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New Report Finds 60% of Businesses Report Losing Up to 15% or Greater in Revenue Due to Supply Chain Delays

Anvyl 2023 Supply Chain Outlook Examines Persistent Challenges Facing Businesses Across Industries

As businesses across industries continue to navigate severe staffing challenges, consumer shifts, and materials shortages, 60% of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) report that they have lost up to 15% or greater in revenue due to supply chain delays. This is one of the significant findings from the 2023 Supply Chain Outlook, commissioned by Anvyl, the leading platform for supply chain visibility.

The above figure includes 31% of businesses who’ve reported financial losses of up to 15%, and 29% who’ve reported losses greater than this. The Outlook also found that 56% of organizations have had to switch suppliers in the past year, with “costs” and “consistent delays” being the most cited reasons why.

Anvyl’s data shines a light on the struggles experienced by businesses as they’ve attempted to overcome the pandemic’s acute impact, as well as the burden of an ongoing economic downturn. As both of these events continue to wreak havoc on global supply chains, businesses have felt a particularly acute impact from resulting disruptions.

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In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently found that nearly half (47%) of small businesses currently find it hard to keep up with customer demand due to disruptions in their supply chain. Meanwhile, new research from Gartner, which found that 95% of organizations continue to struggle with supply chain resiliency, also confirms the pervasiveness of these obstacles for businesses across the board.

“The findings of this report underscore that businesses across industries are continuing to grapple with a myriad of challenges facing their supply chains,” said Rodney Manzo, the CEO, and founder of Anvyl. “While there have been some positive signs indicating that these issues might be easing, it’s important to acknowledge that many of the challenges brands are facing are due to shortcomings in their supply chain management strategies.”

Manzo added: “In order to remain competitive and navigate the complexities of today’s environment, brands must be prepared to undertake new and innovative digital transformation strategies. Adapting and modernizing is no longer an option – it’s an absolute necessity for survival in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace.”

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Additional highlights from the report include:

  • Pandemic-induced challenges threaten health: 79% of SMBs say they’ve suffered consequences due to supply chain disruptions since the onset of the pandemic, including increased cost of operations (41%), damage to brand reputation (28%) and delayed cash flow (28%).
  • SMBs showcase robust supply chains: More than 50% report using 26 or more suppliers, with 37% using 50 or more.
  • On the same note, 64% of businesses say that they issue 25 or more purchase orders per month, with 40% issuing 50 or more purchase orders on a monthly basis.
  • Paving the road ahead: 89% of business owners & C-suite executives who were surveyed report that they are planning to make strategic investments in their supply chain management in 2023.

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ProcessMaker Announces Jeff Lortz as Chief Executive Officer

ProcessMaker, a leading provider of low-code process automation and intelligent document management software, is pleased to announce the appointment of Jeff Lortz as the new CEO of the company.

Brian Reale, co-founder, and CEO will continue with ProcessMaker as a board member and investor, in addition to staying on as a member of the executive team focused on company strategy and a number of key customer-facing aspects of the business.

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“It has been a privilege to serve our customers for the past twenty years, and I am proud of everything ProcessMaker has accomplished,” said Brian Reale. “ProcessMaker was an early trailblazer in open source workflow, and later led the way in SaaS business process orchestration. Most recently, we have become a market leader in process automation for the banking and higher education verticals. I am thrilled to have Jeff join at this juncture in our journey. Jeff is uniquely positioned to understand our business and industry, and I am confident his leadership will carry ProcessMaker into our next phase of success.”

Lortz is familiar with the blueprints for success. He fuses an extraordinary blend of strategy, client commitment, and a penchant for unearthing unexpected growth opportunities. Lortz’s previous experience includes successfully scaling companies like PTC, BladeLogic, and Everbridge. Throughout his career, he has fostered winning cultures, built high-performing teams, and learned how to thrive in high-stakes environments.

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In 2021, Aldrich Capital Partners invested in ProcessMaker to accelerate go-to-market efforts and product innovation. “We are pleased to welcome Jeff as CEO of ProcessMaker. With a proven track record in leading GTM operations and revenue growth, Jeff is prepared to drive the company into the future,” says Mirza Baig, co-founder and managing partner at Aldrich Capital Partners.

“It’s an exciting time to join ProcessMaker. With a well-established brand and industry trust, we are at a pivotal point. We are set to release a new version of our platform with the latest AI and ML capabilities that will put us at the forefront of intelligent automation advancements, giving our customers access to the most innovative process orchestration platform available,” said ProcessMaker CEO, Jeff Lortz.

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data.ai Launches Total App Revenue – The Ultimate Mobile Metric

Powered by data.ai, this is the industry’s first total view of app monetization

data.ai (formerly App Annie), the leading mobile data analytics provider, announced the launch of Total App Revenue which provides brands and publishers visibility into all mobile revenue streams. Powered by data.ai’s proprietary artificial intelligence, Total App Revenue (TAR) introduces the first mobile performance metric that combines in-app purchases (IAP) and advertising revenue. Until now, brands and publishers have been unable to benchmark total revenue on mobile. The mobile app economy is worth $500 billion, with 66% from ad revenue and 33% from in-app purchases, according to data.ai’s latest State of Mobile report, presenting the first comprehensive opportunity to monetize for publishers.

Total App Revenue combines data.ai’s first-to-market products, Ad Revenue and In-App Purchase, providing competitive advantage for in-app advertising, cohort purchases and ad network performance. Customers can now break down revenue streams and anticipate market expansion opportunities based on shifts in consumer behavior.

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“Total App Revenue provides a clear picture of data we’ve been missing in our business development and model creation. With data.ai, we finally have a way to understand our full revenue streams and benchmark against competitors.”
-Carlos Salvado, Senior Market Analyst at Rovio Entertainment

“Total App Revenue is the ultimate mobile performance metric. The mobile app economy is worth half a trillion dollars and making sense of a competitor’s monetization strategy is key to improving their app position in the market.”

– Theodore Krantz, Chief Executive Officer of data.ai

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Enhanced Capabilities with Verint Intelligent Virtual Assistant Enable Easy Design and Deployment, Accelerate Time to Value, and Increase ROI

Powered by Verint Da Vinci AI, Solution Enables Brands to Deliver Customer Experience Automation at Scale

Verint , The Customer Engagement Company, announced that advanced capabilities for Verint Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) will be available on April 19 and deliver a conversation design platform that enables teams to design, deploy, and improve IVAs faster, collaboratively and at scale. Verint IVA is part of Verint Customer Engagement Platform powered by Verint Da Vinci™ AI to activate insights and automate experiences across the enterprise.

Conversational artificial intelligence (AI) helps organizations gain confidence in their ability to provide high quality customer experiences. According to a recent Verint study, nearly three-quarters of the highly confident respondents – confident about their organization’s ability to provide the level of experience demanded by modern consumers – had implemented an IVA before or during 2022, more than half increased spending on those solutions in 2022 versus 2021 and just under half currently share work between human employees and bots.

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“Customers appreciate using their own words in natural interactions with bots but get frustrated when automated systems don’t understand simple queries or have limited options,” explains Derek Top, senior analyst and research director at Opus Research. “Verint’s IVA Studio enables developers to start with pre-built models that reduce the time and resources required to support a variety of complex interactions and transactions.”

Verint IVA allows for the quick and efficient deployment of automation across an organization’s digital and voice channels to deliver consistent and personalized self-service experiences, while also optimizing contact center operations.

Equipped with pre-built natural language understanding (NLU) models and extensive AI and analytics fueled by Verint Da Vinci, Verint IVA allows an organization to scale a hybrid workforce, consisting of humans and virtual assistants, to provide differentiated customer experiences while easily integrating with a company’s existing systems.

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Verint IVA also includes a low-code, drag-and-drop editor called IVA Studio, which is equipped with an intuitive, visualized user interface that enables large enterprises and SMBs to quickly launch, tune, and improve their bots in-house, on their own terms resulting in immediate ROI. As business and consumer needs evolve, new intents and languages can be added and measured in real-time across endpoints to derive insights, so organizations can pivot and improve the customer experience. This tuning process allows for transparency and control into the creating and improvement of tailored language models for an enterprise, its brand and its customers.

Based on more than two decades of real-world AI experience, Verint IVA delivers mature NLU models specific to industry use cases in banking, insurance, healthcare, among others. With the ability to seamlessly integrate into current chatbot solutions, these NLU models produce attentive, hyper-personalized and human-like conversations. The solution also enables end users to build and manage voice AI flows to support an omnichannel approach. For example, augmenting the IVA experience by handing over complex chatbot conversations to a live agent with the proper context.

“Rolling out more digital channels doesn’t always guarantee an improvement in customer engagement. Modern consumers expect seamless digital interactions, regardless of channel,” says Verint’s Heather Richards, vice president, go-to-market strategy, digital first engagement. “Brands need a way to scale customer interactions across channels and Verint IVA introduces AI-powered conversational experiences – driving a better customer experience and automating processes in the contact center.”

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CallMiner Named a Leader in the 2023 SPARK Matrix for Speech Analytics Report by Quadrant Knowledge Solutions

CallMiner’s innovative platform, global market presence and diverse customer base rank the organization ahead of competitors

CallMiner, the leading provider of conversation intelligence to drive business performance improvement, announced that it has been named a technology leader in the Quadrant Knowledge Solutions’ SPARK Matrix: Speech Analytics, Q1 2023.

The global speech analytics market is constantly evolving to meet increasingly complex business demands and customer expectations. In its latest report, Quadrant Knowledge Solutions analyzed the top industry vendors, evaluating products and functionality, market presence and customer value proposition. For the second consecutive year, CallMiner was named a leader in customer impact and technology excellence.

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“For organizations looking to enhance operational efficiency, improve customer experience and drive transformational business change, partnering with the right conversation intelligence vendor is paramount,” said Paul Bernard, President and CEO, CallMiner. “Through the combination of deep expertise and the industry’s most innovative platform, CallMiner continues to deliver the outcomes and ROI that our customers demand. Being named a leader by Quadrant Knowledge Solutions once again certifies our differentiation among competitors and leadership in the global marketplace.”

The report highlights how CallMiner’s conversation intelligence platform helps organizations identify areas of opportunity to drive key business performance metrics and growth more effectively. Quadrant Knowledge Solutions recognizes several of CallMiner’s competitive differentiators, including artificial intelligence (AI)-driven capabilities, such as search, call transcription accuracy, and the strength of real-time and post-interaction analytics. The report also calls out CallMiner’s excellence in driving value from customer conversations via accurate auto-scoring, correlation across multiple channels, and categorization tools for sentiment and emotion analysis.

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“With its deep AI and machine learning capabilities, CallMiner’s platform is a leader in improving customer interactions, reducing costs, and delivering deeper insights into the customer experience,” said Ganesh Reddy Bonthu, Analyst, Quadrant Knowledge Solutions. “CallMiner’s innovative technology, track record for delivering customer value, and comprehensive product roadmap and vision position the company to continue to grow its market share.”

The SPARK Matrix: Speech Analytics, Q1 2023 also underscores CallMiner’s continued AI investments and the development of tailor-made solutions to meet specific vertical requirements for its global customer base across financial services, technology, media, telecom, healthcare, retail, and other industries.

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The ‘e-commerce’ Boom in LatAm: How to Reach a Market of 307 Billion Dollars

Latin America continues to see exponential growth in its e-commerce sector. PayRetailers manages payments in these vastly different economies. Latin America’s e-commerce growth has amounted to tens of billions of dollars annually. The region generated $139 billion in e-commerce retail business in 2022, according to Statista’s analysis as reported by PayRetailers. By 2027, the sector is forecasted to move no less than $307 billion annually, more than double the current figure in just five years.

“consolidate its position in the market and increase its ability to offer innovative and efficient payment solutions.”

The Spanish company that processes cross-border payments

Therefore, international companies looking to operate their ecommerce business in Latin America must consider the challenges presented by these markets and adapt their payment process accordingly. That is why PayRetailers was founded in 2017, a payment solution that simplifies operations for each of the region’s emerging markets.

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The company offers more than 250 local payment options with high performance in approval and conversion rates. These options combine the most common and alternative payment methods, ranging from cash payments to credit card transactions, bank transfers, e-wallets, and even QR codes. In fact, in Latin American countries, they work with payment solutions preferred by consumers, such as PIX and Boleto Bancario in Brazil, PSE in Colombia, SPEI in Mexico, and Kiphu in Chile. With this, each ecommerce company can offer their customers the option to pay in the way they are accustomed to when shopping online, without necessarily operating with a local entity.

For Philippe Laranjeiro, chief commercial officer of PayRetailers, the key to the company’s expansion lies in its “ability to adapt to the particularities of each market and offer a personalized solution to the needs of each client”. In addition, the company has managed to establish strategic alliances with important local players in the industry, which has helped “consolidate its position in the market and increase its ability to offer innovative and efficient payment solutions.”

With its presence in Latin America, many international companies have been able to expand their business in the region, taking advantage of the growth opportunities offered by the Latin American market. The company has managed to expand online businesses to more than 13 Latin American countries with an all-in-one API solution, integrating multiple payment methods preferred for each market and business model, he adds.

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IT Pros Rate Torii Tops for SaaS Management in G2 Spring 2023 Grid Reports

Midsize Enterprises Overwhelmingly More Satisfied with Torii for SaaS Spend Management than Other SMP Vendors

Torii, creator of the Distributed SaaS Management Platform (SMP), announced it is the highest-rated SMP vendor in two new G2 Spring 2023 SaaS Management Grid Reports. Once again, Torii received top customer satisfaction scores for both SaaS Operations and SaaS Spend Management. These results validate Torii’s unique approach, which makes it easy for lean IT teams to automate key operations and equip company-wide SaaS stakeholders with the visibility, insights and actions they need to reduce spend and risk while boosting productivity.

“Torii has the broad range of features we need at a good price point. Other SMPs were too expensive, complex and didn’t have sufficient capabilities. For a mid-sized company like ours, Torii is the best fit.”

“Businesses rely on cloud applications for the vast majority of their work. But with SaaS usage and ownership spread throughout companies, it’s impossible for often-overwhelmed IT teams to get a handle on their usage and spend,” said Uri Haramti, CEO of Torii. “Our platform is designed to give these IT Pros complete visibility into their entire app ecosystem; a reliable, shared source of information about SaaS apps, usage and spend; and the ability to reduce their burden by automating and delegating tasks. I’m proud to say that, as G2 has shown, Torii has become the preferred, go-to vendor for IT teams and their constituents.”

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Notable G2 report highlights about Torii include:

  • Overall 92% satisfaction score for SaaS Operations – which is 18% higher than the nearest competitor and more than 3.5 x higher than other SMP vendors.
  • Overall 91% satisfaction for SaaS Spend – which is 30% higher than the closest competitor and more than 3x greater than other SMP vendors.
  • Torii stood out for:
    • Ease of doing business: 97%
    • Ease of use: 96%

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G2 Grid Reports are based on real user reviews. G2 uses a proprietary algorithm to rank solutions from data aggregated from customers, online sources and social networks. Businesses had this to say about Torii:

  • “Torii has the broad range of features we need at a good price point. Other SMPs were too expensive, complex and didn’t have sufficient capabilities. For a mid-sized company like ours, Torii is the best fit.”
  • “The most beneficial aspect of Torii is its ability to discover apps that employees are signing up for without regard for privacy and security risks. Torii allows an IT Pro to administer what goes on within the ecosystem, preventing any potential danger. Torii has also been very beneficial in assisting us in identifying unnecessary spending on tools.”
  • “Torii is very intuitive to use. It’s easy to navigate and find data. Integrations are easy to set up and the workflows have automated almost all our onboarding and offboarding processes. On rollout, it immediately highlighted a lot of shadow IT usage, which we were then able to bring under control. Being able to dive into the details per user and per application gives us all the information we need for reporting and for reducing costs in terms of both the number and types of licenses used.”

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DaySmart Acquires ReCPro Software

DaySmart Recreation Member - DaySmart RecreationExpands portfolio of business management software to further support recreation vertical

DaySmart Software, a leading provider of vertically-focused business management software, today announced the acquisition of R.C. Systems Inc. (a.k.a. ReCPro Software) and veteran provider of recreation management software based in Warren, MI. Through this acquisition, DaySmart continues to expand its footprint within the recreation management software space, offering ReCPro customers access to its award-winning, cloud-based solution and customer service.

For nearly 25 years, ReCPro Software has offered client-based software designed to help recreation departments easily manage customers, registrations, schedules, memberships, rentals, financials and more.

The combination of ReCPro Software and DaySmart Recreation reinforces DaySmart’s mission to serve parks and recreation departments of all sizes and disciplines. This acquisition, as well as the acquisition of TeamUp in 2022, represents DaySmart’s continued commitment to investing in and building an expansive set of integrated solutions that are not otherwise offered in growing vertical markets like the recreation and fitness market today.

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“DaySmart and ReCPro share a common mission, which is to provide best-in-class software solutions to the recreation industry,” said Pat Shanahan, CEO of DaySmart. “We are excited by the alignment between our teams and the opportunity to continue to deepen our relationships within the Parks and Recreation space.”

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“Over the last 25 years, ReCPro Software has been a driving force within the recreation industry, and a pioneer in providing exceptional software and support to our customers. I am proud of what our team has accomplished and excited to start this next chapter with the support and experience of the DaySmart team,” said Dale Geiger, co-owner of ReCPro Software.

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Standup Rolls Out Game-Changing Government Proposal Development Software to Streamline RFP Proposal Response Times

Artificial intelligence reduces businesses’ proposal time from weeks to minutes

Standup, part of Growth Engine Inc., today rolled out a new solution using Natural Language Programming and Artificial Intelligence to streamline and speed up the government grant response process for startups and small businesses.

The solution – Standup Proposals – harnesses artificial intelligence to greatly shorten the often-time-consuming process of drafting and submitting proposals for government funding and contracts from weeks to a process that can be implemented in an afternoon.

“Any business that has developed a proposal for federal contracts or Small Business Innovation Research grants knows how tedious and time-consuming the process can be,” said Alan Harris, CEO and co-founder of Standup. “With Standup Proposals we are seeking to make this mission-critical aspect of business easier and faster, with more successful outcomes. By deploying Standup Proposals, businesses can streamline and shorten the time spent drafting proposals which will give more time to focus on building their business and serving customers better.”

Silicon Valley Bank’s recent collapse is expected to have long-lasting effects on the startup ecosystem. Many startups are turning to alternative funding sources, including the federal SBIR program that provides more than $3 billion in non-dilutive funding annually to startups and small businesses.

Not only does the SBIR program serve as a reliable funding source, it also offers the added benefit of assisting startups in securing ongoing federal clients.

Using Standup Proposals is simple. The user uploads the SBIR Grant or RFP into the system, which uses AI and NLP to implement a sophisticated matching system to generate a proposal that aligns with the company’s saved content and the RFP requirements.

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Standup has developed its AI infrastructure in partnership with AFWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S, Department of the Air Force and powered by the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the data matching is extremely accurate for opportunities within the defense industry. The system enables companies to customize responses, ensuring accuracy and the ability to demonstrate differentiators specific to the RFP.

Over time, as the intelligence becomes more refined, the system learns from the company’s answers and, importantly, from proposals that were successful.

Standup Proposals was developed through the Growth Engine founders’ experience applying for and securing $2.3 million in SBIR awards with the Air Force.

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“Companies can devote more than 30 hours and up to nine people to produce proposals in response to a federal RFP. Once we started using our generative AI to automate our own SBIR efforts, it was astonishing how quickly we could produce highly accurate proposal drafts to pursue opportunities,” Harris said. “As we grew, we knew we had to make this tool available to others in our industry. While large companies often have large teams to respond to RFPs, startups and small businesses do not.”

The Standup team continues to innovate to refine the platform, recently incorporating APIs from OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT generative artificial intelligence tool, to supplement Standup’s Department of Defense AI models and deliver a robust proposal generation solution.

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