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Wirecard Expands Partnership With SAP to Launch Wirecard Extension for SAP Commerce

Wirecard strengthens its current collaboration with SAP to offer merchants an extended range of digital payment services via Omnichannel-Software SAP Customer Experience 

Wirecard, the global innovation leader in the field of digital financial technology, is expanding its long-standing partnership with SAP, the global market leader in the segment of enterprise application software, to launch Wirecard Extension for SAP Commerce.

SAP Customer Experience (former SAP Hybris) is a global provider of enterprise multichannel e-commerce and product content management software which offers merchants tailored solutions for e-commerce, marketing, (pre-)sales, customer service and subscriptions & usage-based billing. As the market leading solution for e-commerce, providing robust support for B2B and B2C business models, SAP Customer Experience is responsible for all of SAP’s customer engagement and e-commerce businesses worldwide. Wirecard provides SAP Customer Experience with the Wirecard Extension for SAP Commerce, a solution which allows merchants to profit from a wide range of value-added payment acceptance services.

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Thanks to Wirecard’s expertise in the field of digital financial technology, SAP Customer Experience customers will be able to benefit from extensive payment and acquiring solutions provided on one digital platform. Wirecard will be offering merchants a wide range of payment services via SAP’s Omnichannel-Software. Through the extension of this strategic partnership, Wirecard is strengthening its leadership in the digital commerce segment.

Michael Brinkmann, Executive Vice President Partner Management at Wirecard, said: “We are pleased to contribute a full-scope payment integration to the SAP commerce ecosystem. With our new extension we follow our principal of the global digitalization of financial processes. We are looking forward to further expanding the partnership with SAP in the future.”

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Bpm’online Recognized as the Only Challenger in 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation

The company is recognized for its ability to execute and completeness of vision.

Bpm’online, a global business software company leading in the space of business process automation and CRM, today announced that it has been named a Challenger in Gartner’s 2018 Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation (1). It is bpm’online’s third consecutive positioning in the Magic Quadrant, which we believe is significant upward progress, as bpm’online has improved its position each year and is the only company named the Challenger this year.

Bpm’online believes its recognition in the Gartner’s 2018 Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation as the only Challenger in the ever-growing SFA market is driven by its significant investment into development of its sales offering empowered with intelligent technologies designed to accelerate sales operations and drive revenue growth.

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Bpm’online’s sales automation offering provides thousands of organizations with advanced tools to accelerate the complete sales cycle — from lead to repeat sales. Bpm’online is backed by an intelligent low-code platform which allows users with no technical skills to swiftly design, execute and optimize sales processes. Bpm’online also provides organizations with out-of-the-box best practice sales processes that help sellers to choose the best process workflow to achieve the desired business outcomes faster.

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In addition to a powerful SFA product, users can also leverage bpm’online’s award-winning marketing and service offerings – all on a single platform.

We are honored to be recognized in such a report by the world’s leading research and advisory company for the third consecutive year,” said Katherine Kostereva, CEO and Managing Partner at bpm’online. “To us, it is truly thrilling to be a vendor that provides industry disruptive technology. Our intense focus and commitment to accelerating business transformation continues to propel us to new heights. This encourages us to continue helping organizations fulfill their sales automation and transformation needs.”

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Announcing “AddPaymentsNow For Shopping Cart Developers.” High-Profit, Low-Risk Payment Facilitation for Shopping Cart Developers

Payment Facilitation, or PayFac for short, is rapidly becoming a standard operating procedure for shopping cart developers. Based on industry feedback, AddPaymentsNow has developed a payment facilitation placement program that takes the mystery out of becoming a PayFac and removes most of the risk as well.

According to Alex Roy, of AddPaymentsNow, their new “AddPaymentsNow For Shopping Cart Developers” program “allows cart and site builder developers to instantly set up their clients with the ability to accept credit cards directly through their cart, with low risk, and high profits.” In addition to there being no cost to the cart company, according to Alex, there is also “big profit potential as the developer makes money every time a merchant accepts a credit card payment through the shopping cart.”

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AddPaymentsNow has worked closely with shopping cart companies and CRM providers to make sure this new offer “checks all the boxes.” Low-risk, no liability for merchant chargebacks or refunds, easy integration, QA’d API’s, and robust reporting are some of the essential features of a good shopping cart payment system, according to the company.

Cart or CRM companies are interviewed to determine their exact needs, and then a PayFac solution is recommended based on their specific situation. AddPaymentsNow is solely compensated by the payment facilitator providers themselves. Consultations, placements, set up assistance and ongoing support is provided at no cost to the shopping cart developers.

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Simplified payment facilitation is a relatively new service in the software industry. The ability to quickly set up “sub-accounts” under a master reporting and payout system used to be an incredibly complex, and risk-prone undertaking. Before the advent of simplified, hybrid payment facilitation, shopping cart companies needed to take on all liabilities, customer service, and coding to facilitate payments. With the announcement of AddPaymentsNow For Shopping Cart Developers, shopping cart developers can allow their merchants to set up quickly and accept payments instantly without significant risks or upfront costs. Its custom format also enables shopping cart companies the option to take on additional responsibilities over time to increase their profitability.

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“In order to stay profitable, payment facilitation is an essential service that all shopping cart developers should utilize,” according to Alex Roy. “Software companies that do not offer the ability for their clients to easily set up a way to accept credit cards natively through their shopping cart are losing a huge portion of their potential revenue.”

More and more, according to the company, shopping cart and site builder developers realize that the real profitability in their model is from payments. AddPaymentsNow For Shopping Cart Developers caters specifically to that need. AddPaymentsNow For Shopping Cart Developers allows software companies to profit from payments without significant risk or coding time while providing merchant payments and reporting, all in one place.

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Patcham Limited Selects Epicor ERP to Improve Operations and Grow Business

Epicor ERP selected for strong discrete and batch manufacturing feature set, real-time, rich reporting capabilities, and ease of integration

Epicor Software Corporation, a global provider of industry-specific enterprise software to promote business growth, has announced that Patcham Limited, a leading United Arab Emirates (UAE) manufacturer of specialty additives, has chosen the global enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution Epicor ERP to serve as a catalyst for business growth.

In addition to automating processes and implementing best-practice and process improvements across departments, Epicor ERP will support business expansion for Patcham. Replacing a legacy, home-grown, modular ERP solution with Epicor ERP will allow Patcham to avoid duplication of data and improve data integrity, accuracy, and real-time access by breaking down information silos between departments. This, coupled with the rich reporting features available in Epicor ERP, will enable Patcham employees across departments to make better day-to-day decisions—be it on customer pricing, inventory and production staffing levels, or capital expenditures—that directly impact the bottom line.

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Commenting on the decision to select Epicor ERP, Parth Patel, operations manager at Patcham Ltd. said, “From a business point of view, it was essential that the ERP solution has the right industry fit and is flexible enough to cater to the changing market landscape and needs of our business. In parallel, we require the ERP solution to be scalable and integrate easily with our non-UAE offices, while accounting for the local regulations for business in those countries. From a technology standpoint, we want the solution to include the latest programming and database management systems (DBMS) techniques to ensure speed, security, and hardware compatibility with other data capturing mechanisms within our organisation. Finally, from a user perspective, we require the system to be minimally disruptive and easy to use in terms of layout and design. Epicor ERP checks all these boxes, making it a good fit for our business.”

Working with Cork Information Technology, an Epicor partner in the Middle East, over the course of eight months, Parth and his team deployed Epicor ERP at their two facilities in the UAE. With access to modules for sales, customer relationship management (CRM), purchasing, material management, production, accounting, and finance, 20 users across Patcham now rely on Epicor ERP to support critical decision making and ensure the business runs smoothly.

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Commenting on the central role that the Epicor ERP solution will play in Patcham’s future business growth, Parth continued, “Since our inception in 1994 we have steadily grown into a leading supplier of specialty additives to customers in the paint and coatings, ink, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and composites industries. Central to our continued growth is the need to evolve and expand our product line and geographical reach. With the Epicor ERP solution serving as the backbone of our organisation, we finally have a 360-degree view of our business and can better capture, manage, and analyse data. This in turn gives our management team the ability, and more importantly the confidence, to take bold decisions that will determine the growth trajectory of our business.”

“Small- to medium-size manufacturers in the UAE and the Middle East at large, are realising that their legacy, often manual, ERP solutions are inhibiting business growth and putting them at a competitive disadvantage in today’s hyper-competitive market. Epicor ERP has been designed to fit the specific business requirements of manufacturers, is easy to deploy, and offers easily customisable, granular reporting capabilities that are essential for good decision making. By leveraging Epicor ERP, organisations now have the platform they need to ensure that their business is not only fit for growth, but able to grow profitably,” concluded Andy Coussins, senior vice president and head of sales, international region at Epicor.

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Introducing Copper: ProsperWorks Rebrands as Part of Mission to be the Conductor of Relationships for Customer and People-driven Companies

The new brand goes live at Google NEXT, as the company unveils unique vision to reinvent CRM by going native in the productivity tools people use everyday

ProsperWorks, the Google-recommended CRM for today’s digital workplace, announced today it is rebranding to Copper. The name Copper was chosen for its timeless quality, clarity and simplicity, and its relationship to energy and currency. The rebrand comes at a time of an industry need for new solutions that match today’s digital customer. Today’s existing CRM solutions are outdated, but since their creation in the 1990s, customers have changed the way they work, as have the tasks customers are trying to accomplish.

Today’s digital workforce isn’t satisfied with the rate at which CRM technology is evolving to align with fast-growing technology advancements and user demands. In a recent survey commissioned by Copper, nearly half of respondents think the innovation of CRM should be quicker. The form of communication between teams and customers has shifted from in-person meetings to informal chat apps and mobile conversations. 44 percent of respondents use chat and Slack and 67 percent said more than 40 percent of their customer communications happen over email. Today’s workforce wants tools that make their lives easier, deliver a tailored experience and fit within the way they live and work.

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In addition, today’s customer relationship is no longer the sole priority of the sales team. 63 percent of survey respondents said three or more teammates are involved in fostering customer relationships. Multiple stakeholders, from sellers to developers, have a direct influence on the customer relationship, showing it’s a more collaborative effort than ever before. Copper is catering to the modern workforce that demands automated, easy-to-use and design-first tools so that they can focus more on fostering relationships instead of manual data entry like the legacy CRM systems of the past. This rebrand signifies the acknowledgement of a shifting CRM ecosystem in which Copper offers an easy-to-use platform that works instantly and is designed to help teams and businesses build long-lasting relationships.

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“Copper is a name that truly represents our vision and plans for the future of the CRM industry,” says Jon Lee, CEO and co-founder of Copper. “People are every company’s most valuable resource and it’s critical that CRM reflects that mindset and provides systems that put people’s needs first. Our new company name represents our effort to solve the industry’s current challenges with cumbersome technology and to arm people with the tools they need to foster relationships and grow their business.”

Copper has been a go-to CRM launch partner with Google since 2014 with its Chrome extension. Over the years, the Copper integration within Google has given users the ability to access critical CRM data directly through Gmail, Hangouts, Data Studio and more. Copper’s rapid growth, doubling in employee size and revenue since 2014, is attributed to a new vision for CRM where work happens directly from employees’ inboxes. What began as a CRM for startups has evolved into a solution for Fortune 500 companies and Copper is now the No. 1 CRM for creative and media agencies, with more than 900 global agencies using the platform.

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“The narrative in the CRM industry hasn’t changed in over 20 years, but the demands of customers have changed rapidly. Rather than the traditional CRM industry language about managing customers, our name change is about transparency, the people, the places they work, and helping enterprise software work for them,” says Morgan Norman, Chief Marketing Officer of Copper. “We are continually inspired and pushed by our customers and we’re excited to introduce the new Copper and continue transforming the way people work. We’re at the forefront of this shift in the industry and really pushing the envelope of the CRM space to focus more on building relationships.”

Since launching in 2014, Copper has taken a fresh approach to CRM that places the productivity of its users ahead of the vanity of the application. Copper is trusted by thousands of companies and teams around the world including Google, OpenDoor and MailChimp.

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Copper and Google SaaS Sales Alignment Partnership Ushers in the Era of Native CRM in Productivity Suites

Copper will leverage Google Cloud Platform and build on its history of tight integration with G Suite to deliver a productivity-first CRM tool available natively within Gmail

Copper, a Google-recommended CRM for today’s digital workplace formerly known as ProsperWorks, today announced that it will participate in the Google SaaS Sales Alignment program. Copper will help demonstrate how next-generation SaaS applications can build a productivity-first user experience within G Suite.

Copper delivers a new kind of cloud CRM that is focused on building relationships rather than simply managing them. Copper CRM operates natively within G Suite so that users never have to leave Gmail or interrupt their everyday workflow, thereby eliminating the tedious, time-consuming data entry that causes sales and marketing teams to abandon CRM deployments. The Copper integration with Google Cloud gives users the ability to access critical CRM data directly through Gmail, Hangouts, Data Studio and more. The SaaS Sales Alignment program will help Copper continue on its path to provide native functionality within the applications people use everyday to do their job.

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By moving to Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Copper will be promoted and sold to current and prospective GCP customers through its SaaS Sales Alignment program, which will allow the company to scale globally with more than 12,000 customers in 110 countries. The move to GCP also will allow Copper to accelerate more machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence-driven features in its products that boost user productivity and experience.

“For too long, the CRM industry has been focused on getting people to enter data about what they did that day or to get a record of past interactions,” said Jon Lee, Copper CEO and cofounder. “Traditional CRM offerings were built for transactional sales people, which no longer cuts it for today’s new generation of relationship makers that make up the design-centric, mobile workforce. The company’s deep integration with Google Cloud will not only put us another step closer to making CRM a native feature of everyday productivity apps, but also scale that productivity-first approach to more and more customers around the world.”

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Kaon Interactive Adds 11 Major Accounts to its Enterprise Client Roster

Kaon Interactive, the leading provider of 3D marketing and sales applications for global B2B brands, is poised for significant global user growth in 2018 with the recent addition of 11 major new clients. Kaon’s transformative applications allow B2B companies to more effectively communicate a product or service’s differentiated value to prospects through interactive experiences across the buyer’s journey. These solutions, in turn, help to drive increased sales and reduced marketing costs.

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The most recent additions to Kaon’s client roster join a pre-eminent list of visionary Fortune 500 clients such as Cisco Systems, Dell-EMC, Thermo Fisher Scientific and GE. Each of these companies has asked Kaon to create, deploy and maintain a diverse range of advanced digital solutions that will include virtual 3D product tours, interactive storytelling and AR/VR applications. These innovative companies include:

  • Lenovo – manufactures enterprise PCs, tablet computers, smartphones, workstations, servers, electronic storage devices, IT management software and smart televisions.
  • Siemens Building Technology – provides automation technologies and services for commercial, industrial and public buildings and infrastructures.
  • Ricoh – multi-national imaging and electronics company.
  • Bruker – manufacturer of scientific instruments for molecular and materials research, as well as for industrial and applied analysis.
  • Akamai – content delivery network and cloud services provider.
  • Georgia Pacific – one of the world’s leading makers of tissue, pulp, paper, packaging, building products and related chemicals.
  • Mellanox – leading supplier of end-to-end InfiniBand and Ethernet interconnect solutions and services for servers and storage.
  • Hexagon Positioning Intelligence – providing accurate positioning and correction solutions worldwide for land, air or sea.

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Year-over-year, Kaon Interactive has seen a double-digit percent increase in sales, a 122 percent increase in average weekly users of its interactive applications and a 37 percent increase in the number of 3D virtual product model interactions per week.

“Ever since we have expanded our platform to include Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, we have seen accelerated adoption of our technologies by global B2B companies” said Gavin Finn, CEO & President of Kaon Interactive. “The value of Kaon’s investment in technology and creative UX design has been significant for these companies. We are pleased to be working alongside the biggest names in the telecommunications, industrial and life science industries, to help them effectively communicate their unique value differentiation to customers and prospects, positively affecting their bottom lines.”

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Kaon Interactive’s applications are uniquely beneficial because they are created once and can be deployed everywhere. Currently available on devices running iOS, Android, MacOS, and Windows, Kaon Interactive’s solutions are used by sales teams and marketers in nearly 40 countries.

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VonageFlow, an All-in-One Workstream Collaboration Solution, Now Available with Vonage Business Cloud

Vonage (NYSE: VG), a business cloud communications leader, has expanded Vonage Business Cloud (VBC) platform capabilities with VonageFlow, its proprietary workstream collaboration solution. Now, VBC users can leverage team messaging, file sharing, SMS and voice, available across any device, and can integrate directly with the capabilities of Business Inbox, including social messaging via Facebook, available in beta.

Unlike most workstream collaboration solutions, VonageFlow is a fully-integrated solution enabled by the cloud-based architecture of the Vonage Business Cloud platform. Users can leverage voice, messaging, and SMS within one single interface, enabling streamlined communications and greater productivity. With VonageFlow, users enjoy seamless interoperability across VBC’s mobile app, new desktop app and upgraded web app.

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By incorporating VonageFlow team messaging, social, and collaboration capabilities directly into the VBC platform, Vonage continues to demonstrate the value of VBC’s open architecture built from its microservice-based platform.

“With the launch of VonageFlow, Vonage is providing customers with a better omnichannel customer experience, and bringing a richer collaborative set of capabilities to our VBC customers,” said Ron Maayan, VP Product at Vonage.

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According to Gartner, by 2022, 70% of teams will rely on workstream collaboration as the primary means of communicating, coordinating and sharing information between team members, displacing email1. As enterprise communications shift from email to include SMS, chat, file sharing, video, and social media, it will become critical for businesses to provide a reliable, omnichannel collaboration platform to support today’s team-based work environments.

“VonageFlow allows SMS and social messages to be routed directly into a team messaging environment. For instance, when customers contact a company with an issue via SMS or Social Messaging, all team members associated with that extension or business inbox would receive the message in real-time, no matter their location. This allows for more immediate recognition of customer issues and more efficient resolution,” said Brian Gilman, VP Product Marketing at Vonage.

Mr. Gilman continued, “The team then has the ability to quickly collaborate to resolve the issue by sharing digital content; looping in additional colleagues as needed; and replying back to the customer, all within one simple platform.”

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IBC2018 Enhances Conference Programme with Keynote Sessions from Amazon, Viacom and Wonderhood Studios

IBC2018, the world’s most influential media, entertainment and technology show, today announces three new Keynote speakers from globally renowned media and entertainment powerhouses. The addition of executives from Amazon, Viacom and Wonderhood Studios adds to the big-name line up of thought provoking and informative sessions and speakers already announced by IBC.

Taking to the stage on the first day of the conference, Thursday 13 September, to deliver the Trailblazer Keynote session entitled ‘Give Your Vision a Voice’ is Max Amordeluso, EU Lead Evangelist Amazon Alexa, Amazon. As voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa are transforming the way audiences discover content and control devices, Amordeluso’s must-attend presentation will explore a variety of avenues, including: how to build a voice strategy with Alexa; why voice experiences are now a crucial part of any multi-platform content business; how to implement an engaging voice strategy for content products and generate new revenues with Alexa Voice Service and Alexa Skills Kit.

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As Lead Evangelist for Amazon Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) in Europe, Amordeluso’s focus is to introduce Alexa to European developers and demonstrate how they can build natural voice experiences for customers.

On Friday 14 September, Channel 4’s Ex-Chief Executive and Founder of the recently launched Wonderhood StudiosDavid Abraham, will deliver the New Platforms Keynote entitled, ‘Content creation and funding embraces the multiplatform world’. The appetite for premium content has never been higher across so many platforms, both online and on TV. With YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Netflix and Amazon all vying for content, it is boom time for talent both on and behind the screen – but these are also challenging times for traditional business models.

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Wonderhood Studios is a new player on the scene headed up by the seasoned media executive who has run both a major broadcaster, pay TV companies and worked in the creative and commercial side of advertising. Abraham’s Keynote session will explore the new content consumption landscape and threats and opportunities of the big tech players, as well as advise on the best creative commissioning and funding strategies going forward.

“The past 12 months have shown that delivering premium content is crucial for media enterprise to succeed. As the rapidly changing media landscape continues to evolve, forums such as IBC are vital as we explore new business models and opportunities,” said Abraham.

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 Kelly Day
Kelly Day

Tying in perfectly with the IBC Conference’s major themes for 2018, which include exploring social, mobile audiences, audience engagement, OTT and branded entertainment, Kelly Day, President of Viacom Digital Studios, will keynote her session dubbed ‘Get Shorty: How iconic TV brands can be re-cast for social and mobile-first audiences’. As the media and entertainment industry continues to evolve, there’s no disputing that younger audiences are watching video in different ways and with new appetites. In this session, Day will share her insights into how the newly launched Viacom Digital Studios is leveraging Viacom’s iconic brands to create unique, original content for a new generation of digital-native audiences.

A proven thought leader and seasoned executive leading digital entertainment and media at AwesomenessTV, Discovery Communications and more, Day is the driving force behind Viacom’s first concerted investment and accelerated push into original premium digital programming to engage fans wherever and whenever they’re consuming content. Taking to the stage on Saturday 15 September, visitors are encouraged to come and hear how one of the biggest global media players is re-thinking content for more than 850 million social media fans.

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