Category Archives: Automation

Millennium Dome (Photo by JR Harris on Unsplash)

"Automation is key," says Jaime Everard, Business Systems Manager at engineering consultancy Buro Happold. With 1,900 employees and 26 global locations, the 40-year-old company has delivered prestige projects such as the iconic Millenium Dome in London, the Atlanta Falcons Mercedes-Benz Stadium with its distinctive retractable roof, the Louvre Abu Dhabi and many others. Continued evolution of its IT systems is a key part of its ongoing growth. Everard says:

We don't want our engineers spending loads of time filling in data into the system. We'd like the system to be able to automate that as much as possible. Because ultimately, we prefer our people to be out there working with our customers.

I spoke to Everard in the run-up to this week's Experience4U virtual event, organized by Unit4, where he'll chat to Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller about automation in professional services. Buro Happold has been a Unit4 customer since 2004 and our conversation touched on the various ways in which its use of the platform has expanded in recent years to streamline processes and reporting. One notable aspect of this is that the London-based firm has been able to pursue these innovations while still keeping its ERP instance on-prem, rather than having to upgrade to a version that runs in the cloud. Everard doesn't rule out going to the cloud in the future, but it's not a priority right now. He explains:

It's not that we're not going to adopt a Unit4 cloud solution going forwards. It's just getting the timing right for that. At the moment, we do have rack space in a data center, so we are able to sufficiently service all of our global people, in terms of getting access to the system. We've got a great internal infrastructure team that enables that. We use tools such as Citrix, etc, but obviously moving towards a more web-based architecture, which Unit4 provides.

We're almost providing our own cloud, because we just access our services through the data center, and we operate a global WAN to make sure that all of our offices are connected [to each other], and connected to our data center.

Instead of upgrading the back-end, the focus has been on adding new ways to access it. A big part of the automation story has been a move towards 'headless' ERP. This means accessing the back-end system via a conversational layer in Buro Happold's case, the Microsoft Teams messaging app rather than going directly to the ERP application (the 'head') to see data or use functions. This was made possible with Unit4's Wanda chatbot technology, which the firm became the first on-prem customer to start using. It allows users to get information or complete actions directly from the Teams message stream, while the AI technology behind Wanda takes care of communicating with the back-end system. Everard elaborates:

People engaging with the systems having to go around different systems to do different tasks is quite time-consuming, especially when you're an engineer out there on the customer side. The great thing that Teams gives us, and being able to use Wanda through Teams, is a commonality of interface. They didn't even know necessarily what ERP system they're connected to. All they know is, it's doing what they need it to do on a daily basis, whether that's entering your absence, whether it's approving a task, approving an invoice. It can all be done through a common interface, and we do so much now within Teams.

The team has automated a range of different tasks using Wanda across HR and finance tasks, even including setting up and filling in timesheets. Teams is also useful for tracking collaboration around documents in SharePoint. Actions are much less likely to get missed when Wanda sends an alert than when a user receives an email reminder. Everard explains:

If Wanda is prompting you and saying, you've got an invoice to approve, it comes up as what they call a card. You can see the information in Teams, and you just simply click approve, reject, or update later. [Unit4 has] also built in quite a clever web app, which takes you to a very simplified version of the Unit4 tool, so that you can see the invoice, the receipt, all of those things, within there. Again, that's all linked up through Wanda and Teams.

All of these workflows have been built by Everard's team using Unit4's visual workflow builder, making sure that each workflow conforms to the company's internal authorization matrix. The visualization means that users can also track the status of outstanding actions in the workflow at any given time. He explains:

You build it as a diagram, and then you apply the rules into the steps in the diagram. So you can see, as you're building it, where it's going to go, who it's going to go to, how it's going to work. That also benefits the user, because it translates into a nice diagram or map, so they can see who it's with at any point in time.

Workflow flexibility was also useful when implementing Unit4's mobile-first travel and expense app. This had to accommodate very strict regional exchange rate rules in countries such as Poland, where the team implemented a connector to import the correct rates. Automating expense claims has made a big impact, especially with the advent of COVID and the switch to remote working. He explains:

Previously, it was just a matter of taking pictures [of receipts], and then when you got back in the office, you had to complete it within the system. But now you can do everything through the app, including taking pictures of receipts. We even have receipt recognition switched on, so in many cases, it will detect on receipt, what type of expense it is ...

We get the information in terms of approvals to the right people, they can see the receipt, they can say yes, I approve it's within policy, etc. So that's definitely been a big plus for us, adopting expenses. Good job we did do it before COVID. We finished it about three or four months before COVID. We've adopted that globally.

The team is now rolling out Unit4 Procure-to-Pay (P2P), which has just gone live in India and will roll out elsewhere over the coming months. This too will bring much-needed automation, as he explains:

That will bring a great deal of automation, and also will mean a lot of manual process will hopefully go the way of the dinosaur ... At the moment we have an invoice comes in the door, and our AP team have to code that in. With P2P, they won't have to do that anymore. The invoice will come in the door, and we'll be able to match it and then pay our suppliers off the back of that.

There's plenty else going on across the firm's business systems. It recently implemented a new image library, and has just adopted the Cornerstone learning management system. Meanwhile, there's a big project in hand to transition the Deltek project management platform to a new version.

Data analytics is another area where Buro Happold has made big strides in recent years. A dedicated internal team of three PowerBI experts have developed the internal data warehouse to provide curated data models to various parts of the organization, which allows people to generate their own reports. Doing this internally rather than relying on outside consultants "means we're delivering, first time, what the stakeholder wants," says Everard. It's proven its worth, particularly when navigating the uncertainties of the pandemic, as he explains:

That has given our leadership real visibility into what's happening. During the pandemic, frankly, if we didn't have those tools, our decision making would have been impacted.

It's really helped our decision making, so we're continually growing our offering. It's probably our most in-demand area.

To read diginomica stories from Unit4's X4U digital experience visit our Experience4U 2021 event hub. The virtual event runs from November 16-17th and sessions will be available afterwards to view on-demand. Click here to see the agenda and register now.

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Experience4U - how engineering consultancy Buro Happold is automating around its on-prem ERP - Diginomica

Youve invested time, energy, and money. Youve done your market research, created a bullet-proof business plan, launched, and taken off.

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Now you want your business to really soar, so youre grappling with what has become the holy grail of business marketing: automation. Its supposed to be the way to optimize your teams efficiency, target prospects and customers, and increase revenue. But your business is flatlining.

Wheres the upward trajectory you were expecting to see?

Automation sounds like a brilliant way to boost your marketing efforts. It can allow your team to spend more time doing what they were hired to do, and less time bogged down in grunt work. It can target customers via automated messaging across multiple platforms and enhance your ability to nurture leads and close sales. But dont assume that simply automating your marketing processes will get you where you want to go. Heres what you need to keep in mind.

Automation doesnt translate to hands-off. Automation demands constant scrutiny and adjustment. You need to ensure that your data remains up-to-date, and that all leads and marketing efforts are being productively leveraged.

That means allocating appropriate resources i.e. dedicated team members to ensure this is done effectively. It does not mean you can stop investing in other strategies in your marketing efforts. Marketing automation tools arent meant to replace your marketing plan: theyre meant to augment it.

Dont throw everything at the wall to see what sticks. Be strategic. Find the gap between what you already have and what you require to achieve your marketing goals.:

Zero in on the specific tasks that could benefit from automation, and research the tools that will do the job for you.

For example, if you favor a particular tool for project management, but you dont have a handy way to create video recordings within it, consider filling the gap with third-party APIs to integrate this function into your marketing system.

Build a Chrome extension using the APIs from these tools to plug the features in. Its a worthwhile investment because its a proven customer connection booster.

Its also about the budget. Look at the opportunity costs. Automating your WordPress development could perhaps free up a lot more bandwidth and establish higher ROI at your end than automating sales outreach. Invest wisely.

Every business has unique needs. You cant expect a single tool to satisfy all your specific marketing requirements. Once youve come up with a definitive shortlist of your needs, investigate the app options that most closely align with what youre looking for, and invest in them. Be prepared to do some custom-tailoring to get a fit thats just right for your business.

Or, if youre using multiple tools for a project, you can easily build a master app with APIs that can bring all this information together in one place.

Automation can be a great tool. But if its not used appropriately, it can actually put the brakes on business growth.

Todays consumers are smart: they know when theyre being sold. Automation systems may tempt you to flood your target market with material because they make it so easy! Resist the temptation. Consumers want content that consistently informs, engages, and recognizes them as individuals with specific needs. They dont want to be a number on a mass-mailing list.

Without question, automation systems can be invaluable in identifying and nurturing good leads. Ideally, they can help guide prospects down the marketing funnel or at least, bring them part-way. Research shows that businesses that practice lead nurturing enjoy 50% more conversions than those that dont. It all adds up: lead nurturing is about providing useful information, creating brand awareness, and building trust. Bingo.

But those automation-generated warm leads may have cooled off by the time your team actually makes contact with them. If the person-to-person interaction necessary to close the deal is delayed too long, chances are youll miss out on conversions.

When it comes to leads, temperature trumps numbers. Its all about striking when the iron is hot. Dont rely on marketing automation systems however effective they may be at sussing out leads to keep those leads interested and guide them down the sales funnel. These systems require constant monitoring by a dedicated team to be truly effective. This ensures that you can effectively engage with prospects when it really matters.

To ensure successful engagement, you need to know precisely who you need to connect with and how you can do it most effectively. Automation can save time and effort when it comes to targeted communication.

But its money down the drain if you dont choose the appropriate medium. You want to meet prospects and customers where they are. That means knowing who they are, and which communication channels theyre most likely to use. In other words, dont limit your automation efforts to email if your target demographic is millennials.

Be strategic in your selection of options that you offer potential customers to engage with you. Obviously, the more you can offer, the better. Businesses can take either a multichannel or omnichannel approach to building customer relationships. Multichannel customer communication offers a variety of communication channels including everything from live chat to SMS to social media. This allows customers to connect with you on multiple platforms.

The omnichannel approach also uses multiple platforms, with one notable difference: all the communication channels are integrated into one single system meaning that no matter the platform the consumer is using, you can engage them. For example, your customer may reach out to your support team via Facebook, then decide to continue the conversation via email. Theyll stay connected.

And ultimately, thats the number one priority: to keep the conversation going. Thats what automated systems allow you to do in ways that conventional marketing simply cant. But it takes work.

Be sure that you have a clear understanding of your target audience, your marketing goals, and the steps that can most effectively bridge the two. Be prepared to consistently produce compelling content that both engages your audience and provides them with valuable information. Determine when and how to release that content most effectively to prospects and customers on their buying journey.

The right content sent to the right audience at the right time: thats a recipe for success, all courtesy of automation.

Updated on Nov 15, 2021, 4:32 pm

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Why Is Automation Not Working For Your Business? - ValueWalk

In its third quarter,Appian(NASDAQ:APPN) continued to make strides in unifying its low-code platform after its recent acquisition of process mining firm Lana Labs. Appian says "the goal of process mining is to capture insights and take action."

In this episode of "Beat and Raise," Fool contributor Trevor Jennewine reviews the cloud company's third-quarter earnings report and discusses how the company is well-positioned to capture the growth in the market. Fool contributor Jason Halls is also in the clip.

Trevor Jennewine: All right. Let's jump into it.

Jason Hall: Great.

Trevor Jennewine: Appian provides low-code and automation tools that help businesses build applications and automate workflows with the drag and drop interface rather than computer code. Looking at the third quarter results, revenue came in at 92 million. That was up 20 percent, a deceleration compared to last quarter, but still a beat on the topline. The non-GAAP loss came in at $0.22. Loss of $0.22 on the bottom line, and that was a slight miss management was forecasting that between $0.17 since $0.20. Then so circling back to revenue, the company earns revenue in a couple of different ways. One of them is through professional services. This is revenue that's earned for essentially helping clients get set up with the platform. It's very low margin, and it's expected to become a smaller percentage of sales over time especially as system integrators like Accenture and Deloitte.

The company breaks out subscription revenue and cloud subscription revenue, and both of those metrics are growing more quickly. Subscription revenue came in at 67 million, that was up 32 percent and then the software-as-a-service cloud subscription revenue was up 36 percent. Those numbers are pretty strong on the top-line. Then the retention rate was 117 percent. This is a little bit higher than the 115 percent from last year, so customers are spending more. Also good to see. I think the big highlight from the quarter is the acquisition of Lana Labs. Lana Labs specializes in process mining. This builds on Appian's acquisition of a robotic process automation company from early 2020. Robotic process automation is the technology that allows you to automate simple repetitive tasks. Think, copying and pasting, moving files and folders or syncing databases. Process mining builds on that. It allows organizations to analyze their systems and applications, look through all that data and identify processes that can be automated. It supplements what the company was already trying to do, fits in really well with its low-code automation platform. I like the acquisition there.

Looking at quarter 4, revenue is expected at 95 million, that's up 17 percent. They're looking for a non-GAAP loss of $0.24-$0.21. The stock is down after hours and I think it's due in part to that miss on the bottom line, and also the company's guidance. Appian does have a history of undershooting the guidance. That just might be conservatism on management's part, especially with supply chain headwinds and everything else. All things considered I think this was a solid quarter. Could be a little bit stronger. But I like that Lana Labs, I think that fits in well, should help the company capture market share.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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How Process Mining and Automation Are Reshaping Appian - Motley Fool

PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ --Abaqus, a leading Field Service Automation platform, announced today that its allGeo platform has seen rapid adoption by businesses for automating their field service workflows, helping transform their operations and payroll processing.

Field service companies are grappling with the complexity of their field service operations. When a business has hundreds or thousands of employees in the field needing regular dispatch of schedules & job instructions, live tracking of the employees' presence and time on the job, and seamless syncing of data with payroll and accounting systems for job costing - it becomes extremely challenging for businesses to manage their workflow. With the allGeo platform, businesses are able to automate and customize their field service workflows with no-code thus helping them lower costs, reduce the risk of human errors and boost productivity.

Recently, allGeo helped automate the workflow at CSTK-Velociti, an ADP customer. "We're the industry-leading, technology solutions provider. We have several hundred field technicians nationwide installing and maintaining equipment and managing a large team like that became a real challenge," said Jim West, Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Velociti Inc. "We also needed a solution that could seamlessly support our ADP payroll and HR software. We engaged allGeo through our ADP team, and they dug into our workflow and implemented a GPS-verified time & attendance and accountability solution that does more than we could have expected. Now we have a live map status view of our field technicians around the country and eliminated the hassle of paper travel logs. We're very pleased with allGeo."

allGeo allGeo worked with ADP to deploy an end to end time and attendance solution that introduced automation into many areas of their workflow:

"The field service industry is at the cusp of a massive transformation that will change the way the industry does business. Today, businesses will need to make the most important decision they have ever made - adopt automation or stay with the status quo", said Shailendra Jain, CEO of Abaqus. "With our allGeo platform, we are enabling this transformation by helping field service businesses automate and customize many areas of their workflow spanning Operations and Payroll. Automation is helping these businesses step up productivity, lower costs and improve their profit margins". About allGeo: Abaqus, based in Silicon Valley, CA, is a leading provider of cloud-hosted, no-code field service automation platform that helps midsize businesses achieve field service excellence. The allGeo platform helps businesses customize and automate their field service workflows to better manage and optimize their operations and payroll. With allGeo, Field service businesses can significantly reduce payroll and operations costs while improving productivity and accountability. The allGeo platform hosts a suite of turnkey solutions that can be rapidly deployed in a wide range of industries e.g. Scheduling, Time Clock, Tracking & Monitoring, Mileage, Dispatch, Electronic Visit Verification, Lone Worker Safety, and Field Inspection using QR / mobile forms. Visit http://www.allgeo.com for more information.

Media Contact

John Cunningham, Abaqus Inc, 1 415-496-9436, support@abaq.us

SOURCE Abaqus Inc

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allGeo's Field Service Automation Brings Big Gains by Helping Transform Operations and Payroll - WFMZ Allentown

Global Industrial Automation Market in Food Safety and Inspection 2021-2025 The analyst has been monitoring the industrial automation market in food safety and inspection and it is poised to grow by $ 648.

New York, Nov. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Global Industrial Automation Market in Food Safety and Inspection 2021-2025" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05483052/?utm_source=GNW 69 mn during 2021-2025, progressing at a CAGR of over 5% during the forecast period. Our report on the industrial automation market in food safety and inspection provides a holistic analysis, market size and forecast, trends, growth drivers, and challenges, as well as vendor analysis covering around 25 vendors.The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current global market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. The market is driven by significant cost savings in operations due to process control and growing benefits of inspecting bulk foods in-line. In addition, significant cost savings in operations due to process control is anticipated to boost the growth of the market as well.The industrial automation market in food safety and inspection analysis includes the product segment and geographic landscape.

The industrial automation market in food safety and inspection is segmented as below:By Product Machine vision systems X-ray inspection systems Metal detection systems Checkweighing systems

By Geographical Landscape Europe APAC North America South America MEA

This study identifies the regulations pertaining to food safety as one of the prime reasons driving the industrial automation market in food safety and inspection growth during the next few years.

The analyst presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters. Our report on industrial automation market in food safety and inspection covers the following areas: Industrial automation market in food safety and inspection sizing Industrial automation market in food safety and inspection forecast Industrial automation market in food safety and inspection industry analysis

This robust vendor analysis is designed to help clients improve their market position, and in line with this, this report provides a detailed analysis of several leading industrial automation market in food safety and inspection vendors that include Advantech Co. Ltd., Clarke Solutions LLC, Cognex Corp., Illinois Tool Works Inc., Inspection Systems Pty Ltd., John Bean Technologies Corp., Mettler Toledo International Inc., Peco InspX, Teledyne Technologies Inc., and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Also, the industrial automation market in food safety and inspection analysis report includes information on upcoming trends and challenges that will influence market growth. This is to help companies strategize and leverage all forthcoming growth opportunities.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to an analysis of the key vendors.

The analyst presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters such as profit, pricing, competition, and promotions. It presents various market facets by identifying the key industry influencers. The data presented is comprehensive, reliable, and a result of extensive research - both primary and secondary. Technavios market research reports provide a complete competitive landscape and an in-depth vendor selection methodology and analysis using qualitative and quantitative research to forecast the accurate market growth.Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05483052/?utm_source=GNW

About ReportlinkerReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

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The Global Industrial Automation Market is expected to grow by $ 648.69 mn during 2021-2025, progressing at a CAGR of over 5% during the forecast...

Robotic Process Automation is too often seen as a threat to jobs but in truth it makes peoples working lives more interesting and fulfilling, the audience heard at a recent webinar. To realise those benefits, however, civil servants must understand how best to deploy this emerging technology

As the UK prepared to leave the EU, the countrys Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) had to rapidly find a way to transfer 3,800 marketing authorisations to EU states or see it become impossible to sell UK pharmaceuticals across the Continent.

Each transfer was a simple process, requiring a few minutes of repetitive admin work for a civil servant. But doing the job thousands of times was more than any individual could possibly manage while maintaining quality, Dimple Davdra, a change control officer at the MHRA, told a webinar audience in September.

Enter robotic process automation, or RPA: an increasingly common technique for managing routine tasks in government. After just four days of coding and testing, Davdra was able to deploy a piece of software that perfectly replicated the human actions required to transfer a marketing authorisation. The applications were processed promptly, and the medicines supply lines remained uninterrupted.

As an austerity-pinched civil service is asked to deliver ever more with less resources, some expect RPA to spread rapidly across government replacing human workers. Davdras experience, however, tells us something more complex: that RPA works best in concert with skilled civil servants, freeing those workers to focus on higher value tasks rather than replacing them.

The four day roll-out of an RPA to meet a Brexit deadline was not a miraculous technological intervention, but the result of years of collaboration between the MHRA and its partner Blue Prism, a Warrington-based software consultancy. Hosting a webinar in September, staff from the two organisations reflected on their experiences.

Blue Prism was originally contracted to help automate the process by which applications to sell drugs or begin clinical trials were uploaded into the MHRAs database for consideration. When the project began in 2016, civil servants wanted to automate the application process as it was. But the system contained many different application methods and a variety of paper forms, which could not be machine-read. Only over time, and after a dashboard was built to visualise this highly customised process, did MHRA and Blue Prism agree to introduce changes to the existing process to make it simpler to automate.

The results were exceptional. The RPA pushes applications into the MHRA database three times faster than a human and, of course, does not have to stop at night or take holidays. This leaves civil servants free to focus on examining the applications and considering their merits, rather than performing data entry tasks as they had previously.

Applications are now processed more quickly because weve reduced the upfront data entry, commented Aidan Hardy, a delivery manager at MHRA. And the scientific experts are now much more engaged with the data itself.

Setting out the lessons of their experiences, panellists emphasised the need for civil servants introducing RPA to spend time on a discovery phase reviewing their current working practices and looking for helpful reforms. Outcomes to be achieved should be defined in their own terms deciding an application within a timeframe, for example rather than with reference to the existing process.

At MHRA, that meant first creating electronic versions of several forms so that paperwork could be stripped out and data collection fully automated. It also meant choosing what to leave out.

Automation requires processes that are consistent. It cant adapt like human workers, noted Davdra. Before starting any automation, its important to be realistic about how much can be simplified.

Philip Sheen, head of public sector for the UK and Ireland at Blue Prism, noted that robotic process automation is often seen as a threat within organisations something that will ultimately lead to job losses as people are substituted by more efficient machines.

Instead, he said, automation should be seen as an enhancement to your existing workforce, not a replacement. The technology frees workers to concentrate on higher value tasks and direct contact with service users, he added.

He gave the example of the North Essex NHS Foundation Trust hospital in Colchester, which turned to RPA when it merged with another nearby hospital and had to combine administrative processes. While the fear was of massive job losses, several years later the combined entity employs more staff than the two original hospitals, he said in part because of the superior service staff are able to deliver when spared tedious and monotonous tasks.

A fascinating part of the webinar came when James Mitchell, the global senior vice president for people at Blue Prism, explained how hed encountered resistance to automation even within his own organisation.

When I arrived in November 2019, I walked into an automation company and I thought: Hang on a minute, wheres my automation? How can it be that we are talking about automation and the new world of work, but when it comes to managing our own people, were not doing it? he recalled.

Mitchell described a two-year process, accelerated by the pandemic, to introduce automation into the way staff are recruited and onboarded ensuring that new starters at Blue Prism can get working straight away, without undertaking a series of onerous processes.

Just as in the MHRA, he recalled, the temptation at first was to use technology to accelerate existing processes, rather than rethinking those processes from the ground-up and focusing on the desired outcomes. This mindset change is tough to achieve for both government organisations and technology start-ups, Mitchell argued. The level of creativity thats required to think differently about the way that you do work is not easy to find in any organisation.

One of the knottiest complexities facing automation in government is the siloed nature of departments and the mismatches between their incompatible technology systems.

Sheen, Blue Prisms head of public sector, illustrated very clearly how a lack of coordination across government leaves service users to bridge those gaps. As the carer of an elderly person with both Parkinsons and dementia, he explained, he has to help coordinate services from 19 different agencies.

He described a system hes built to ensure that each time one of these agencies gets in touch, the family is automatically reminded to inform other government agencies that need to know telling a social worker of changes in medication, for example.

When we see users creating their own automations to alert one government agency to action by another in this way, it is a clear sign of the need to deliver further automation across boundaries within government itself.

The webinar Automatic for the people: using intelligent automation to ease contact with service users was hosted by Blue Prism on 30 September, with the support of Global Government Forum. You can watch the 75-minute webinar by filling in the form below

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Taking on the tedious: automation in government Global Government Forum - Global Government Forum

Information security standards such as PCI DSS and ISO 27001 and regulations such as HIPAA and CMMC mandate system hardening as one of the most basic defenses against cyber intrusions.

The reason for this should be obvious to anyone: Whats the point of implementing more advanced security measures and protections if you dont first bolt all the unnecessary doors through which attackers can enter your systems and networks?

System hardening is the process of configuring IT infrastructure servers, databases, networks, operating systems, and applications to minimize the organizations attack surface, i.e., the vectors and vulnerabilities cyber attackers may exploit to gain access to and control over it.

Increased security is one of its goals, but there are others: regulatory compliance, long-term cost savings, and enhanced operational stability.

What does system hardening encompass? Lets take server hardening as an example. According to the NIST SP 800-123 Guide to General Server Security, server hardening should include:

Sounds simple, no? But what if you must do it all for several hundred or thousand different servers? And, most importantly, can you prevent these configurations and modifications from being inappropriately altered as time passes?

Roy Ludmir, business development manager at Isreali company CalCom, says that there are two categories of tools that can be used for server hardening (though thats not their main purpose): compliance scanners and configuration management tools.

But while the former focus on pointing out configuration drift from specific compliance frameworks, and the latter can do that as well as enforcing hardening policies/configuration changes, they dont provide a solution for the entire hardening process like their CalCom Hardening Suite does.

None of them replace the need for lab testing to simulate the impact of security policies on servers before they are enforced, and none of them help reduce the complexity of change management and enforcement of multiple policies on a complex infrastructure, he says.

In addition to that, the suite allows IT operations and IT security teams to make server hardening a continuous process rather than a one-time task, as well as to maintain their organizations compliance posture over time, despite updated policies and changes introduced in the infrastructure.

Organizations that juggle more than a couple of hundred of servers with a multitude of configuration options and must deal with a constantly changing infrastructure cant hope to manually perform constant and thorough server hardening.

Just think about it:

Of these, the step thats most difficult to perform quickly and accurately is the impact analysis.

To see how your hardening policies will affect your production environment, you need to build a test environment that will accurately reflect its complexity, as well as simulate the traffic, the number of users in the network, and various dependencies. This is a grueling task to perform manually, and theres a high chance of error that could lead to costly production downtime.

CalCom Hardening Suite minimizes this risk thanks to its automated processes. After its software agents are installed on the servers, it starts the so-called learning mode, during which it collects data from different sources on the machines and analyzes it to understand how the proposed policies will impact system operations.

The resulting report lists each proposed policy, its desired value, and its current value. If these values match, it means that no changes will happen when the policy is enforced. If they dont, the solution differentiates between values that will be changed when enforcing the policy with no impact on server operation, and values that, if changed, will lead to production server disruption.

Based on this analysis, the solution creates the optimal policy implementation plan for each server that will maximize policy compliance while avoiding impact to production.

The next step policy enforcement/implementation is often performed by organizations via configuration management tools and Group Policy Objects (GPOs). If the policies are maximally granular as they should be to suitably harden the different environments, machine types and roles this can also be a time-consuming nightmare for IT operations teams that dont have an automated solution at their disposal.

CHS, on the other hand, can push configuration changes on the entire production server fleet from a single point of control. This enables organizations to assign the privileges needed to change system configurations only to a minimal number of users, thus minimizing human error.

Finally, CHS prevents configuration changes that are against the enforced policies no matter whether they are performed by malicious actors or are the result of a simple error. It also notifies the security team about the attempt to change the configuration by sending alerts to a SIEM or SOC solutions in use.

CalCom Hardening Suite is available for servers, middleware applications and endpoints.

Keren Pollack, CalComs marketing manager, says that their clients are mostly insurance companies, financial institutions, healthcare companies, and DoD contractors companies that must comply with regulation that requires system hardening. Companies that support critical infrastructure are also prospective clients.

Customers can use the solution with minimal support from CalCom, but the company also offers additional guidance and advice to customers, if needed.

We have the in-house knowledge to help organizations build effective system hardening policies. They are usually based on our own hardening recommendations, special organizational needs, and industry best practices and benchmarks (e.g., CIS, NIST, DISA STIGs, and so on), Pollack explained.

After the initial policies are defined, the organization needs to have another policy discussion after CHSs learning process is done, to decide what they are going to do about each hardening action they cant implement without adversely affecting production. We can be involved in this process and help them choose the right course of action.

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How to achieve permanent server hardening through automation - Help Net Security

The Omron PoCC at DFW is the newest in a group of regionally located innovation centers, allowingOmron engineers to collaborate with local integrators and manufacturers to develop innovative yet practical solutions for complex problems. With nine PoCCs located in the Americas, Omron is committed to improving efficiencies and overall performance by letting customers experience and test state-of-the-art factory automation technology before implementation. The PoCCs provide hands-on technology demos, technical training, industry/application expertise, and feasibility studies for advanced sensing, robotics and automation technologies.

"Today's manufacturers face many challenges, including a rapidly changing environment which requires agility and flexibility. We understand that existing production set-ups are complicated, and changing them can be a huge investment" says Robb Black, President and CEO of Omron Automation Americas. "The Omron PoCC in Dallas/Fort Worth bridges the gap between theory and practice, providing peace of mind that the solution will work in new and existing applications."

Globally, Omron Automation has opened 35 PoCCs to serve customers in their home locations. These PoCCs, along with investing 7% annually into R&D, demonstrate how Omron is committed to developing technology and innovation. Omron owns the technology behind its 200,000+ products, and is dedicated to continuously improving it to ensure their customers receive the high level of quality and safety they have come to rely on with seamless integration into their systems.

"As a solution partner, it's critical that we have the capabilities and facilities to co-develop and realize innovation with our customers where they operate," says Black. "Omron's PoCCs are where our customers can test solutions in realistic environments and see how they make machines, production lines, and even whole enterprises safer and more efficient. But most importantly, it's where our engineers, customers, and integrators come together locally to collaborate, brainstorm, and innovate."

The Omon PoCC at DFW is located at 2801 West Rochelle Road, Building 100, DFW Airport, Dallas County, Texas, 75261. Automation and manufacturing professionals who would like to tour the facility, meet Omron experts, and learn more about its service can schedule at https://automation.omron.com/en/us/our-value/atc-poc/dallas

About Omron Automation AmericasOmron Automation is an industrial automation partner that creates, sells and services fully integrated automation solutions that include sensing, control, safety, vision, motion, robotics and more. Established in 1933 and currently headed by President Yoshihito Yamada, Omron's 30,000 employees help businesses solve problems with creativity in more than 110 countries. Learn more at automation.omron.com.

CONTACT: Amy Wang[emailprotected]

SOURCE Omron Automation Americas

http://www.omron.com

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Omron Proof-of-concept Center Allows Customers to Experience, Test, and Apply State-of-the-Art Factory Automation Technology in a Cutting-edge...

By Adam Field, Senior Vice President of Technology Strategy and Experience at Kofax

Banks and other financial institutions were most certainly not immune to the pandemic, and the aftermath is still playing out. Government stimulus efforts kept borrowers afloat but also left many institutions with excess cash. Customers shifted almost exclusively to digital banking options, as most physical branches reduced hours and in-person services.

Now, financial organisations are playing a major role in the economic recovery, and the ride has been rocky as variants of the COVID-19 virus caused temporary spikes in infection rates. As control over the virus remains tenuous, new challenges like supply chain issues and the Great Resignation are stepping in, reminding banks and other financial institutions the future still remains uncertain.

While 2021 begins to wind down and organisations set their sights on 2022, what can financial companies do to take a more proactive approach and ensure smoother sailing? Part of the answer lies in technologyspecifically intelligent automation and artificial intelligence.

Check out this list of five ways these powerful technologies can help banks and other financial organisations set a course for success next year.

1. Automation Drives Organisational Convergence. As automation technology has converged, so too will business functions. An intelligent automation platform combines several technologies that create ripple effects throughout financial organisations. Different business functions can now be merged, and companies are rethinking who owns what. Theyre reorganising formerly siloed functions under one automation office headed by a single person to cut down on bureaucracy and improve business speed.

From an individual standpoint, the lines between skill sets will become even more blurred. Weve finally hit the point where low-code technologies have caught up with the marketing hype, and many technologies in general have become ubiquitous. Its no longer about being on the business side or the technology sideeveryones a developer now. Congrats!

Financial institutions have a lot to gain thanks to low-code automation. An easy-to-use platform empowers business line managers and other citizen developers to accelerate automation of key workflows such as mortgage approvals and loan processing. A frictionless customer experience is now a requirement for success, so the ability to speed up transformation efforts is a must.

2. AI Goes Mainstream for Next-Level Automation. Banks and financial institutions will achieve next-level automation in 2022 with the power of embedded artificial intelligence and its advanced decision-making abilities. AI-powered process automation can make pragmatic decisions that used to require human intervention.

Mobile ID verification and facial recognition technology enable customers to upload documents and a selfie in a snap while keeping fraudulent activity at bay. An intelligent automation platform powered by AI can also keep pace with ever-changing regulations like Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements. When tasks like these are automated, human workers can move beyond transactional decisions and further along the spectrum of judgment on high-value work.

The prevalence of embedded AI will also accelerate time-to-value. Financial organisations no longer need to go outside their platform to tack on AIits already there. Integration allows organisations to focus on how technology solves business problems instead of on the technology itself. The built-in nature of AIand its ability to get better and faster the more data it seesaccelerates how fast banks can achieve value.

3. Employee Experience (EX) Will Be the New Buzz Phrase. Every year delivers a series of catchphrases. While the customer experience will still be a priority, in 2022 and beyond, the employee experience (EX) will be the focus of all the buzzcourtesy of another catchphrasethe Great Resignation. Companies across all industries are short-staffed, and no ones been spared. In fact, four out of five financial institutions are worried about staffing. Its no surprise many banks and financial firms are offering increased wages, paid time off and flexible working options.

But its going to take more than that to attract and retain top talent in 2022, where itll be all about the EX. Intelligent automation addresses one of the main drivers behind the Great Resignationa lack of meaning and purpose in work. Automation removes the mundane, repetitive tasks human workers simply wont take anymore, enabling them to actually make a difference.

Executives and managers are already showing a strong interest in automating routine tasks, with a recent study discovering 83 percent of business leaders identified bank statement processing as a high priority for workflow automation. As financial leaders carry through on these plans, automation will enable human workers to focus on more meaningful work, engaging with customers, contributing to performance targets and building strategies for future success.

4. BlockchainNot Just for Pixelated Monkeys. The current most noteworthy use of blockchain technology is cryptocurrency and Bitcoin. Cash has been another casualty of the pandemic, no longer considered king by many. There was a 57 percent drop in cash usage in response to the pandemic, and as people rely on other forms of payment (including cryptocurrencies), financial institutions need to step up their offerings when it comes to digital payments and services.

2021 also saw the explosion of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) where people spent absurd dollar amounts in an attempt to corner the market on pixelated GIFs created by unknown artists. However, the acceleration of distributed ledgers and blockchains is upon us for things more than cryptocurrency and pixelated monkey GIFs.

There are promising far-reaching use cases, particularly for financial companies. For example, blockchain technology will make it possible to send payments much faster than traditional bank transfers, and the method is secure and costs less. The tech can also be used for buying and selling stocks and other assets and the list goes on. These are applications financial institutions should go bananas over!

5. See You at the Mixed Reality Coffee Lounge. Mixed reality technologies will continue to become smaller and more affordable, providing greater collaboration in a hybrid work environment. We dipped our toes in the virtual reality (VR) waters when the pandemic hit, but VR events were awkward and uncomfortable. Only the early adopters really seemed on board.

Not so in 2022! Get ready to plunge into the VR pool. Our avatars will be the ones working overtime, participating in true VR-style collaboration, as well as training and learning modules. Sounds a lot better than getting caught on a Zoom call underdressed, right? Now, if only there was an autopilot mode maybe in 2023.

2020 was marked by rough waters, and the seas didnt calm much in 2021 either. Financial organisations in search of placid waters in 2022 can bank on intelligent automation and AI to transform workflows, business processes and experiences, making companies more resilient, regardless of the conditions.

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2022 Predictions: 5 Intelligent Automation Trends You Can Bank On - Global Banking And Finance Review

Image: VirClia Lotus (Photo courtesy of VIRCLIA)

Vircell is a microbial biotechnology company which develops, manufactures and markets ready-to-use kits for the diagnosis of esoteric infectious diseases. It is specialized in the development and production of ready-to-use reagents for the diagnosis of infectious diseases in humans by different techniques ranging from the traditional cell culture to the most innovating developments in the field of molecular biology.

At MEDICA 2021, Vircell presented VIRCLIA, its powerful automation system with a built-in reader, intelligent racks and intuitive software. The VIRCLIA automation system offers 192 patient sample positions and fully-automated reader options (EIA or CLIA+EIA). It features a probe-mounted camera for real-time process monitoring and remote diagnostics, along with a built-in barcode reader for streamlined loading and lower sample tracking errors.

Among the immunoassay testing kits showcased by Vircell at the event was the Chlamydia ELISA indirect immunoenzyme assay to test antibodies against chlamydia in human serum/plasma which is suitable for automated ELISA systems. Vircell also highlighted Pneumobact IFA, an indirect immunofluorescent assay kit to simultaneously test IgG or IgM antibodies against the main ethiological bacterial agents causing respiratory tract infections: Legionella pneumophila sero group 1, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Coxiella burnetii, Chlamydophila pneumoniae and Chlamydophila psittaci. The kit enables simultaneous detection of the main bacteria causing atypical pneumonia and easy results reading.

Related Links:Vircell

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Vircell Showcases Its Powerful Automation System and Immunoassay Testing Kits at MEDICA 2021 - HospiMedica