Category Archives: Automation

Working with the local electricity authority and Italthai Engineering, Moxa facilitates substation automation in Pattaya, an important pilot site on Thailands ambitious Energy 4.0 journey while driving Thailands economic success.

Moxa is collaborating with Thailands Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) and Italthai Engineering, the leading engineering contractor for engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services, to transform Pattaya into a smart city by upgrading its electrical infrastructure to a smart grid. The digital upgrade also enables PEA to spearhead the Thai governments Energy 4.0 initiative, driving the energy transition progress that is contributing to Thailands economic success and its competitiveness among ASEAN nations.

The key to the transformation is the digital upgrade of Pattayas substations to improve power delivery and minimize unstable voltage supplies during power outages. Pattaya is now better equipped to support its prosperous tourism industry and expand its advanced manufacturing sector in Thailands Eastern Economic Corridor, the countrys flagship economic zone. The digital transformation of the smart substations in Pattaya has made it the pilot city of a new paradigm for Thailands power sector, which emphasizes adopting renewable energy sources in line with the global trend of developing a low-carbon economy.

In implementing and maintaining a digital substation communication system, we need an expert we know we can trust, said Pongsakorn Yuthagovit, assistant governor for PEA. Moxas expertise in critical network communication helps us set the cornerstone for optimizing the flexibility and efficiency of the smart grid through automated communication, monitoring, and management of the overall power network.

In order to attain the goal of Energy 4.0 and making Thailand a power hub for ASEAN by the year 2036, PEA, serving 99% of Thailands population, is collaborating with Italthai Engineering for various pilot projects, including a project that improves flexibility of the smart grid for permitting greater usage of highly variable renewable energy sources. Italthai Engineering has enlisted Moxas network expertise to improve the flexibility and efficiency of the power grid by optimizing management of the overall network.

Italthai Engineering recognizes Moxa as an excellent partner with expertise in critical network communication in IEC 68150-based substation automation systems. Moxa provided expert assistance in topology design to help PEA transition from a 30-year-old system to a system with a simplified and standardized design with automated management features. The new design provides outstanding PRP/HSR redundancy to ensure that PEAs substation systems enjoy reliable communication with zero packet loss and zero-time recovery.

Not only has the digital transformation made PEAs power network in the region more flexible and stable, the talthai Engineering recognizes Moxa as an excellent partner with expertise in critical network communication in IEC 68150-based substation automation systems. Moxa provided expert assistance in topology design to help PEA transition from a 30-year-old system to a system with a simplified and standardized design with automated management features. The new design provides outstanding PRP/HSR redundancy to ensure that PEAs substation systems enjoy reliable communication with zero packet loss and zero-time recovery.

Not only has the digital transformation made PEAs power network in the region more flexible and stable, the network is also now compliant with IEC 61850, the international standard of communication protocols for intelligent electronic devices at electrical substations. Moxas experience of developing more than 7,500 substation transmission and distribution power systems around the world helped ensure that the upgrade in Pattaya went smoothly. The upgrade uses Moxas IEC 61850 PRP/HSR redundant network to enable substations to operate automatically and achieve real-time communication. The best practices developed in this pilot project can also be used by PEA to achieve the same level of success when deploying such upgrades in other pilot cities.

Moxa is honored to support PEAs transformation by providing our expertise in substation automation for Pattaya, said Andy Sun, director of the Vertical Market Business Unit at Moxa. As an OT expert in the field, our 35 years of experience in industrial networking and communications has helped us hasten PEAs seamless transition from a manual to a digital way of working, and in turn move Thailand towards a cleaner, smarter economy.

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Substation automation in Thailand - Engineer Live

The Great Resignation is a recent phenomenon sparked by the pandemic in which employees who no longer receive meaning or purpose in their careers are actively flocking to find alternatives. In fact, in 2021, an average or more than 3.98 million workers quit their job each month, breaking the 2019 record-holding monthly average of 3.5 million.

Employees throughout many sectors and across the world have entered a profound state of self-assessment, asking themselves questions about the significance and purpose of their lives and professions. Many workers have arrived at the painful conclusion that their job is meaningless. Others are concerned that, as robots become more sophisticated, these automata willbe able to perform tasks faster and cheaper than people can.

Combining a decrease in job satisfaction with a fear of being outperformed by robots, many people are clearly seeking alternative options for their work. For example, according to a report byMcKinsey,many companies are now offering remote options and flexible work schedules to meet this demand. E-commerce has also grown as people opt for digital channels in almost all facets of daily life. The pandemic has created new options for these employees who are nolonger bound by physical proximity to a job, worsening resignations.

Its estimated that more than 40 percent of the workforce worldwide is flirting with quitting their jobs this year, according to a recent report from Microsoft. This, in turn, has companies struggling to manage this mass exodus. Although its true it may be difficult to influence the desires of employees especially when many of them are working remotely there is a solution here. Its as simple as removing the dissatisfying aspects of ajob: the boring, redundant, unchallenging work. The question is: can thisbe done in a way that not only benefits the employees,but the business as well?

A Smarter FutureIs AI the Future of Sports?

The answer is yes. Surprisingly, the solution is something many organizations have already been using: automation.

The solution liesnot in just automating business processes but shifting the way people view automationthroughout the workplace. To do so, turn automation strategies that have been applied to improve processes and customer experienceinward to support employees. This new outlookcan not only transform workflows but turn the workplace into a more rewarding environment for both employers and employees, creating intelligent teamsof digital and human workers collaborating in harmony.

Freed from the task of mundane, meaningless work, employees are able to focus on more important tasks. Organizations looking to attract and retain top talent can use automation to create an improved employee experience and couple it with higher wages and flexible schedules to transform the Great Resignation into the Great Upgrade. Better yet, companies can improve business workflows in the process, reducing costs and improving productivity.

Automation is a no-brainer solution for removing some of the drudgeries that cause workers to be weary and dissatisfied. According to the Kofax 2022 Intelligent Automation Benchmark Study, 82 percent of CEOs are in favor of this strategy, citing increased employee productivity and/or happiness as a key motivating factor. In fact, 92 percent of respondents to a survey indicated improvements in employee satisfaction as a result of their automation initiatives.

Many organizations, on the other hand, are unsure where to begin. After all, this process isnt as simple as just experimenting with automation. Inclusion of forward-thinking, people-centric methods not exclusively technology-focused ones into their implementation is vital. For example, automating data entry from invoices or contracts into the relevant databases saves employees from having to perform this monotonous, repetitive work.

The 2022 benchmark study discovered business leaders have a significant degree of interest in eight high-value customer, operational and financial workflows, with a specific emphasis on automating routine transactions:

By digitally transforming these highly valuable processes, 72 percent of executives anticipate assisting employees to do more with less, and more than 70 percent expect to eliminate monotonous, routine work employees don't enjoy.

Real-world results support these expectations. During the pandemic, staff at a hospital was overwhelmed with the exceptional amount of manual work required in their daily routine. The hospital leveraged robotic process automation (RPA), saving the equivalent of five full-time employees in the process. Staff were able to redirect this time towards clinical work necessaryfor the hospitalsvaccination program.

A whopping 94 percent of executives said manual processes being unable to organize and manage the human and digital workforce at scale was one of the most common problems they encountered on their digital transformation journeys. Fortunately, an intelligent automation platform can assist organizations in figuring where to begin. A platform provides a comprehensive range of automation technologies like document intelligence and process orchestration so organizations can start automating without replacing all existing systems.They can then move towards more advanced technologies when ready.

AI-driven automation can evaluate the day-to-day, manual tasks and functions employees perform and identify task opportunities that could be automated. Companies can also prioritize where to remove the menial work by focusing on automating key workflows thatll have the highest impact on the business, so theyre not wasting time and resources on completing redundant tasks.

Organizations can accelerate the automation process across the enterprise and replace redundant tasks with AI-powered bots to create successful teams of digital and human workers that are more powerful than their automated counterparts. A low-code platform thats easy to use lets citizen-developers contribute to automation initiatives, so scaling automation across the enterprise becomes a reality. Teams can collaborate more effectively while robots become a friend, taking over the tedious tasks people find mind-numbing.

The feeling of not having to complete frustrating and mundane tasks makes employees want to come to work. When they do,the only thing handing in its letter of resignation is the Great Resignation itself.

Boredom, monotony and menial activities like processing invoices and manual data entry all contribute to the Great Resignation. When you automate processes, employees can engage in more high-touchcustomer interactions like answering incoming questions that require strategic thinking and personalized service.

Nothing can put an employee to sleep faster than dull, repetitive work. Automation puts a stop to interminable and often arduous processes, allowing employees to work on what they like without feeling overwhelmed.For example, alogistics company automated the optimization of client orders, enabling the company to shift five skilled employees from the night shift to the day shift. They can now work on new, more challenging work and no longer have to work overnight.

Automation is kind of like a time machine. You can speed up processes, which has become essential as many organizations are facing staffing shortages. Rather than force employees to work overtime, automation makes it possible to get more done with fewer human resources. Employees can still clock out on time so theyre less likely to become dissatisfied.

Automation unites formerly separate business activities with linked systems, making it easier to get things done and exchange information. Even something as simple as an advanced PDF editor, for example, allows employees to edit, share and e-sign PDF documents from any location, making it simple for project leaders, team members, and even entire divisions to work together more efficiently.

AI-powered document management software saves time by automating processes. The information is immediately transferred to the required business systems. Employees have immediate access to updated and relevant information, allowing them to complete their tasks more quickly and effectively.

For instance, amortgage lender implemented a business process management (BPM) platform that included automation technologies like cognitive capture and optical character recognition to automate loan origination workflows and saved 16 person-hours per day. Now they can respond to inbound customer requests 50 percent faster than before.

Manual activities like invoice processing, onboarding, and claim processing are completed faster and more correctly and at a lower cost to the business when workflows are digitized. This leads tosavings because of improved compliance, fewer late payment penaltiesand early payment discounts.

Employees who are appreciated and engaged are more likely to stay focused, perform welland have a good attitude when interacting with clients, suppliersand partners. A large majority (85 percent) of respondents to an IDC survey agree that an improved employee experience and higher employee engagement translate to a better customer experience and higher customer satisfaction.

Top executives and managers can benefit from analytics by gaining greater insight into business operations and performance. Modern intelligent automation platforms are equipped with process intelligence that allows organizations to deploy browser-based analytics on data across multiple sources. By linking data and metrics to steps in business processes, management and executives gain insight into bottlenecks and overall operations, so they can make smart decisions to enhance company procedures and performance.

Stop the Great ResignationRetain More Employees by Tailoring Benefits to Their Needs

From finance to marketing toHR, automation helps employees complete their work more efficiently and effectively, allowing them to focus on higher-value tasks. If your company is experiencing signs of a brain drain or you want greater insight into how to improve business operations and performance,explore how you can benefit from intelligent automation and make your employees happier.

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Why Automation Will Turn the Great Resignation Into the Great Upgrade - Built In

Koidra, an intelligent automation (IA) platform company based out of Seattle, has raised $4.5 million in its seed round. Ospraie Ag Science (OAS) led this round of funding, with participation from Amritam Holdings, Cavallo Ventures, and Foothill Ventures.

Koidra was founded by the lead of Microsoft Research's winning team at theinauguralAutonomous Greenhouse Challenge. They were the only team to outperform expert Dutch growers, and they also demonstrated the massive yield and profitability improvements achievable through intelligent greenhouse automation.

Intelligent automation combines multiple disciplinessuch as artificial intelligence, mathematics, and physicsto transform real-time data into useful decisions. Koidra delivers "decision intelligence" to their clients for improved operational decision making, a top technology trend identified by analyst firm Gartner. Besides operational efficiency gains, Koidra solutions also advance manufacturing businesses on their journey to achieving hyperautomation, another strategic technology trend identified by Gartner.

For more information:Koidrawww.koidra.ai

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Koidra raises $4.5 million funding to bring automation to greenhouses - hortidaily.com

CPGS Walk a Fine Line of Profitability and Loss

When it comes to profitability, CPGs dont have much wiggle room to begin with, let alone small and midsized CPGs looking to establish and maintain shelf space in a hypercompetitive retail environment. And deductions management plays a big role in protecting profitability.

Validating deductions and managing discrepancies with retailers is challenging. It requires tedious research and accounting, and puts hard-earned retailer relationships at risk. All too often, accounts receivable (AR) teams find themselves overloaded with manually processing thousands of deductions in multiple retailer formats, leaving no time for recovery, let alone prevention.

That thing is automation. Introducing automation and artificial intelligence to deductions management can protect profit margins by transforming the manual deductions management process from beginning to end.

From the moment CPGs receive deductions from retailers, automation can be leveraged to extract information and prioritize claims. This seemingly simple step can save analysts loads of front-end time, and as many retailers have strict dispute windows, this time could be the difference in cash collected or left on the table.

After deductions are quickly coded, analysts can continue to leverage automation to validate claims. Validation requires a collection of supporting documents, such as additional invoices, receipts, Proof of Delivery, and Bill of Lading. These documents are often housed in different places, and AR analysts work with other internal stakeholders to track down and collect them. This back-and-forth often happens via email, creating a convoluted string of communication and unorganized handling of important documents that cash recovery depends on. If the deduction is invalid, even more back-and-forth may be necessary to prepare the dispute.

Automated deductions management solutions provide a single source of truth for all documents and information, helping simplify this hectic process. Many solutions also allow multiple users to access a shared dashboard providing organized workflows, clear accountability, and seamless communication between teams. Thats a powerful capability, and the benefits of AI and automation dont stop there.

Arguably, even more critical than invalid deductions are valid deductions. With newfound time from automating validation and parts of the dispute process, AR analysts can leverage data and insights made possible from a centralized system for all deductions information. This data can inform internal inefficiencies and, paired with improved cross-team collaboration, CPGs can prevent future deductions from happening in the first place. For example, packaging errors or shipping delays may be the root cause of many deductions, and AR teams can work with operations to correct them.

Beyond prevention, automated deductions management solutions can deliver powerful insights into retailer performance that allow CPGs to focus on improving and nurturing these valuable relationships. Insights into how specific retailers are trending when it comes to deductions can also enable teams to make informed decisions in unique circumstances, such as how to allocate limited product in a supply chain crisis. On the flip side, data can also reveal trends into how successfully AR teams recover cash from each retailer.

The value-add of automation is undeniable. From extraction, validation and recovery, to delivering insights to inform prevention, opportunities for improvement, and retailer relationships introducing data and automation to the deductions management process helps protect against margin erosion, increase productivity, and drive overall growth.

Dash Bibhudatta is the vice president and general manager, product, fintech at Inmar, a leading data platform company.

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Data and Automation Are Key for Preventing Needless Margin Erosion - Total Retail

For a while now, organisations have been approaching integration and automation separately, setting up teams with different capabilities and tools to integrate systems and automate processes.

But that should not be the case, according to Allan Teng, Workatos managing director and founder for Asia-Pacific and Japan, who says automation and integration are in fact two sides of the same coin.

In an interview with Computer Weekly, Teng explains Workatos integration-led approach towards automation, why it makes sense for organisations, and how the company is tackling the Asia-Pacific market.

Can you tell us more about Workato and its heritage in the integration space?

Teng: Our founders have a very rich history in the integration space. They were the ones who started Tibco with products like the enterprise service bus. Fast-forward 30 years, and the biggest challenge with integration hasnt changed. Its still very technical and requires a huge undertaking. But what has changed is that employees now want things faster and easier, like they do with consumer apps.

Workato was started with the hypothesis that companies value the outcome of connecting data, processes and user experience. These are things that are intertwined and are not separate problems. Integration vendors may tell you that you have a data integration problem, while automation vendors may see the problem as a workflow and process issue.

Companies shouldnt have to buy different tools to solve their data problems. These could be ETL [extract, transform, load], API [application programming interface] management or iPaaS [integration platform-as-a-service] tools. And on the automation side, there are BPM [business process management] and RPA [robotic process automation] tools.

A distinguished Gartner analyst who joined us recently notes that integration and automation are in fact two sides of the same coin. And if companies address them in different ways, they will always have a piecemeal approach. The world has changed, and we want to look at things in a holistic way, where you connect all your systems so that they are well integrated, and then use this connectivity to automate business process and for user experience purposes. Thats what we call the integration-led automation approach.

When we started the company, one of our first use cases was around Salesforce to QuickBooks integration. But what we realised was that because our technology was easy to use, customers started connecting different applications such as Trello and other components to automate their processes.

Now we have customers like Grab that are using Workato for integration and automation. Another customer is Gainsight, which started using Workato for API use cases and later replaced its ETL tool with our platform.

But dont get me wrong, we also partner with RPA vendors like UiPath because they have done really well with automation. But the market has signalled that while automation is important, they also want more and thats why more RPA vendors are going into the integration space through mergers and acquisitions.

But merging two companies doesnt solve the problem. While it makes it easier to buy from a single source, companies time and time again have told us that they are not trying to look for a better RPA or integration tool.

We want to look at things in a holistic way, where you connect all your systems so that they are well integrated, and then use this connectivity to automate business process and for user experience purposes. Allan Teng, Workato

The value proposition of Workato is that we are one platform for both integration and automation. Its also easy to use when companies implement Workato, they expect it to be done within a month, with the first use case going live within a week.

But its not just the speed in building and maintaining integrations. Many IT organisations are starting to realise that they have become the biggest bottlenecks in their business. For them to provide more business value, they have to shift from integrating systems and being a service provider, to becoming more of a strategy and empowerment team.

For example, if HR wants to do integration work, why cant IT provide them with the tools to do it themselves? This was what happened at Scoot, the budget airline. Their HR was frustrated with IT, which needed nine months to integrate SaaS [software-as-a-service] applications like ServiceNow and Workday. With Workato, they could do it themselves in one to two months.

Finally, the most important thing is that Workato meets enterprise requirements and doesnt circumvent IT. So, when Scoot bought Workato, their IT team was involved and did their evaluations around things like security.

Can you elaborate on the benefits of a holistic platform like Workato compared to an integration platform with RPA capabilities?

Teng: On paper, those platforms can do everything, but in practice it is really hard. The biggest challenge is with skills and resources. In the past, you needed different sets of tools and skills for integration and automation, which make teams less nimble and harder to scale.

On the flipside, with Workato, you dont need to form different teams. In fact, most companies that choose Workato dont start with a Workato team. They start with training everybody on Workato, including those whose jobs do not involve coding. They train people who are managing applications like Salesforce and Workday. This alleviates the need to bring in different groups of people for a project.

I can tell you why we are so confident in this race. We have partnerships with tertiary institutions where the professors teaching Workato in their courses are not even from the IT schools. One HR professor is teaching Workato so that HR students can become tech-enabled. If 18-year-old students from non-technical backgrounds can use Workato to solve problems, I dont believe companies cant do it and thats why were so excited about this space.

What is the typical entry point for most of your customers in the APAC region?

Teng: Most companies start working with us in one area. Certis, for example, started using Workato as an SAP integration tool, so for the first couple of months, their CIO thought Workato was just about SAP integration. Then I had lunch with their CEO and showed them what we could do.

The entry point in this region is all over the place, to be honest. We get in wherever we can, but our strength has always been solving integration problems. For example, some of our customers have SAP systems that need to be integrated, while others want to have chatbots in Slack.

When we go to the market, we talk less about the technology and more about our value proposition for example, what it means to be able to automate the sales process so you can achieve revenues faster and the technology behind that. We dont really try to sell an integration or automation product. Most of the time we work with business teams to look at their objectives and how our technology fits in.

Could you give me a sense of your overall business in the region? How fast is the company growing and which industries are you more frequently engaged with? Are they mostly in the financial services industry?

Teng: Today we do very little business with financial services companies. We do a lot more in other industries because the biggest challenge with financial services firms is that they are slow to change their mindsets, even the most forward-looking ones. They are very heavily invested in legacy technology because they have to justify those investments.

We work with organisations that are under-served. Our strength today is in the technology space. Most of our customers are tech unicorns such as Gojek, Grab and Tokopedia. They are often the fastest adopters because they are not the kind of companies that will be afraid to say they made a wrong choice.

We also look at companies that have a public cloud mentality because you cant deploy Workato on-premise or in a private cloud. It is a fully SaaS platform, which is unacceptable to some companies. But that could change in the next three to five years, because companies will start to realise that they will be beaten by cloud-native competitors that are completely changing the game.

We are also starting to see more traditional customers, like airlines, property developers and shipping companies, with modern CIOs who will choose Workato 98% of the time. But if they are trying to maximise their existing investments, then we wont be able to get in until they start to realise that theyre moving too slowly.

What about telcos?

Teng: Our biggest challenge has historically been that we are only hosted in the US. We will have a Singapore datacentre in a couple of weeks. There was a telco where Workato won technology-wise, but there is one component, a local datacentre, which we dont have. Their CIO told me that if we had a local datacentre, he would choose Workato every single time. The same goes for the public sector, but once we have our Singapore datacentre, it shouldnt be an issue.

In the long term, do you think there will be less need for integration if business software suppliers start offering loosely coupled microservices of capabilities that can be bundled together to suit an organisations needs?

Teng: Its easier said than done. With so many applications out there, its not possible for software providers to build point-to-point integrations with every application. If all we do is integration and we cannot connect to every application, no one can. Instead, software providers are using the Workato platform to do the integrations.

Thats also our fastest-growing business because many technology companies cant do bespoke integrations for every enterprise customer beyond core integrations. Also, its hard for business users to understand what microservices are about. They care more about the process and tend to be more familiar with triggers and actions when doing integrations.

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Why integration and automation are two sides of the same coin - ComputerWeekly.com

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Automation in Combined Heat and Power Market by Component, Control and Safety System: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global automation in combined heat and power market size was valued at $12.53 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $24.12 billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 7.1% from 2021 to 2030. Combined heat and power (CHP) automation plays a significant role in energy management which include optimal coordination of turbines & boilers in order to minimalize production costs while maintaining environmental compliance. The automation system in a CHP plant covers the entire process, including the turbine island, boiler island, fuel handling, balance of plant, and auxiliary processes.

Growth of the global automation in combined heat and power market is anticipated to be driven by factors such as emphasis on industrial automation & optimum utilization of resources, and adoption of emerging technologies such as IoT and AI in industrial environments. In addition, emergence of the concept of connected enterprises boosts the overall market growth. However, lack of awareness among small scale industries acts as a major restraint for the global automation in the combined heat and power industry. On the contrary, a surge in demand from the Asia-Pacific region is expected to create lucrative opportunities for the automation in combined heat and power market.

The global automation in combined heat and power market is segmented on the basis of components, control and safety system, and region. By component, the market is classified into sensors, controllers, switches & relays, drives, and others. Depending on control and safety system, it is categorized into distributed control system, supervisory control & data acquisition system, systems instrumented systems, programmable logic controller, and human machine interface.

Companies Mentioned

KEY BENEFITS FOR STAKEHOLDERS

Market Dynamics

Drivers

Restraint

Opportunities

KEY MARKET SEGMENTS

By Component

By Control and Safety System

By Region

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/w9voyh

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$24.12 Billion Opportunities in the Automation in Combined Heat and Power Global Market, 2021-2030 by Component, Control and Safety System -...

Asure Software Inc

AUSTIN, Texas, March 30, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Asure Software, Inc., (Nasdaq: ASUR), a leading provider of cloud-based Human Capital Management (HCM) software solutions, today announced its new integrations with Automation Anywhere and Workato to maximize the speed, efficiency, and customer experience with automated processes.

These leading automation platforms provide Robotic Process Automation (RPA) capabilities that accelerate Asures HCM platform integration, streamline workflows, and further automate the end-to-end processes of Asures Payroll, HR, Tax Management, and money-movement services.

The integration with Automation Anywhere allows RPA software bots to scale our resources, increase speed & accuracy, improve the customer experience, and ensure compliance and auditability. Asure is first building these bots to improve internal effectiveness and will soon offer a Bot Library to help its resellers take advantage of all these automation benefits.

The integration with Workato takes RPA to another level by providing advanced API integrations and workflows that enable more backend power to Asures automation strategy. These tools speed the onboarding process and make for a better customer experience due to seamless integration with front-end and back-end platforms.

Automating processes in Payroll, HR, Tax, and money-movement is dramatically improving our productivity and our customers experience all at the same time, said, Pat Goepel, Chairman, and CEO of Asure. The real beauty of automation isnt so much the time it saves but rather the possibilities it creates. By automating routine tasks, we get to re-deploy our workforce on more proactive, client-facing work that makes a huge impact on our clients ability to stay compliant and grow their business, added Goepel.

About Asure SoftwareAsure (Nasdaq: ASUR) is a leading provider of Human Capital Management (HCM) software solutions. We help small and mid-sized companies grow by assisting them in building better teams with skills to stay compliant with ever-changing federal, state, and local tax jurisdictions and labor laws, and better allocate cash so they can spend their financial capital on growing their business rather than back-office overhead expenses. Asures Human Capital Management suite, named Asure HCM, includes cloud-based Payroll, Tax Services, and Time & Attendance software as well as human resources (HR) services ranging from HR projects to completely outsourcing payroll and HR staff. We also offer these products and services through our network of reseller partners. Visit us at asuresoftware.com.

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About Automation AnywhereAutomation Anywhere is the No. 1 cloud automation platform, delivering RPA and process intelligence solutions across all industries globally to automate end-to-end business processes for the fastest path to enterprise transformation. The company offers the worlds only cloud-native platform combining RPA, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and analytics to automate repetitive tasks and build enterprise agility, freeing up humans to pivot to the next big idea, build deeper customer relationships and drive business growth. For additional information, visit http://www.automationanywhere.com.

Automation Anywhere is a trademark/service mark or registered trademark/service mark of Automation Anywhere, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

About WorkatoWorkato is the operating system for today's fast-moving business. Recognized as a leader, Workato is the only enterprise automation platform that enables both business and IT to integrate their apps and automate even the most mission-critical workflows without compromising security and governance. Workato is trusted by over 6,000 of the world's top brands and fastest growing innovators.

Investor Relations ContactRandal RudniskiVice President, Investor Relations, Financial Planning & Analysis512-859-3562randal.rudniski@asuresoftware.com

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Asure Accelerates Operating Scale with Advanced Robotic Process Automation (RPA) That Improves Customer Satisfaction, Speed, and Efficiency of Payroll...

The Computer Weekly Developer Network gets high-brow on low-code and no-code (LC/NC) technologies in an analysis series designed to uncover some of the nuances and particularities of this approach to software application development.

Looking at the core mechanics of the applications, suites, platforms and services in this space, we seek to understand not just how apps are being built this way, but also what shape, form, function and status these apps exist as and what the implications are for enterprise software built this way, once it exists in live production environments.

This piece is written by Art Harrison in his position as chief growth officer at Daylight Automation a company known for its workflow automation software and designed to tackle repetitive office processes.

Harrison writes as follows

Weve heard time and again how the pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of many organisations. When lockdowns hit and employers had to enable a remote workforce, many invested in technologies that could help employees continue their jobs at home and still serve customers as needed. For some, those technologies were low-code/no-code platforms.

Low-code and no-code platforms have seen a rise, for the most part, due to their ability to enable teams to rapidly build solutions. They allow employees to transform processes that they use day-to-day into automated, digital experiences, helping to increase employee productivity and innovation.

Instead of inheriting technology that has been part of a year-long project, with low-code/no-code platforms, process owners and users are involved from the start. Theyre empowered to become citizen developers and understand the whats in it for me? factor from the outset, increasing the likelihood that the technology will be adopted something many organizations have struggled with in the past.

The technology investments large organisations make are usually to offset the cumbersome legacy systems they have to deal with. In a desire to automate core and non-core processes, companies have invested in tools like Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) and process mining, but theyre missing one key ingredient: structured data.

Without data that can power the aforementioned technologies, they dont serve their intended purpose.

For example, if OCR is used to extract customer data from a PDF there is still a possibility that the captured data will be inaccurate and will require manual intervention.

With a low-code/no-code platform, manual processes that tend to be error-prone turn into data capture tools that send structured data downstream. So, instead of RPA leveraging the wrong data that came from OCR, it has a clean slate to work with.

The rise of citizen developers and business technologists who are running with no-code solutions can make the IT function a bit weary. After all, theyre used to being the gatekeeper of all technology. When low-code no-code platforms are properly implemented by cross-functional teams, they should have the autonomy to launch new workflows and processes without IT over their shoulder but, that doesnt mean the governance model goes out the window.

With low-code (and in particular) no-code solutions, ITs role changes. They take on an influencing role and cultivate a governance model that works with citizen developers and cross-functional teams, instead of pushing a top-down approach.

Low-code and no-code solutions arent going to reduce head count or remove the need for developers. However, they will allow your sought-after software engineers to focus on larger, high-impact projects. The smaller, internal processes can be saved by low-code/no-code solutions, accelerating the digital transformation organisations have been seeking for years.

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The low-no-code series Daylight Automation: The role of structured data & governance - ComputerWeekly.com

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The death of the working class is an interesting question because one of the main reasons instigating the discourse on the end of work is deindustrialization and the end of blue-collar workers. What this misses is the globalization of value chains, the regionalization of industries, and the fact that to take one prominent industry there are today more auto workers worldwide than there were thirty years ago: far fewer in Italy, France, or the UK, but far more in China, India, and Latin America. Employment in the auto sector rose worldwide by 35 percent between 2007 and 2017. Take China, where employment in the sector rose 68 percent, to roughly 5 million workers in 2017, or Mexico, where employment doubled during the same period. At the same time, employment in the auto industry in France declined from 280,000 to 190,000 in the same period. Thats without taking into account the emergence of a battery value chain, whose effects on industrial employment are to be determined.

So, the death of the working class discourse is a Global North narrative, blind to the economic transformations of world capitalism. I use the theoretical framework of Beverly J. Silver, who says that capital faces two opposing forces. The first is the profitability crisis: capital searches for new countries where the labor force is cheaper, and new industries where it can invest, to counter the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. The second force is working-class organization. Thats why it always seeks out disciplined and peaceful working classes in Global South countries. But it also creates the same contradictions in these other countries. So, while it invests in creating new industries and new working classes in other countries, it also creates new labor conflicts and demands.

In this sense, alongside the deindustrialization of Northern countries, there is an industrialization of Southern and Eastern ones. Slovakia has more production of vehicles per person than any other country in Europe. Then, in northwestern Europe, you have a tendency also to create new hubs of industrial workers; in the book I give the example of logistics, which is one of the fastest-growing sectors of industrial work in the rich countries. There is a small boom in the number of workers in this sector, where jobs are usually manual, very unskilled, and very poorly paid. In France, you have now 800,000 blue-collar workers in logistical hubs in the peripheries of big cities. One can also think of the UPS Worldport in Louisville, Kentucky, with 20,000 employees. This again reflects the idea that where capital invests, labor conflicts emerge. You have seen this in France, and you have seen this in northern Italy, where there was a wave of strikes by migrant workers in logistical hubs. That is a direct consequence of this development of logistics as an industrial sector, as was the auto industry a few years ago.

Alessandro Delfanti said that Amazon is the new Fiat. Im not sure if I entirely agree with that, because Fiat, now Stellantis, still exists. But the configuration of the workforce is somewhat similar. It means that there are young, unskilled, migrant, poorly paid, and highly concentrated workers in these new logistical hubs. And this is an explosive cocktail in a certain sense for the organization of the working class, and it could be a possible source of renewal also for the labor movement today.

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No, Automation Isn't Going to Make Work Disappear - Jacobin magazine

DALLAS & TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Throughout release, name of EMEA Regional Sales Director should read: Thierry Guenoun (instead of Thierry Guenon).

The updated release reads:

EXPANSION OF BACKBOX CONTINUES AS NETWORK AUTOMATION BECOMES ESSENTIAL

Leading provider of network automation announces additions to leadership team and new global headquarters following 63% employee growth rate and 40% growth in recurring revenue in the last year

BackBox, a leading provider in network automation, security and management, today announced the appointment of Pete Morrison as Vice President of Sales; Thierry Guenoun as EMEA Regional Sales Director; and Jonathan Moore as Vice President of Marketing. Collectively, Morrison, Guenoun and Moore bring over 50 years of experience in the technology industry to their roles at BackBox, where they will lead teams tasked with expanding the companys global reach and supporting the rapidly increasing market demand for the companys network automation and security solution. In the last year, BackBox saw 40% growth in recurring revenue, 20% growth in bookings including new customers in the energy, financial and entertainment sectors across the U.S. and Europe, and greater than 95% customer retention.

In addition to the expansion of its leadership team, BackBox also announced its new global headquarters in Dallas, Texas which will support expansion plans in North America, as well as talent sourcing. The new U.S. headquarters will be BackBoxs second globally, with the other located in Tel Aviv, Israel serving the EMEA and APAC regions.

Since our funding round in October 2021, we have been aggressively adding talent to BackBox to support our rapid growth, said Andrew Kahl, CEO of BackBox. The significant increases in our customer portfolio particularly those in critical infrastructure sectors like energy and finance signal a burgeoning understanding of the importance of network health and security to companies of all sizes, in every region. Pete, Thierry and Jonathan each have a strong track record of success leading sales and marketing teams, specifically in IT infrastructure. They understand the challenges our customers and prospects face, and the role BackBox can play in solving those challenges.

Morrison brings over 30 years of industry experience to his role at BackBox. He previously served as Regional Sales Director at Splunk, where he led a team of sellers focused on aerospace and defense companies, and held leadership positions at Oracle and CA Technologies. Guenoun hails from Amdocs, where he designed and implemented complex Integrated Revenue and Customer Management Solutions for tier-1 communications service providers and media companies throughout EMEA in his role as Solution Architect. Throughout his 10 years of field experience, Guenoun has led initiatives in real-time charging, policy management and customer relationship management. Moore has been leading growth marketing initiatives for B2B software companies for 25 years, contributing to five acquisitions and two IPOs, including Webtrends, Tripwire, Jive Software and AWS Elemental. Most recently, Moore served as Vice President of Marketing for customer experience analytics vendor Topbox. Morrison, Guenoun and Moore will be instrumental in driving success at BackBox through brand awareness, customer acquisition and sales team leadership.

Morrison, Guenoun and Moore are the latest executives to join BackBoxs growing leadership team, following several appointments in late 2021, including Craig McDonald as Vice President of Product Management; Jim Burglin as Vice President of Customer Experience; Tony Lam as Chief Operating Officer; and Kathy Schneeberg as Vice President of Human Resources and People Operations. In total, BackBox grew employee headcount by 63% in 2021.

We are looking forward to our Dallas headquarters opening up new doors for talent sourcing in one of the biggest tech hubs in the U.S., continued Kahl. BackBox is in an accelerated growth period, and having dual headquarters in the U.S. and EMEA positions us to meet the heightened market demand and support our global customer base.

To learn more about BackBox or to join its growing team, please visit http://www.backbox.com.

About BackBox

BackBox is a market leader in network automation, security and management solutions. We help companies worldwide automate and streamline complex tasks, ensure network health and performance, achieve business continuity and do more with fewer resources. To learn more, visit http://www.backbox.com.

Link:

CORRECTING and REPLACING Expansion of BackBox Continues As Network Automation Becomes Essential - Business Wire