Accenture to Acquire DayNine, Expanding Workday Capabilities to Transform Employee Experience

Accenture has entered into an agreement to acquire DayNine, a leading global Workday consulting and deployment services provider with vast expertise in helping organizations transform their employee experience and financial management systems to better navigate change and drive growth. The acquisition will extend Accenture’s already strong position in Workday and provide new value for clients.

“Our clients are increasingly choosing Workday to drive their cloud transformations, so we are taking this important step to meet the growing demand,” said Paul Daugherty, chief technology officer, Accenture. “DayNine is a leading exclusive Workday partner and will bring an enviable track record and impressive team that will provide our clients even greater value and business results as they transform their organizations using Workday. I look forward to welcoming the leadership and talented professionals of DayNine to Accenture.”

Upon completion of the acquisition, approximately 400 DayNine professionals with 1,250 Workday certifications will join the existing Accenture Workday group working within the Accenture Cloud First Applications team. The combined group, which will be led by DayNine CEO and co-founder Tim Ramos, will become the largest certified workforce in the Workday ecosystem and will work across all phases of Workday deployment.

“The breadth of Accenture’s industry expertise brings incredible opportunities to customers looking to leverage the cloud for their financial management and HR transformations,” said Tim Ramos, chief executive officer and co-founder, DayNine. “We pride ourselves on delivering an industry leading customer experience helping our customers connect their people to their strategy and we are excited to join forces with Accenture to deliver a full range of transformational and deployment services for Workday customers. Our combined teams and capabilities will be able to deliver unparalleled value for customers around the globe.”

“We’re excited to see that Accenture is deepening its commitment as customer demand for Workday continues to grow,” said Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and chief executive officer, Workday. “DayNine has already built a very strong Workday practice, and we look forward to seeing how the combined capabilities of Accenture and DayNine will enable Workday customers to take full advantage of what the cloud can offer.”

DayNine, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA and with 14 additional offices across the United States, Europe, and Asia, was founded in 2009 with an exclusive focus on Workday. Since then, it has grown to be a leading global Workday Services Partner. DayNine serves clients across a wide range of industries including consumer goods, healthcare providers, pharmaceuticals, financial services, and communications, media and technology.

With the intent to acquire DayNine, Accenture continues to strengthen its position as a leading enterprise cloud services provider. The move is part of Accenture’s acquisition strategy that focuses on expanding its cloud services to bolster its Cloud First agenda, and includes the past acquisitions of Cloud Sherpas, New Energy Group, CRMWaypoint, Tquila UK and ClientHouse.
 
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Completion of the acquisition is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

Next Gen ATLAS Managed Services Platform Provides Operation Insights & Transparency

Mindtree has announced the availability of the next generation of ATLAS, its output-based managed services framework.  Adding to the existing rich functionality, this new generation allows users to have greater transparency and a holistic view into the interworking of their application infrastructure, including performance metrics, optimization and analytics.

In its original incarnation, ATLAS is a managed services framework that consists of a set of processes, tools, accelerators and dashboards that have helped more than 100 large enterprises more efficiently run their technology operations. The individual tools that make up this framework can be used across all application managed services (AMS) engagements, or bundled together in a connected managed services arrangement. 

With this enhancement, ATLAS is now an end-to-end workflow driven platform. It consists of toolkits that help analyze complex application portfolios, design transition plans, implement solution models, and develop a detailed transformation roadmap to take Mindtree’s customers from the current state to best-in-class. ATLAS also provides metrics and dashboards to measure, track and report the state of the engagement, and the business value delivered. This provides real-time access to view issues and check progress.

Subramanyan Ananthanarayanan, Mindtree’s Vice President for Application Managed Services, noted that the enhancements to ATLAS indicate a significant shift in how organizations view their application infrastructure.

“Application managed services has always been a bit of a black box. Clients would hire a vendor who would manage it and often even internal IT staff didn’t really have a clear picture of their landscape, or have access to any analytics around the data their backend contains. This new enhancement of ATLAS opens the windows and creates transparency and actionable insights for Mindtree clients,” he said.

The combination of the power of the available tools, such as ATLAS, with Mindtree’s proven expertise in infrastructure, application and testing platforms, demonstrates the company’s continued commitment to run-your-business, managed services-style engagements, said Mindtree President, Americas, Scott Staples. 

“At Mindtree, we believe the truly transformative work of the future will combine all pieces of information technology into a seamless platform. Of course, the digital front-end is critical, but without a solid, connective, accessible infrastructure, no amount of elegance on the front end is going to matter,” he said.

SCATSAT-1, Seven Other Satellites Successfully Put Into Polar Orbit

PSLV-C35, ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, on Monday successfully launched the 371-kg SCATSAT-1 satellite along with seven co-passenger satellites from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota.

This is the 36th consecutive successful mission of PSLV. The total weight of all the eight satellites carried on-board PSLV-C35 was 675 kg.

PSLV-C35 is the first PSLV mission to launch satellites carried onboard into two different orbits. This mission was the longest of the PSLV missions conducted till date and was completed in 2 hours 15 minutes and 33 seconds after lift-off.

After PSLV-C35 lift-off at 9:12 am IST from the first launch pad with the ignition of the first stage, the subsequent important flight events, namely, strap-on ignitions and separations, first stage separation, second stage ignition, payload fairing separation, second stage separation, third stage ignition and separation, fourth stage ignition and cut-off, took place as planned.

After a flight of 16 minutes 56 seconds, the vehicle achieved a polar Sun Synchronous Orbit of 724 km inclined at an angle of 98.1 degree to the equator (very close to the intended orbit) and 37 seconds later the primary satellite SCATSAT-1 was separated from the PSLV fourth stage.

After separation, the two solar arrays of SCATSAT-1 satellite were deployed automatically and ISRO's Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bengaluru took over the control of the satellite.

In the coming days, the satellite will be brought to its final operational configuration following which it will begin to provide weather related services using its scatterometer payload. The data sent by SCATSAT-1 satellite will help provide weather forecasting services to user communities through the generation of wind vector products as well as cyclone detection and tracking.

After the successful separation of SCATSAT-1, the PSLV-C35 mission continued. With the seven co-passenger satellites, the fourth stage of PSLV coasted over the South polar region and then started ascending towards the Northern hemisphere. A safe distance between the orbiting SCATSAT-1 and PSLV-C35 fourth stage was maintained by suitably manoeuvring the stage.

At 1 hour 22 minutes and 38 seconds after lift-off as the fourth stage was in the North polar region, the two engines of PSLV fourth stage were reignited and fired for 20 seconds. As a result of this, it entered into an elliptical orbit measuring 725 km on one side of the Earth and 670 km on the other.

Agencies

A New Era of Management Accountants to Power Up Indian Businesses

The conditions in which businesses now operate are volatile and uncertain. ‘Business as usual’ no longer exists and the rules of the game are being transformed.

The role of management accountants has evolved over a period of time to become key players in business. It is for this reason that the CGMA Competency Framework was developed in partnership with CIMA’s joint venture partner, the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), to equip Chartered Global Management Accountants (CGMAs) with the skills necessary to navigate the ‘new’ business world.

CIMA felicitated new CGMAs at a convocation event on Wednesday, September 21^st, 2016 at J W Mariott Sahar, Mumbai.

At the event, a total of 144 new CGMAs celebrated their success and were presented with certificates by Andrew Miskin, CIMA President. Expressing his happiness, he said, “The day marks the culmination of the year filled with learning, networking, growth and career progress and signifies a step forward for our new CGMAs. The members rightfully deserve the certificates and acknowledgement that the convocation ceremony brings and it is both a pleasure and an honour to share this celebration with them. I am positive, that employers worldwide will recognize them for their financial expertise and business acumen which will further give a boost to their career.”

Management accounting, in the present complex industrial world, has become an integral and essential part of the business. Management Accountants guide and advice for effective and valuable influence over the quality of organisations’ decision making and performance management. In the current business environment, business leaders are struggling to make the right decisions. They find themselves battling against bureaucratic decision-making processes, soloed and short-term thinking, breakdowns in trust and collaboration inside the organisation and difficulties with translating the large volume of information into relevant knowledge. The solution to many of these decision-making challenges can be achieved through integrated thinking — cutting through silos to connect the relevant people and information from across the organisation. CGMAs join the dots in this way to enable them to see the big picture. It means that all of the relevant insight is available when making decisions.

Creativity and Design Becoming Increasingly Important for Businesses in India: Adobe Study

With the Government of India’s focus on resurgence of design, innovation and creativity led entrepreneurship (D.I.C.E), the last year witnessed a clear increase in the emphasis laid on design and creativity in businesses across the country.  This rise of design-led thinking and the incorporation of design approaches into business and strategic problem-solving is having a positive impact on the careers of creatives in India. Adobe’s 2016 Creative Pulse survey of more than 1,700 creatives across Asia Pacific (APAC) – including graphic designers, web designers, artists, web designers and more – discovered that 98 percent creative professionals in India believe that creativity and design thinking are more important to business in the country, which is higher than the APAC average of 89 percent. The report also found that Indian creatives have a higher desire to learn (83 percent) and feel motivated to finding new solutions to design led challenges (61 percent), which is higher (by 11 percent and 20 percent respectively) than their peers in APAC region.  

Overall, the findings of Adobe’s 2016 Creative Pulse survey highlight that creatives in India are today driving a bigger impact within their organizations. The study provides insights into the beliefs, difficulties and ambitions of the region’s creative vanguard, including graphic designers, UX/UI designers, web designers, photographers and film makers.

“Adobe has always been at the forefront of the changing creative environment, and it is encouraging for us to see how changing market dynamics and the Government of India’s DICE agenda are together furthering the progress of creative professionals in the country. Today, we are seeing businesses in India increasingly acknowledge the value of creativity in driving business results, and find several companies taking steps to involve creatives in their strategic plans as well as boardroom discussions. Going ahead, we expect more and more businesses in India embrace a design-led approach to problem solving and leverage creativity to deliver standout customer experiences. The results of Adobe’s 2016 Creative Pulse survey are a testament to this fast emerging trend and also provide an apt view into sentiment of creative professionals in India today,” said Kulmeet Bawa, Managing Director – South Asia, Adobe.

Given that using design as a tool has now become a business mandate to stand apart and reach out to consumers, creatives are no longer relying on their present achievements. To fulfil this mandate, creatives know they must automate the creative process with new skills, new tools and new digital technology. They believe that proficiency in technology and access to best-in-class tools, combined with intuitive creative excellence will be the deal breaker – with 96 percent of Indian respondents agreeing to this. Creatives in India cite that the most important skills over the next year would be to acquire UX/UI design (37 percent) and app development (20 percent).

Despite their increasing importance to business, creatives in India still stay up at night with uncertainties, just like the rest of the workforce. One of their main concerns is the fear they will lose inspiration and motivation (37 percent). Employers need to take note of this, especially since most creatives mentioned that they are very reliant on desktops (73 percent) for work. This suggests that a lot of creatives are still deskbound, despite the popular belief that creative ideas typically come from mobility and change. While the increased pace of business is putting pressure on creatives to churn out more creative ideas and content faster than ever (49 percent), 43 percent of creatives feel that they are not being sufficiently trained in new skills.

“The rapid growth of mobile devices and emergence of technologies such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are challenging creatives world over to create content faster than ever before. Today, businesses expect creatives to adapt to the market dynamics by helping designing for multiple platforms and a broader set of customers, create on-the-go, collaborate with team members across different devices and geographies, and measure the impact of their work on business results. We certainly see this as a big opportunity for creatives to contribute more and make a real impact to the business,” said Kulmeet Bawa.

Adobe’s 2016 Creative Pulse report included 12 percent of respondents from India and reached out to some of the biggest names creative professionals in the country, of which, 18 percent are film makers and 13 percent are UX/UI designers.

Free Windows 10 Migration Assessment Tool from VMware

Today at Microsoft Ignite 2016, VMware, Inc., a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility, announced a new solution for customers to assess and implement their Windows 10 migrations. VMware’s SysTrack Desktop Assessment Service for Windows 10 is a free, cloud-hosted service by Lakeside Software Inc., and is the first step customers need to begin their migration process from legacy Windows systems to the modern, enterprise mobility management (EMM)-friendly Windows 10. Details on a customer’s existing environment are identified and quantitatively analyzed to accelerate the move to Windows. This enables customers to take advantage of VMware’s cloud-first Windows Management and Security model for a simpler, cost-effective and more secure Windows environment

“VMware’s End-User Computing portfolio makes us uniquely positioned to take a holistic view of an organization’s Windows environment and determine the perfect fit for existing devices in a Windows 10 world,” said Blake Brannon, vice president of Product Marketing, End-User Computing, VMware. “The SysTrack Desktop Assessment Service is a step-by-step process that gathers in-depth information for organizations to understand system performance and application usage patterns to give a clear picture on which physical devices can upgrade to Windows 10 and which can migrate to Windows 10 through a virtual desktop. Guidance on the optimal computing environment helps organizations lower the cost of delivering and managing Windows environments going forward.”

Windows 10 is poised to have a significant impact on organizations’ EUC strategies, creating a more secure, cost effective and unified computing environment with a better end user experience. As organizations embrace this new OS, they can use VMware AirWatch to manage the OS platform in a cloud-centric model that is more agile and robust than traditional configuration management tools. As organizations set on this Windows 10 migration path, VMware is committed to help them smoothly transition to the new OS.

The VMware SysTrack Desktop Assessment Service is a free, cloud-based service designed to examine end-user behavior, device inventory and configurations (PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones), software, web and network usage patterns. These insights empower IT administrators to gain a comprehensive understanding of their end-user environment as they evaluate Windows 10 migrations. The service provides not only an easier path to migrate to Windows 10, but it also offers customers necessary insights to move forward with a centralized management solution that lowers cost, increases security and compliance, and delivers a peak user experience across customers’ Windows deployments.

Features in the service include:

·         Cloud-hosted assessment to identify desktop candidates that are best fit for in-place migration to Windows 10

·         Detailed metrics and reporting around system mobility, device performance and application usage to more accurately tailor policies and management models towards EMM, VDI, DaaS or thin clients

·         Examine hardware and device configurations, application issues and user behavior to ensure a stronger management and security posture after migration to Windows 10

Twitter Initiates Talks With Major Tech Firms to Explore Selling Itself

Twitter Inc has initiated talks with several technology companies to explore selling itself, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday, as the social media company grapples with its slowest revenue growth since going public in 2013.

Twitter has struggled to translate its high public profile into the kind of user growth that has propelled Facebook, which now boasts 1.71 billion customers. The company has also suffered from management turmoil since its earliest days.

CNBC reported earlier on Friday, citing anonymous sources, that Twitter is in talks with companies that include Alphabet's Google and Salesforce.com, and may receive a formal bid soon.

Twitter and Alphabet could not be reached immediately for comment. Salesforce declined to comment.

Twitter shares jumped more than 20 percent to $22.46 per share on Friday on the report of sales talks, marking the largest one-day rise since their first day of trading in 2013.

Twitter, which now has a market value of nearly $16 billion, has been a near-constant focus of takeover speculation amid persistently disappointing sales and user engagement.

Morningstar analyst Ali Mogharabi said Alphabet would be the best acquirer for Twitter since it has not yet been able to crack social media on its own despite several efforts.

“From a strategic standpoint, we think from it would be more beneficial for Alphabet as opposed to Salesforce,” Mogharabi said.

Morningstar estimates Twitter could be bought for $22 per share.

As rivals such as Facebook's Instagram and Snapchat gain traction with advertisers and social media users, investors have questioned how long Twitter could persist as a stand-alone company.

Co-founder Jack Dorsey returned to the company as chief executive in 2015, but his plan for reviving Twitter is at best seen as unfinished.

The company has struggled to generate revenue growth and profits, despite having some 313 million average monthly active users and a growing presence as a source of breaking news. It grew its user base by less than 1 percent in the second quarter.

Twitter missed Wall Street's sales expectations in both the first and second quarters of this year, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine, and has yet to produce a net profit in 11 quarters as a public company. As of the end of the second quarter, the company has an accumulated loss of nearly $2.3 billion since its inception.

As a result, Twitter shares have struggled to retain their brief upward momentum following the company's highly anticipated initial public offering in November 2013 at $26 a share.

The shares peaked above $74 just over a month after its IPO, but have been on steady downward trajectory since. From then through Thursday's close at $18.63, the stock had lost three-quarters of its value.  

Agencies