pandemic and post-pandemic times, organizations must adapt to the circumstances.RPAmay help your company to new heights by allowing you to provide a more personalized and improved client experience.

Continue reading here:

Top 10 Robotic Process Automation Trends and Predictions for 2022 - Analytics Insight

Enterprises lacking automation and discovery are challenged by rogue certificates, unmanaged certificates and outages caused by certificates expiring unexpectedly; leaders are prioritizing automation

LEHI, Utah, Sept. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- DigiCert, Inc., the world's leading provider of TLS/SSL, IoT and other PKI solutions, today released its 2021 State of PKI Automation survey that shows the typical enterprise manages over 50,000 publicly and privately trusted PKI certificates. Manually managing this volume of certificates can lead to costly outages if not handled correctly. Two-thirds have experienced outages caused by certificates expiring unexpectedly and 25% have experienced five to six such outages in the past six months alone. Due to these issues and others, there is strong interest in adopting PKI automation.

DigiCert is the worlds leading provider of scalable TLS/SSL, PKI solutions for identity and encryption. The most innovative companies, including 89 percent of Fortune 500 companies and 97 out of the 100 top global banks, choose DigiCert for its expertise in identity and encryption for web servers and Internet of Things devices. Learn more at digicert.com or follow@digicert.(PRNewsFoto/DigiCert)

Leading organizations are six times more likely to have already implemented automation. They're meeting PKI SLAs and doing a better job at self-reporting deficiencies.

Nearly two-thirds of enterprises are concerned about how much time is spent managing certificates. They also lack visibility. Thirty-seven percent of enterprises use more than three departments to manage certificates, leading to confusion. The typical enterprise says as many as 1,200 of the certificates are actually unmanaged, and nearly half (47%) say they frequently discover so-called "rogue" certificates (certificates that were implemented without IT's knowledge or management).

"The volume of certificates has grown dramatically," said Brian Trzupek, SVP of Product at DigiCert. "Further, validity periods for public TLS certificates have dropped from three years to one year since 2018. As a result, enterprises are finding it increasingly difficult to manually manage digital certificate workflows. They are looking for certificate automation, but need reassurance on how to do it and an understanding of the long-term costs and security benefits."

Story continues

"Service failures due to PKI certificate expiry are a constant risk for all organizations, doubly so now with the shorter required renewal cycle," said Michele Liberman, SaaS Operations Manager at Smart Communications. "There are high overheads for managing certificates, as each one needs to be monitored for expiry, requested, created and deployed. Automating to reduce risk and internal engineering grind makes great business sense."

Most enterprises are considering PKI automation, with 91% at least discussing it. Only 9% say they are not discussing it and have no plans to do so. Most (70%) expect to implement a solution within 12 months. A quarter (25%) are actually at the stage where they're already implementing or maybe even finished implementing a solution.

Not All Enterprises are the Same

The survey included a series of questions to determine how well (or poorly) each respondent was doing across a wide range of PKI metrics. After the scores were totaled, the respondents were split into three groups:

Leaders: Organizations that are doing the very best

Laggards: Organizations that are doing the worst

Middle: Organizations that are doing okay

The Leaders and Laggards were then compared to examine the differences and explore what the Leaders were doing better.

Leaders are performing two to three times better than Laggards in every area, including minimizing PKI security risks, avoiding PKI downtime and meeting PKI-related SLAs. Laggards are seeing a wide range of PKI-related penalties, including lost productivity, compliance issues, loss of customers and even lost revenue.

Lessons from PKI Leaders

PKI Leaders are more likely to say PKI automation is important to their organization's future. Further, PKI Leaders are twice as concerned about the time it takes to manage PKI certificates. Learn more in the report about what Leaders are doing and the difference it's making in their business.

Recommendations

DigiCert recommends that companies begin to address automation of their certificate management processes, including their business workflows, to ensure they continue to adhere to best practices in PKI deployments. This includes the following:

Certificates:

Identify and create an inventory of the entire certificate landscape, from TLS to code signing, client certificates and more.

Remediate keys and certificates that are not compliant with corporate policy.

Protect with best practices for issuance and revocation. Standardize and automate enrollment, issuance and renewal.

Certificate Workflows: Address unmanaged or manual certificate workflows, such as code signing, document signing, email certificates or other identity and access solutions, with software that centralizes visibility and control and automates workflows.

The survey was conducted by ReRez Research of IT professionals within 400 enterprise organizations of 1,000 or more employees in North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific and Latin America. For more information and to get the full report, visit https://www.digicert.com/campaigns/pki-automation.

About DigiCert, Inc. DigiCert is the world's leading provider of TLS/SSL, PKI and security solutions that enable digital trust for data, devices, code, documents and users. DigiCert is modernizing the way PKI is managed with the DigiCert ONE platform. DigiCert ONE reimagines PKI to address all certificate-based security use cases with flexible, scalable and automated workflow managers, including the award-winning TLS certificate manager, CertCentral. Nearly 90% of the Fortune 500 and 98 of the 100 largest global banks choose DigiCert for its digital transformation solutions, including for securing 5G and the post-quantum computing age, and for its five-star customer support. For the latest DigiCert news and updates, visit digicert.com or follow @digicert.

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/digicert-2021-state-of-pki-automation-survey-finds-companies-are-struggling-with-reliance-on-manual-processes-amid-growing-volume-of-digital-certificates-301386125.html

SOURCE DigiCert, Inc.

See the rest here:

DigiCert 2021 State of PKI Automation Survey Finds Companies are Struggling with Reliance on Manual Processes Amid Growing Volume of Digital...

Cummins has been awarded $5 million from the US Department of Energy (DOE) Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office for the automation of solid oxide electrolyzer cell (SOEC) and stack assembly. This project furthers the companys efforts as a leader in alternative power and a pioneer in green hydrogen technologies.

Cummins three-year project aims to automate the manufacturing of SOECs to make production of the electrolyzer systems more efficient, reducing capital costs and facilitating the scale-up of the hydrogen economy.

We believe green hydrogen will be critical to a decarbonized future, particularly for hard-to-abate sectors. To dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet ambitious climate goals, we must invest now in scaling electrolyzer manufacturing and green hydrogen production to create a viable zero-emissions ecosystem. Rapid innovation like this will drive the acceleration of the energy transition in the United States and globally.

Amy Davis, Vice President and President of New Power at Cummins

SOECs are one of three primary types of electrolyzers, which function differently based on the electrolyte used to facilitate the electrolysis process. Proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzers use a solid polymer electrolyte, and alkaline electrolyzers use an electrolyte solution, such as potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide mixed with water. Cummins currently manufactures both PEM and alkaline electrolyzers.

SOECs are the third type of electrolyzer, which use a solid ceramic electrolyte. SOECs operate at much higher temperatures than PEM and alkaline electrolyzers, giving this technology the potential to become more efficient, especially when coupled with industrial processes that utilize steam or high-grade heat. This makes SOECs a potentially important tool in efforts to decarbonize industrial sectors, such as steel production and e-fuels such as ammonia.

When any type of electrolyzer is powered by renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar or hydro, it produces green hydrogen. This green hydrogen is a carbon-free fuel source that can be used in a variety of applications and industries.

The aim of the Cummins project is the automated assembly of an SOEC stack with low direct labor input, increased cell throughput and a 100% quality control check. Following successful development, the automation concept should enable more than 100 MW of electrolyzer production capacity.

The DOE is funding 31 projects that advance next-generation clean hydrogen technologies, totaling $52.5 million. The Cummins project is one of 19 of these projects supported by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) that are related to hydrogen and fuel cell research and development. The DOE is funding the Cummins project in the amount of $5 million, the largest award of these 19 projects.

These projects also support the DOEs recently announced Hydrogen Energy Earthshot to reduce the cost and accelerate breakthroughs in the clean hydrogen sector. All 31 projects focus on bridging technical gaps in hydrogen production, storage, distribution and utilization technologies, thereby paving the way toward decarbonization of the electricity sector by 2035.

The Cummins project award complements additional funding the company received from the DOE to support the development of a high-power density inverter, continuing the companys innovative work to find additional ways to reduce emissions across global power and energy solutions.

Link:

DOE awards Cummins $5M for automation of electrolyzer cell and stack assembly - Green Car Congress

LAS VEGAS Demand for packaging solutions is up as the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry tries to keep pace with consumer demand and lagging labor. At Pack Expo Las Vegas, held Sept. 27-29, Jorge Izquierdo, vice president of market development at PMMI, reported that the packaging and processing industry in the United States had grown 14.4% in 2020, much of it driven by food and beverage.

There are mainly two things driving the growth. No. 1 is consumer demand, their behaviors shifted, they were buying more and more at supermarkets and less at restaurants, so that would be No. 1, he said. No. 2 is workforce. As you know workforce has been a challenge in manufacturing for a number of years. Maybe you noticed in the last ten years workforce has been a challenge. In the last five years, the challenge has been significant, in the last year it has been unbelievable. So there has been a level of investment to just keep productivity levels.

As CPG companies grapple with these two challenges, = much of their priorities for packaging solutions in 2020 revolved around flexibility, protecting employees from the coronavirus and maintaining productivity by investing in automation. Today, those priorities have shifted to an emphasis on resolving the workforce challenge with more automation.

Intuitive equipment that trains operators faster is gaining relevance, Mr. Izquierdo said. With all these challenges, CPGs are asking equipment manufacturers to provide equipment that someone they grab off the street can come in and run. Thats not an easy challenge, and so what were finding is more intuitive equipment and more remote service and training.

Today in 2021, Mr. Izquierdo reported that the industrys appetite for investment is still strong even as it has slowed some in the third quarter.

Were still experiencing significant growth this year, and well probably still see double-digit growth this year, and were expecting a very healthy 2022-23, he said.

More:

Packaging industry healthy with CPG appetite for automation - Baking Business

B

lue Prism, the software firm that helped the NHS order PPE during the pandemic, is set to be sold for 1.1 billion in the latest takeover of a UK tech company by a foreign buyer.

The developer, which builds software to automate back-office tasks like invoicing and compliance checks, has reached a deal with US tech backer Vista to go private at 1125p per share.

As part of the all-cash deal, Blue Prism will merge with another Vista-owned software business, TIBCO.

Vista has triumphed over TPG Capital, which also held takeover talks with the AIM-listed firm. The winning offer represents a 35% premium to Blue Prisms undisturbed share price.

Blue Prisms board is recommending shareholders approve the deal. It so far has support from investors holding just under a quarter of the stock. Shares, which have soared since the company disclosed deal talks a month ago, dipped 2.8% to 1155p today.

Investors will no doubt have hoped for more, Jefferies analysts said.

Blue Prism was founded in Warrington in 2001 and listed on AIM in 2015. It has grown rapidly and now works with companies including EY, Jaguar Land Rover, Siemens, and Google. Last year, its software helped automate pandemic PPE ordering for the NHS.

The deal to go private comes as Blue Prism faces increased competition from the likes of Microsoft and UiPath.

UiPath, which was founded in Romania in 2005, raised $1.3 billion in an IPO on New Yorks Nasdaq in April. It is currently valued at $27 billion.

Blue Prism chairman and CEO Jason Kingdon said going private would help the company remain at the forefront of the next generation of intelligent automation by giving the business greater access to capital to pursue new growth opportunities.

Kingdons stake in the business means a sale would net him roughly 65 million, while co-founder Alastair Bathgate is in line for just over 50 million.

It is the latest in a growing number of British companies being sold to overseas buyers as foreign investors take advantage of depressed valuations.

Vista manages $81 billion and only invests in enterprise software businesses. US-based TIBCO, one of its companies, sells data management and analytics software and works with over 10,000 companies around the world, including 50% of the worlds 500 biggest businesses.

Together, Blue Prism and TIBCO will provide access to a suite of Intelligent Automation capabilities to help accelerate digital transformation, TIBCOs chief executive Dan Streetman said.

See the original post:

NHS automation firm Blue Prism in 1.1 billion US buyout - Evening Standard

Empowers fusion teams - IT and citizen developers- to collaborate on automation projects and access Bonita resources via a "one-stop-shop"

SAN FRANCISCO, September 28, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bonitasoft, the leading open-source digital process automation company, today announced the launch of its new open-source digital process automation platform, Bonita, where the new Bonitasoft Customer Service Center will be managed and continuously improved.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210928005493/en/

The new Bonitasoft Customer Service Center, built on the Bonita digital automation platform, consolidates resources in a "one-stop shop" for an improved user experience (Photo: Bonitasoft)

The new version of the platform offers an expanded set of innovative features to fully support Bonitasofts unique low-code approach: to provide an open, extensible process automation platform that separates coding tools from modeling tools so both developers and citizen developers / business users can use the open-source Bonita platform in ways appropriate to their specific needs.

For example, Bonita applications are now composed of a set of extensions (connectors, REST API extensions, themes, actor filters) that can all be built externally to the platform, using the Bonita Software Development Kit (SDK) and managed in each application using Maven.

For developers, this means that they can use the Bonita SDK with their preferred tooling to build and import any extension. Testing for each extension individually is now possible, making Bonita projects more robust. And as the extensions are no longer bound to a specific Bonita project, they can be easily reused, adding to developer efficiency.

On the side for citizen developers, they are now free to use the drag-and-drop, BPMN-based modeling and design tools to model and add business elements to processes with no worry about interfering with the developers work as the coding and technical development is done outside Bonita Studio.

Story continues

"The Bonita process automation platform is ideal for cross-functional, multidisciplinary, agile fusion teams with different levels of technical skills," said Miguel Valdes Faura, Bonitasoft CEO and co-founder. "Business folks, like the project managers on the Customer Service Center (CSC) team, are able to model, work on business data, build business rules, design user interfaces, and more in Bonita Studio while the developers use Bonita software development kits to independently create integrations and extensions, on their preferred tooling."

Bonitasofts new Customer Service Center was developed in-house on the Bonita Cloud digital automation platform. The Customer Service Center is the main communication hub between Bonitasoft and several very different types of end users of the Bonita digital automation platform. Developers, system architects, business users and others needed a central place to quickly find resources such as Bonita updates, downloads, access to licenses, technical support, questions about "how to do" something, request for training or additional services, access to documentation, release notes, videos, and "whats new."

Development of the cloud-based Customer Service Center using PaaS infrastructure presented some typical technical challenges. But as the Bonita platform offers wide extensibility, the Customer Service Center automation project team succeeded by leveraging technologies such as containers, custom and native Bonita connectors, REST API extensions, SDKs, and Java Functions. Its implementation leverages full containerization (using Docker) and orchestration (via Kubernetes) supported by Bonita Cloud.

"Our one-stop Customer Service Center is a simple, practical tool for Bonita developers and business users," says Shamil Hassanaly, Chief Customer Officer at Bonitasoft. "They deserve an easy-to-use, fully loaded place to find what they need when they need it."

Further, the new Bonita release offers a solid set of customizable Bonita user applications for its different types of end users: internal application users like employees; external application users like customers; process and applications administrators; and platform administrators:

The Bonita Applications Directory, which shows the list of all the Bonita applications a logged-in user can access and use

The Bonita User Application, accelerates development with a starting point for customized interfaces for any type of end user

The Bonita Administrator Application with all the resources process and applications administrators need to manage deployed applications

A Super Administrator application, with all the resources platform administrators need to manage the Bonita platform

The Bonita Community open-source edition includes all capabilities required to develop and deploy process automation projects and can be downloaded here.

About Bonitasoft

Bonitasoft fully supports digital operations and modernization of information systems with Bonita, an open-source and extensible platform for automation and optimization of business processes. The Bonita platform accelerates development and production with a clear separation between visual programming and coding capabilities. Bonita integrates with existing information systems, orchestrates heterogeneous systems and provides deep visibility across all enterprise processes.

# # #

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210928005493/en/

Contacts

Press Contact Holly Hagerman801.373.7888 office801.368.6928 mobilehollyh@connectmarketing.com

Visit link:

Bonitasoft Introduces New Innovative Features and Customer Service Center to Help Application Teams Automate and Optimize Business Processes - Yahoo...

SCOTTSDALE, AZ, Sept. 28, 2021 OIP Robotics, an Outsource Insurance Professionals entity, announced its partnership with HyperScience, bringing unmatched data extraction capabilities to their automation portfolio.

HyperScience is an industry leader in data extraction software and a technology company blazing a new path in enterprise automation with a fresh approach to building and powering processes. The Hyperscience Platform is the worlds first Software-Defined, Input-to-Outcome Automation platform used by top public companies and government organizations around the world to build and run mission-critical processes with ease and speed.

Hypersciences Intelligent Document Processing solution has been implemented at some of the worlds leading financial services, healthcare, and government organizations, including TD Ameritrade, QBE Insurance Group Ltd and Voya Financial. Lowered costs, reduced error rates by 67% and increased employee capacity by 10x are just a few benefits realized. The partnership with OIP Robotics opens the door to the E&S industry, where this segment of the insurance space has been lacking advanced technology such as this. Hypersciences AVP of Global Alliances, Matt Grantham shared, We are excited to be partnering with OIP. Together, we will very quickly help boost efficiency at insurance firms by radically improving organizational agility and accelerating digital transformation. OIP joins our growing list of partners in the BPO space and we look forward to helping create better outcomes for their customer base and their customers end customer.

Integration into our existing systems will enable our clients to automate the entire Data Extraction Process from the Intake Point to Preparing the Data for processing with over 99% accuracy and up to 95% automation, stated Nemanja Jokic, Director of Business Technology. He continues, Hyperscience together with our technology can do something RPA hasnt easily achieved create systems that can learn from humans and improve on their own; systems that know when to loop in humans and when to leave them out of a process, in a way that doesnt require a heavy touch from outside personnel.

About OIP Robotics:OIP Robotics is a technology company specializing in E&S Insurance. We help our clients drive better business outcomes with technology that produces measurable results and passes the adoption barriers. By specializing in excess and surplus lines insurance, weve developed an expertise and stellar reputation as the go-to team for cutting edge technology specifically designed with our industry in mind.

About HyperScience:The Hyperscience Platform enables organizations and government agencies to automate data-centric, mission-critical processes. Our mission is to connect human and artificial intelligence to solve tomorrows automation challenges today, creating better outcomes for customers, companies, and the world.

Media Contact:Shawnae Bentley, Director of Sales & Client RelationsEmail: shawnaeb@oip.bz | Direct: 602-753-0679

Topics Mergers InsurTech New Markets

Get automatic alerts for this topic.

Read more here:

OIP Robotics and HyperScience announce partnership to bring data extraction to their automation portfolio - Insurance Journal