CIOs are set to include artificial intelligence in their IT strategy. Technical, legislative and cultural challenges could influence their AI ambitions.

For established companies, the pressure to digitise business models and products has reached new intensity. McKinsey research shows that the best-performing decile of digitised incumbents earns as much as 80 percent of the digital revenues generated in their industries. Ascending to that elite group is far from easy....

Biometric cards could make a strong dent against credit card fraud, but several myths surround the technology....

What’s the mood in the oil and gas industry? We’d say caution has crept in, based on the tone of debate at Wood Mackenzie’s October Energy Summits in London and Houston. These revealed common themes, hot topics and differing perspectives from each side of the Atlantic.

Cybersecurity risk management is not a purely technical or theoretical endeavor. Information security investments now inform security supply with the aim of reducing data breaches and boosting public perception. However, the demand for greater spending doesn’t necessarily equate to improved defenses..

“The Equiteq team was a pleasure to work with in completing a fairly complex transaction.They demonstrated a strong depth of knowledge in professional services, top negotiation skills, and the patience and fortitude to bring the buyer and seller to a mutually agreeable place to complete the deal.”- Raazi Imam, Caiman CEO

Caiman Consulting (“Caiman”), a premier management consulting firm focused on the technology industry, today announced it has completed its sale to Sia Partners, a leading international independent management and AI consulting firm. Caiman was founded in 2004 by Raazi Imam and Greg Long with a stated goal to help companies become more innovative, navigate change, and thrive in a transforming world. With a presence in both Seattle and the San Francisco Bay area, Caiman has been helping clients in the technology space navigate disruption, build enterprise capabilities, and drive transformational change for the past 15 years. Sia Partners is a global, next generation consulting firm focused on delivering superior value and tangible results to its clients as they navigate the digital revolution. The firm’s broad global reach expands into 16 countries, with over 1,600 consultants worldwide. Sia Partners’ U.S. practice works with more than 50 blue-chip companies in the U.S. across six main sectors including banking, energy and utilities, insurance, technology, transportation, and healthcare. The firm differentiates itself by applying its innovative Consulting 4.0 approach that combines management consulting skills with AI techniques. Caiman’s Managing Partners, Raazi Imam, Sheri Iverson and Marci Marra, will join Sia Partners’ U.S. management team under the leadership of Dan Connor, CEO U.S. at Sia Partners. Raazi Imam will lead the newly-established Sia Partners’ offices in San Jose and San Francisco. Mark Birzell – from Sia Partners – will head the Seattle office. “After 15 years of growing Caiman to become a leading and respected management consulting practice, it’s energizing to find a place that shares our intrinsic values and can help us scale the great digital transformation work we’ve been doing in the high-tech sector. We are impressed by Sia’s pioneering Consulting 4.0 approach and we believe that having a global footprint to serve our clients, notably in Dublin, London and Singapore along with a deep focus on AI, Data Science and Digital is a key differentiator as we continue to support our clients transform their businesses,” said Raazi Imam, CEO of Caiman. “This transaction establishes Sia Partners as a leading consulting player in the Seattle market, with 100 expert consultants,” said Matthieu Courtecuisse, Founder and CEO of Sia Partners. “It also strengthens our global tech practice, which now represents 10% of our total revenue.” “The combination of two pure consulting players, with strong focuses on innovation, is a natural one, as Caiman’s client portfolio and team’s expertise seamlessly complement Sia Partners’ existing capabilities on the West Coast. Caiman will help Sia Partners achieve its goal of over 500 consultants in the U.S. by the end of 2020. We are excited to welcome them.” said Dan Connor. Regarding Equiteq’s role in the transaction, Raazi Imam said, “Equiteq’s expert counselling and devotion to protecting our best interests ultimately led to identifying the right partner, Sia Partners, to help drive our next stage of growth. We are grateful to the entire Equiteq team for their commitment to helping us achieve this exciting transaction with Sia Partners.” Adam Tindall, Managing Director of Equiteq’s North America practice, commented, “It has been a privilege working with the Caiman team and to complete this transaction with Sia Partners. Equiteq’s global reach was instrumental in helping to bring buyers across the globe into the process. We wish the Caiman and Sia teams a successful future together.”.

UK business investment in new technologies such as quantum computing, blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies, and artificial intelligence (AI) is set to jump in the next five years, according to the CBI and Accenture Tech Tracker survey.

As China’s consulting market rapidly grew by 13.4% to almost US$6bn in 2018 (US$5.98bn), the consulting arms of accounting firms[1]—a group dominated by the Big Four—continued to outperform the market, with revenues increasing 15.9% to pass US$2bn (US$2.1bn) for the first time. Accounting firms now generate more than a third of all consulting revenues in China.

The researchers claim that most approaches to resistance in VR hardware are bulky, costly, and require significant power to reach human-scale forces. This is because they use large powerful actuators.

The 10-year contract is part of a Pentagon efforts to modernise the military`s computing infrastructure, much of which is decades old, using computers from the 1980s and 1990s. The technology is woefully inadequate in today`s high-tech environment, and the government is spending billions of dollars to update its antiquated information technology systems..

UK payroll experts need to keep pace with best practices and technology trends that impact the payroll function, in addition to managing changing workforce and compliance requirements. In our new survey, we asked these experts about how they’re using technology today in the payroll function, and their plans for the future..

Policy-makers at a number of central banks around the world are seriously considering developing and issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC), with a consumer-ready CBDC likely to arrive in the next five years.

Industry 4.0 has arrived in the automotive industry, bringing substantial shifts in worker skill sets, line machinery maintenance and production quality control. According to the Association for Talent Development, knowledge workers are now in demand on factory floors, and CIO notes that proactive maintenance could help organisations cut the $50 billion they spend each year on downtime..

As marketers seek to contribute to company growth, they often look for truths–what are the things that we absolutely have to do?.

Business executives today are under pressure to accelerate speed to market while ensuring high quality, so it`s not surprising that they are turning to DevOps practices to ensure high-quality software and an exceptional experience for the customer..

About a week ago, Google expanded its links to its calendar app where users can instantaneously create new calendar events straight from Chrome`s address bar. The company today announced it`s bringing the service to the masses allowing non-Google platforms to attach their services to the new shortcut domains. Already, rivals Microsoft and Music streaming platform Spotify have snatched up some of these domains....

The concept of the internet of things entails the use of electronic devices that help to capture or monitor data and are linked to a public or private network, empowering them to mechanically initiate certain events. We look at the context of IoT in the healthcare industry and come across the myriad of benefits it has bestowed upon it.

Cognizant is recognized as a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) services leader in a new report on the rapidly evolving market by Forrester Research, a leading global research and advisory firm.

After experiencing strong growth of 5.5% to reach a value of US$4.1bn in 2018, Canada’s consulting market has made the biggest gains in this year’s ranking of the most attractive consulting markets in the world, climbing from joint 10th to joint 7th in the last 12 months.

Before tackling the problem of IoT connectivity, it’s important to understand the mass IoT market: what does it compose of? Will the IoT market largely be made of industrial or consumer connections, or both?.

Solar panels we be installed underneath the surface of some roads in Tokyo, according to the Independent. The metropolitan government announced their plans for "solar roads" as part of a campaign to make Tokyo a more eco-friendly city.

We explore insight from speaker and retail intelligence expert Diane Wehrle, marketing and insights director at Springboard, about the importance of retail employees in this challenge. Employees who are engaged, motivated and ready to deliver an exceptional in-store experience.

IOTA is one of the 26 contestants of the Smart Buildings Challenge program. Other contestants include the likes of Dell, Wipro, and others. The contestants will get an opportunity to work with entities like Microsoft and Bosch.

Read the Transforming for Tomorrow digital report, which explores the pace at which organisations are digitally transforming....

Topcoder, a Wipro company, and the world’s largest technology network and on-demand digital talent platform, announced the addition of new data science and AI features to the Topcoder Platform.

The task that Google says might take the world’s fastest classical supercomputer 10,000 years can actually, says IBM, be done in just days....

IBM has set a new and very impressive standard in the protection of data. With the launch of the IBM z15, IBM Data Privacy Passports technology builds upon pervasive encryption to help clients protect and provision data and revoke access to that data at any time from any location — even for data not housed on the z15..

Some things vary across categories and depend on a company’s starting place — but successful digital transformations usually share specific traits that translate across industries.

History books no doubt will show cloud among the hottest IT topics of 2019. Cloud is both a pathway and a puzzle....

Capgemini conceptualized and developed an integrated e-commerce, web content, and marketing solution integrated into the backend systems, to provide an improved digital experience to M1`s customers..

To stay competitive in the business world, corporations have for years relied on outsourcing, sometimes referred to as labour arbitrage. While outsourcing has been around for ages, the ways companies are leveraging outsourcing are changing..

CISOs are facing a perfect storm when it comes to securing their networks. Cyber attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated just as corporate networks are becoming more distributed and complex – all while security talent becomes harder to find and security strategy best practices evolve..

Enterprise IT is quickly becoming a data-centric and widely distributed environment that includes the soon-to-be tens of billions of connected, intelligent devices. This will make up the internet of things and generate petabytes of data, multiple public and hybrid clouds and modern applications using such technologies as artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data and advanced analytics..

Siemens is headed towards having Artificial Intelligence as one of the primary technology pillars in their products. As a market leader, it aims to be realistic in its approach to incorporate AI in its products. It says AI will pan out in phases, with hybrid devices coming to the market first..

Acquisition augments digital engineering and core modernization capabilities, deepening cloud-native architecture expertise in key geographies

TEANECK, NJ – Oct. 16, 2019 – Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Contino, a privately-held technology consulting firm. Contino specialises in helping Global 2,000 clients accelerate their digital transformation by leveraging enterprise DevOps methodologies, a cloud-native development approach, and advanced data platforms.

At Gartner`s Digital Workplace Summit in London, analysts said they expect artificial intelligence to be common in the office by 2025; they already see ‘huge pent-up demand.’.

Commercial real estate is an industry based on relationships, trust and human interactions, and to this day, networking and face-to-face engagements are still critical to success. But that does not mean that there isn’t room for technology in the workplace in this industry or other late adopters.

What does the future of rail in the UK look like? The answer depends on how far into the future you look. If the Williams Review is as penetrating as we expect, the coming year has the potential to radically kick start the change in the way our railways are run. However, will that be radical change for today, for the next five years, or for the next 30?.

Sometimes in all the talk about digital workplaces, it is forgotten that many enterprises are still struggling with the journey from traditional to digital enterprise. Digital transformation, though, is big business and many technology heavyweights have thrown their hat into the ring to catch a piece of the $250 million market.

Among the most impressive new developments in technology is the field of machine learning. In essence, machine learning teaches an artificial intelligence system to teach itself. While this might sound like the start of a campy sci-fi horror story, the results are quite promising for small business.

By partnering with Capgemini, Baker Hughes, a GE company implements an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solution that transforms shop floor processes and the Manufacturing Execution System..

Ongoing Brexit uncertainty is clearly having a material impact on the consumer psyche,’ says Paul Martin at KPMG.

In a world overflowing with siloed petabytes of data, understanding can come only with data analytics that are seamless and all-pervasive. Having access to all the data at every point in time leads to insights and drives powerful outcomes that make the difference between good and great..

Just 46% of clients say they get more in value than they pay in fees from their tax advisors

Technology companies could put intense pressure on tax advisory firms if they don’t get to grips with the innovation problem

Although the US tax advisory market expanded by 9% to US$8bn in 2017 – a new report today finds that tax advisory firms need to provide more innovative solutions and deliver more value to clients. The Perceptions of Tax Firms report, from the leading research and strategy firm for the global professional services industry, Source Global Research, found that while 81% of clients rate the quality of tax advisors’ works as ‘high’ or ‘very high’, just 46% say they get more in value than they pay in fees. Clients also place a great deal of importance in receiving cutting-edge thinking from their tax advisors, but the Source research found that they are left wanting: They don’t see thought leadership or innovative approaches as a relative strength of the tax advisory firms they know. The report warns that if tax advisors don’t get to grips with this problem, there is a possibility that software providers and technology companies could start competing strongly with tax firms to provide automated solutions and platforms to manage tax for clients. Martin White, a Senior Analyst at Source Global Research, said:
“In an age of ever-increasing digitisation, the desire from clients for innovation indicates that they want to see more automation, use of data & analytics, and other digital solutions from their tax advisors. Clients may also want to see more managed services, allowing them to reduce the number of routine, manual processes within internal tax functions.” The report says that one of the ways of improving perceptions about the quality of thought leadership and the innovative approaches of tax advisors could be to partner with more innovative areas of the firm, particularly where firms have wider consulting and audit practices. The report found that some tax advisory firms have had success putting their technology partners at the centre when approaching clients who want to focus on innovation – allowing them to show how advanced their thinking is, and to demonstrate their track record of applying innovative approaches in consulting, audit, or other areas of their business. Closing the value gap
When it comes to views on value from clients, the report found that the most value-adding tax firms are much better when it comes to the strengths of their people – with the top firms better at matching the right people to the right projects, and providing a blend of better sector-specific expertise and experienced subject matter experts. The quality of their thought leadership and the way they deal with stakeholders is also better.

Martin White from Source concluded:
“Better people can help clients think and work better, can allow clients to do things more safely – by providing an external view on internal thinking – or can use their knowledge, experience, and expertise to do things faster than a company could manage with just in-house resources.

Given the importance placed by clients on the quality of thought leadership, we think this is the most crucial people area for firms to focus on in order to improve perceptions of value.” For more information on Source reports contact ella-sian.jolley@sourceglobalresearch.com, telephone +44 (0)20 3478 1204, or visit www.sourceglobalresearch.com..

OpenWorld closes for another year. During the event Oracle managed to publish a total of 40 items, mainly press releases and a few blogs. Many more were issued by partners and other companies attending. A full list is below as well as some highlights....

EY has announced it is coming together with the Partnership on AI, a multistakeholder not-for-profit corporation formed to better understand the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and to serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement around AI`s impact on people and society..

By 2020, Gen Z will be a major factor in the workplace. These workers are far different from their predecessors, already comfortable with digital technologies, yet unsure of how they fit into organisations that have not kept pace with their expectations....

The World Health Organization (WHO) is celebrating seven decades of public health progress, which it says, "Have added 25 years to global life expectancy, saved millions of children’s lives, and made huge inroads into eradicating deadly diseases." As WHO notes, there’s still a long way to go....

Ross Tracey, Managing Director, Ceridian Europe outlines five of the top technology trends that are changing the world of work in the U.K..

CIOs should begin to embrace blockchain to explore strategic business initiatives, but avoid falling for the hype..