Archive for July 15, 2021

New Procore ERP Connector Platform Provides Real-Time Insight on Financial Health of Construction Projects

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 15, 2021 by itnerd

Procore Technologies, Inc., today announced the availability of its global ERP Connector platform, along with four new Procore-built accounting integrations.

Now companies can obtain real-time insight into the financial health of their construction projects through centralized, accurate data that connects all of their stakeholders. They can easily connect their enterprise resource planning system of choice to Procore Financial Management, a project cost management solution.

According to the 2020 Construction Technology Report, over 50% of companies are still relying on spreadsheets to manage ERP workflows. This can lead to double-data entry, costly mistakes, and can create a delay in delivering data back to the accounting team – potentially impacting subcontractors’ payment, account reconciliation, and change order processing because decisions are being made based on incomplete data sets.

Customers wanting to use an integration sold directly by Procore now have a choice of nine connectors to choose from. These include four new connectors for Sage, MRI, Acumatica, and Yardi, as well as five previously built connectors for Sage 300 CRE, Sage 100 Contractor, Quickbooks Desktop, Viewpoint Vista, and Viewpoint Spectrum.

Both customer developers and third-party app developers can use the Procore ERP Connector platform to build integrations that leverage the same functionality that Procore-built accounting integrations deliver, so their field and office teams can collaborate in real time.

Learn more about the Procore ERP Connector platform in this blog post and on the Procore website.

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TELUS Is Canada’s Fastest Mobile Network In Q2

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 15, 2021 by itnerd

Ookla’s most recent Speedtest Market Analysis report once again ranked TELUS the Fastest Mobile Network in Canada with a Speed Score of 82.93. 

This recognition from Ookla accompanies the significant, sustained accolades TELUS has earned over the years with respect to our world-leading wireless network:

Please see the report HERE for details.

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Two-Thirds Of Canadian Consumers Return To Brands Who Treat Them As An Individual: OpenText

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 15, 2021 by itnerd

New research from OpenText reveals the extent to which the pandemic has changed customers’ expectations of brands, and the increasingly important role of a streamlined digital experience post-COVID.

The new data – from a survey of 2,000 Canadian respondents – reveals that 68% of Canadian consumers are more likely to buy again from brands which treat them like an individual, rather than the same as any other customer. This demand for brands to engage with customers as an individual is mirrored across the United States (67%) and Europe – in Italy (70%), Spain (63%), France (59%) and Germany (55%). 

Four out of ten (45%) Canadian consumers only buy from brands that make them feel they understand their preferences, such as communicating with them through their favourite channels or providing tailored deals. 

Customer Experience is King

More than half (59%) of Canadian consumers would be put off buying again from a brand due to a bad experience. In fact, five out of ten (56%) do not believe there is such thing as a ‘customer for life’ anymore in 2021, suggesting that brands cannot rely on customer loyalty stretching far enough to recover from bad experiences.

Creating a frictionless experience for customers is key to providing a good experience. When buying products or services online, nearly three out of four (77%) Canadian consumers say that an easy search is very important to them. Furthermore, half (47%) prefer to shop with brands that auto-fill and remember their details for next time. There is, however, pressure on brands to store that data correctly: more than half (60%) would even be willing to pay more to do business with a brand that is committed to protecting their personal data.

The importance of digital in a post-COVID world

For 53% of Canadian consumers, the pandemic has changed their expectations of what a brand’s digital offering should be. One fifth (23%) won’t use brands if their experience isn’t excellent when buying online.

Nearly half (48%) are now more comfortable with digital only businesses as a result of the pandemic. For more than 4 in 10 (46%) Canadian consumers, a personalized digital experience is now vital to them if they are to come back to a brand time and time again.

The research also reveals consumer perspectives on which organizations have risen to the challenge of providing an optimal experience during the turbulence of the last year. Four in 10 (40%) say bigger established brands have been able to offer a smoother digital experience than smaller ones during the pandemic.

Methodology

This research was conducted by 3Gem in April 2021. Commissioned by OpenText, 27,000 consumers were anonymously surveyed globally, across the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, USA, Canada, Brazil, Japan, India, Australia and Singapore. 

The Canadian research polled 2,000 respondents to uncover consumer perspectives around customer experience, the role of digital and how the pandemic has impacted their expectations.

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ServiceNow Transforms Hybrid Work With New Solutions To Help Offices Reopen Smoothly  

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 15, 2021 by itnerd

ServiceNow today announced updates to its Workplace Service Delivery solution to support employees and facilities teams in an increasingly hybrid work environment that demands flexible, agile workplace service management applications. ServiceNow gives employees a consumer-grade mobile experience to reserve workspaces, conference rooms and services and navigate workplaces. For businesses, ServiceNow’s Workplace Service Delivery solution provides the data and insights needed to better inform real estate costs and optimization.  

ServiceNow’s Workplace Service Delivery solution addresses a rapidly growing and urgent need for companies and employees to reopen offices and return to workplaces smoothly. Multi-channel, native mobile solutions automate requests, reservations and repairs so employees can focus on meaningful work.  

New features of Workplace Service Delivery include:  

  • Intelligent and intuitive reservation capabilities in the Workplace Reservation Management application for a consumer-grade reservation experience. 

    With many organizations prioritizing workspace hoteling over permanent seats in the new hybrid work environment, employees need to be able to easily make reservations for workspaces and workplace services.   
      
    Workplace Reservation Management already makes it simple for employees to reserve workspaces, desks and conference rooms. New native mobile capabilities make it even easier for employees to request these spaces. The updates also improve the self-service experience for employees as they book workspaces with single-click reservation capabilities. Additionally, a new prompt feature recommends adding requests and services – like catering or room configurations – while making a reservation.    
  • New space utilization capabilities within the Workplace Space Management application help facilities teams optimize real estate spend. 

    In the hybrid workplace, it’s critical that facilities teams have real-time access to data about space utilization to efficiently design workspaces and maximize real estate investments. If facilities teams understand how many employees are coming into a workplace on a given day, month or year, they can make more informed decisions about the office layout, how many buildings or floors need to be open, how much food and drink should be available in a kitchen, and workplace cleaning schedules.    
      
    With the new space utilization capabilities, the Workplace Space Management app provides facilities teams with a single solution to measure and define spaces as flexible or permanent and retire old spaces to optimize a company’s real estate portfolio.  
  • Enhancements to the Workplace Space Mapping application for better wayfinding throughout the office.Many employees returning to an office may be unfamiliar with new office layouts, while others who were hired during the pandemic have never set foot in the office. New mapping enhancements help employees locate permanent or reserved workspaces, find and reserve conference rooms or workspaces near teams, and navigate their work campus with ease.   

ServiceNow has been at the forefront of COVID response since the start of the pandemic, releasing Emergency Response apps in March 2020 to help ensure business continuity and the Safe Workplace Suite in May 2020 to manage employee health and safety. With Workplace Service Delivery, ServiceNow is powering the new world of work by delivering workflows that support flexible and agile ways of working.   
  
COVID evolves ENMAX’s digital transformation journey   

While Canadian-based power company ENMAX has been on a digital transformation journey for years, COVID forced the company to evolve their strategy. ENMAX built a four-phased plan to respond to COVID, including a React Phase to enable people to safely work from home, an Adjust Phase to enable a partial, safe return, and an Adapt Phase, which extended work from home while ensuring critical on-site staff could safely work in the office or in the field.   

ENMAX leveraged ServiceNow along the way, including Workplace Reservation Management and Virtual Agent, to safely manage workspace reservations for more than 2,200 employees and contractors.  

The fourth and final phase, the Advance Phase, will enable the workplace of the future with ServiceNow as the Platform powering digital transformation across the enterprise.  

ServiceNow uses Workplace Service Delivery to define the new world of work  

As ServiceNow returns its own employees to the workplace, Workplace Service Delivery and the Safe Workplace Suite are essential to support a safe, frictionless return.   

ServiceNow will leverage Workplace Service Delivery to help manage its distributed workforce and define the new world of work for its own employees, starting with Workplace Reservation Management to help employees reserve desks, conference rooms and other workplace services as well as Workplace Case Management and Workplace Visitor Management. In the future, Workplace Space Mapping will give employees access to interactive floor maps to navigate office layouts.  

It’s estimated that Workplace Reservation Management has the potential to help ServiceNow employees and workplace services teams save a combined 109,000 hours a year once all ServiceNow offices are at full capacity. 

Availability and additional information  

  • Enhancements to Workplace Reservation Management and Workplace Space Management are expected to be available in Q3.  
  • Enhancements to Workplace Space Mapping are available now.  

Read about how ServiceNow’s new integration with Microsoft Windows 365 streamlines hybrid work and provides a powerful end-to-end employee experience:  

Read more about how ServiceNow and Microsoft, together, are transforming the employee experience and improving business outcomes:  

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Bell Partners with Google Cloud To Deliver Next-Generation Network Experiences For Canadians

Posted in Commentary with tags , on July 15, 2021 by itnerd

Bell Canada and Google Cloud today announced a strategic partnership to power Bell’s company-wide digital transformation, enhance its network and IT infrastructure, and enable a more sustainable future. This new, multi-year partnership will combine Bell’s 5G network leadership with Google’s expertise in multicloud, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI), to deliver next-generation experiences for Bell customers across Canada.

As a strategic technology partner, Google Cloud will enable Bell to drive operational efficiencies, increase network automation, and deliver richer customer experiences through the following initiatives:

  • Shifting critical workloads to the cloud: By moving and modernizing IT infrastructure, network functions, and critical applications from on-premise to Google Cloud, Bell will be able to drive greater operational efficiencies and enable better application performance.
  • Unlocking multicloud, next-generation network technology: With the combined power of Bell’s 5G network and Anthos, Google Cloud’s multicloud solution, Bell will deliver a consistent customer experience with greater automation and enhanced flexibility that scales with customer demand. The increased speed and bandwidth capacity of the Bell 5G network will support applications that can respond faster and handle greater volumes of data than previous generations of wireless technology.
  • Leveraging the power of AI, data and analytics: Bell will leverage Google Cloud’s expertise in AI and big data to gain unique insights through real-time network data analytics that will enhance the customer experience, improve service assurance, and assist with network capacity planning.     
  • Joining forces on a sustainable future: Bell and Google share a common goal to run more sustainable businesses. As the cleanest cloud in the industry, Google Cloud will contribute to Bell’s target of achieving carbon neutral operations by 2025, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.

As demands on mobile networks evolve and increase, Bell and Google Cloud will collaborate throughout the next decade on new innovations, including cloud solutions for enterprise customers and consumers powered by Google edge solutions, and enhanced customer service through automation and AI. In addition, the two companies will look at new ways to expand Bell’s existing partnership with Google to evolve the network experience and introduction of next-generation services across residential, mobile, and more.

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Guest Post: Atlas VPN Notes That Personal Data Compromises Have Surged By Almost 40% In Q2, 2021

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 15, 2021 by itnerd

Millions of individuals and organizations are affected every day by cyberattacks that threaten to steal sensitive data.

According to the recent Atlas VPN team findings, personal data compromises are up 38% in Q2 over Q1 2021. Healthcare and financial services remain one of the most targeted sectors by hackers as they can benefit from stolen data or a paid ransom.

During the first quarter of 2021, ITRC recorded 355 total compromises. February was the most hurtful as over 35 million people were impacted across 111 cyberattacks.

In the second quarter of this year, ITRC recorded 491 threats. Despite the increase in data compromises, the number of victims decreased by 20% when comparing both quarters.

June had the most threats by far — 203. However, at the same time, the lowest number of individuals were affected during this month — nearly 7 million.

Cybersecurity writer and researcher at Atlas VPN William Sword shares his thoughts on the increase of cyberattacks:

“Cyberattacks on various industries continue to grow as hackers keep evolving their attack techniques and becoming more viscous. Adding cybersecurity measures such as firewall or antivirus to your devices and educating yourself on how most hacks work would help to decrease cyber threats tremendously.”

Most targeted sectors

Hackers usually target those businesses that do not have implemented good cybersecurity practices.

The healthcare industry continues to be one of the most targeted, as it suffered 162 data compromises in the first half of 2021. Disrupted services could lead to delayed care to patients, so most hospitals end up paying the ransom.

The second most attacked industry was financial services, which experienced 132 threats. Cybercriminals specifically target this sector as they can demand a bigger ransom or steal valuable consumer data such as credit card information.

Next up, the manufacturing and utility industry recorded 98 incidents. The attacks on this sector have recently been growing due to more companies using more automation and Internet-of-Things technologies across the production chain.

Following after, the professional services sector experienced 75 compromises. The primary factor for attacks is that such businesses usually have access to confidential and sensitive client information.

To read the full article head over to: https://atlasvpn.com/blog/personal-data-compromises-surge-by-almost-40-in-q2-2021

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Microsoft Launches Windows 365 So That You Can Run Windows In The Cloud

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 15, 2021 by itnerd

Forget having a virtual machine on your Mac or Linux computer to run Microsoft Windows. Simply run Windows in the cloud. That’s what Microsoft is pitching with their announcement of Windows in the cloud which Microsoft calls Windows 365. Aimed at enterprise customers, Windows 365 will allow users to install their favorite Windows apps and experiences in the cloud, and access them from any device they choose. Cloud PCs will support “instant-on” start up, and will be available via subscription at a flat rate.

It sounds interesting. And it’s likely going to be a good revenue stream for Microsoft. You can expect it to launch on August 2nd. Though I am wondering when it will hit consumers. Because you know it will. And I also wonder how companies like VMware and other companies who do virtual desktops will react.

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