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Accenture/SAP to accelerate sustainable transformation

Decades long, Accenture and SAP have been collaborating for many years to help companies to embed sustainability across their entire business operations to unlock new value in their supply chains.

Breaking down Accenture and SAP’s latest partnership

By combining SAP’s technology with Accenture’s Sustainability Services and broad industry knowledge, the two are expanding their current partnership to create new solutions that empower companies to accelerate full decarbonisation in the supply chain, and capture their share of economic growth that a circular economy could bring.

The new solution

Co-innovating and co-developing, SAP and Accenture plans to create a new solution for responsible production, manufacturing and design. Its capabilities will help companies to embed sustainability metrics across their value chain and supply chains.

How does it work?

The solution harnesses integrated data from multiple operations, allowing companies to better design and produce products with less waste, better recyclability, and more recycled content.

By providing this solution, SAP and Accenture hope to help to reduce the growing cost of compliance which has been driven by new regulations.

“Our work together will enable SAP’s customers, which include 92% of the Forbes Global 2000, to use their core systems to help drive their sustainability agenda, optimize their ESG performance and achieve their goals. This expanded collaboration builds on our long history with SAP — including our joint partnership with the United Nations Global Compact and 3M — and our shared commitment to drive adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals,” said Julie Sweet, chief executive officer at Accenture.

SAP’s Climate 21 initiative

In addition to partnering with SAP on this new solution, Accenture supports SAP’s Climate 21 initiative. Climate 21 allows companies to use analytics to measure and minimise their CO2 emissions as well as lower their carbon footprint across a products lifecycle.

In doing so, sustainability metrics harnessed across the end-to-end supply chain allows for an integrated view of environmental savings and cost impacts, as well as the ability to more easily optimise operations.

“To successfully tackle the greatest threat to our world today, we need to collaborate at every level of business and society. Building on our long-standing and trusted partnership, SAP and Accenture are joining forces to help our customers realize long-term growth in a sustainable way. We’re creating visibility into the environmental impact across the entire value chain, providing enterprises with the insights they need to take the right action and accelerate their transition to the circular economy,” said Christian Klein, chief executive officer at SAP.

SAP.iO a global accelerator

Furthering their efforts to accelerate sustainable transformation, SAP and Accenture began a global sustainability focused accelerator program at SAP.iO.

As part of the SAP.iO, the ‘Sustainability Future’ program – the latest cohort to date – aims to help B2B startups in their early stages drive digital transformation and innovation in four target areas: carbon tracking and trading, resource efficiency, climate risk tracking and mitigation, and circular economy.

Sustainable Business Is Better Business for All

Sustainability is the business challenge of our lifetimes.

Customers are increasingly educated and demand products and services that minimize negative environmental impact. Investors are integrating climate risk in their portfolio strategies. Government regulation is on the rise around the world, affecting carbon emissions, waste management, product design, and producer responsibility. Employees are increasingly vocal about their employer’s environmental policies and actions, making it challenging for businesses to recruit top talent without a genuine environmental vision and track record.

Based on Accenture research*, enterprises with high ratings for environmental and social governance (ESG) performance attained operating margins nearly four-times higher than those with low ESG ratings and generated annual total returns to shareholders that were double their peers. According Accenture and United Nations (UN) Global Compact research, 54% of CEOs agree sustainability is critical to the future success of their organizations, and 71% of investors believe the pandemic will accentuate global policies to tackle risks related to climate change.

From Periphery to Core

Enterprises must show accountability through ESG performance and manage end-to-end operations responsibly. By reimagining its business model, any company can operate in an intelligent way, minimize negative environmental impact, and unleash a new dimension of enterprise resource planning (ERP). Decision-makers can use this intelligence to design better products, create engaging experiences, and equip employees to do their best work by eliminating busywork. They can create an efficient, ethical, and adaptable supply chain, reaching beyond organizations and first-tier suppliers to proactively manage performance and risks with trading partners around the world.

Just like any other core business function, sustainability performance must also be managed in real time and integrated into wider business decision making. True, integrated reporting will go hand-in-hand with ESG management, and information transparency will provide a solid foundation to optimize financial results and sustainability performance together.

Most companies have a long way to go before they move beyond the basics of simply reporting ESG performance to actively steering their business operations toward ambitious sustainability goals. While the UN Global Compact’s SDG Ambition program has challenged companies to enhance their commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), only 25% have set goals aligned to societal or environmental needs. Although CEOs acknowledge the universal call-to-action to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all, less than 50% have implemented sustainability into their operations.

SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv announced 7 startups to joint its next program with Publicis Sapient

SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv launched yesterday its startup accelerator program focused on consumer engagement, together with the digital business transformation company Publicis Sapient. Seven startups have been selected to join the program, all are focused on developing advanced marketing and commerce solutions to help brands improve their consumer engagement.

“Recent year events and new market challenges in the Consumer Industries, emphasized the importance of expanding our partner portfolio in the e-commerce and marketing domains, and led us to launch a dedicated program with that focus.” says Lior Weizman, Director of SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv. “After screening startups from more than 30 countries, 7 startups originating from Israel, US, Poland and UK were selected. The selected startups present advanced capabilities in their fields and have a strong track record of success, will enable SAP’s clients to engage in new ways with their customers.”

Cardano Foundation Announces Partnership With Supply Chain Traceability Solution Scantrust

The Cardano foundation has announced a partnership with Scantrust, a supply chain traceability solution, in order to streamline the supply chain management process, as well as optimising security.

Scantrust is a company that uses QR codes to bring products online, and aims to turn products and packaging into a “direct connection with consumers”. The company provides protection from counterfeiting, supply chain awareness, and consumer engagement, using blockchain technology to secure, track, and create consumer interactivity with a QR code.

Current Scantrust partners include HP Indigo, Hyperledger, and SAP, and the company has worked with Fortune 500 companies and SMEs across 168 countries.

One of the areas that blockchain technology has revolutionised is the supply chain. Blockchain solutions have allowed companies to trace, track, and empower the producer and consumer. A number of traceability companies have emerged in recent years, covering industries from food, textiles and high-end consumer products. What they share in common is the ability to create true transparency from the start of the supply chain all the way through to the consumer.

Advancing innovation in blockchain technology has allowed companies to promote their ethical approach to consumer goods, increase transparency, and secure against counterfeiting. Frederik Gregaard, CEO of the Cardano Foundation, commented on the partnership with Scantrust:

“Empowering trust and transparency across all industries and digital agreements is at the heart of the Cardano Foundation’s missions. I am proud of our Integrations team, who have worked tirelessly with Scantrust to deliver the first solution of its kind to leverage metadata on the Cardano blockchain. Together with Scantrust, we are helping brands to reconnect with their consumers, increase transparency in their supply chain, and fight counterfeit activity.”

Ynni Energy Engagement & Personalised Services from NET2GRID Now Available on SAP® Store

NET2GRID announced that its Ynni Energy Engagement & Personalised Services solution is now available on SAP® Store. Built on SAP Business Technology Platform, the solution delivers energy insight and user engagement services to utility customers.

“We are proud to be an SAP partner and we are excited that our Ynni Energy Engagement & Personalised Services solution is now available on SAP Store,” says Bert Lutje Berenbroek, NET2GRID’s founder and CEO. “We have a vision of creating an intelligent, transparent, and cleaner energy value chain by translating energy consumption data into smart, personalized services. With our solution now available on SAP Store, we can benefit from SAP’s global reach, enabling the solution to be readily available for businesses that use SAP technologies with only minimal set-up efforts. Take the billing service, as an example. With Time of Use (ToU) tariffs becoming more and more available, NET2GRID can offer a bill split per activity, aggregated over different ToU tariffs and periods in a very cost-effective way.”

The core functionality of Ynni Energy Engagement & Personalised Services include:

Energy bill transparency: The solution disaggregates total energy consumption into a daily and personal list of itemized household events and activities, allowing the end-user to see how much energy is consumed in each category. Our clients have seen Net Promoter Score increase from -13 all the way up to 65, on average, due to increased user engagement and financial benefits for end-users.
Cost-saving on energy: Total household energy consumption insights are broken down per appliance type and event category, providing personal, relevant, and actionable energy-saving tips to help reduce costs.
Energy load forecasting: For energy retailers and utilities, NET2GRID’s solution offers a highly accurate, Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) load forecasting service with a less than a 2% error margin. The solution reaches these high-quality forecasting results for day-ahead forecasts to year-ahead, long-term aggregated load predictions.
Engage customers in Electric Vehicle (EV) rate plans or virtual power plant schemes: NET2GRID identifies EV owners and clusters them in a target group for campaigns so that energy suppliers can offer EV rate plans and integration with demand response controls to upsell to virtual power plant schemes and earn money with their investments. For example, users can have EV car chargers upgraded to smart charging devices at low tariffs. The leads generated for EV can also be generated for renewables and energy savings solutions like heat pumps and insulation.
Homeowner property investment recommendations: With the actionable energy insights from Ynni Energy Engagement & Personalised Services, a utility or energy supplier can upsell to energy-saving solutions like insulation, heat pumps or renewables, as an output of NET2GRID’s “Next Best Actions” AI engine.

SetSail Debuts New AI-powered Solutions to Help Sales Teams Unlock More Revenue

SetSail, the AI-powered micro-incentives platform for sales, will unveiled multiple new product features on at the company’s first annual SetSail Voyage virtual conference. New SetSail features include a signal-based coaching app; smart milestone signals to help reps accelerate revenue; and data automation tailored to the way reps use their CRM.

The world of work has changed in the past year, and the ‘new normal’ requires a new way of selling,” said Haggai Levi, CEO of SetSail. “To be successful today, sales teams must embrace data, signals and storytelling. This is where SetSail comes in – providing sales teams with the information they need to take the small steps that lead to closing big deals.”

Founded in 2018 by former Google machine learning experts, SetSail uses AI to identify the buying signals needed to close a deal. The platform then converts these signals into recommendations for sales reps and presents them with micro-rewards (e.g. monetary rewards and recognitions) for following the best path of action and building good selling habits.

Future Grid Platform Now Available on SAP® Store

Future Grid recently announced that its Future Grid Platform is now available on SAP ^® Store, which recently merged with SAP App Center as the single digital marketplace for SAP and partner offerings. The Future Grid Platform integrates with SAP Predictive Asset Insights and delivers real-time grid insights previously invisible to electric utilities.

“Now that the Future Grid Platform is available on SAP Store and integrated with SAP Predictive Asset Insights, the generated insights are even more powerful,” said Chris Law, CEO and co-founder of Future Grid. “We are excited to partner with SAP after participating in the SAP.iO Foundries program that was focused on accelerating utilities startups. This will make our solution even more accessible for electric utilities around the world.”

With Future Grid, businesses that use utility solutions from SAP can save time and money with increased reliability of supply and streamlined automated work orders and processes. Electric utilities will also have the ability to manage asset health issues directly and proactively plan and respond accordingly. Future Grid’s software turns smart meter data into improved grid reliability, asset management and customer safety, enabling electric utilities to integrate renewable energy at scale using their existing network assets.

Future Grid creates visibility into the health of critical yet ‘invisible’ electricity assets such as wires, transformers and fuses. Once its software analyzes and converts smart meter and other IoT data in real time, Future Grid creates a secure feedback loop by analyzing data from the grid edge and integrating grid recommendations back into distribution systems so that networks can be operated in real time. A wide range of use cases are currently being trialed, including dynamic voltage control, safety fault detection and constraint management. The Future Grid Platform is available for a trial on SAP Store.

Verusen named a Top 10 Innovative Technology Companies in Georgia

The Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) has announced the Top 10 Innovative Technology Companies in Georgia.

The Top 10 companies were selected from the Top 40 Innovative Technology Companies competition, sponsored by Comcast Businessand Cherry Bekaert, and will present at the 2021 Georgia Technology Summit on April 28 – 29.

“These companies demonstrate the amazing talent and innovation in Georgia’s technology industry today,” said Dennis Zakas, Georgia’s Top 40 Innovative Company Awards Chair. “We are eager to watch them continue to grow and contribute to Georgia’s economy.”

The 2021 Top 10 Innovative Companies are:

Codoxo, Chamblee – Codoxo builds AI solutions that help healthcare companies and agencies identify problems and act quickly to control costs with artificial intelligence.
Florence Healthcare, Midtown – Florence Healthcare is the leading platform for remote connectivity and electronic document workflow management in clinical research, with more than 8,500 research sites, sponsors and CROs in 30 countries.
MileAuto, Midtown – Mile Auto is a pay-per-mile auto insurance company using patented computer vision technologies to help low mileage drivers save money.
PadSplit, Downtown – PadSplit is an affordable housing tech startup that provides a house-sharing service for the workforce.
Roadie, Buckhead – Roadie is a same-day delivery platform that connects people with stuff to send to drivers already heading in the right direction.
Stord, Midtown – Stord operates the leading North American omnichannel logistics network using end-to-end logistics services designed to move product rapidly to your end customer—B2B or B2C—with pay-as-you-go pricing and infinite scalability.
Ternio, Alpharetta – Ternio is a global fintech platform built on blockchain that connects traditional enterprise, fintech, banking, systems with blockchain infrastructure giving real world utility to digital assets.
Verusen, Midtown – Verusen is a Supply Chain Intelligence company focused on materials management that uses AI to provide complex global supply chains material truth for data, inventory optimization and procurement intelligence.
Voxie, Alpharetta – Voxie is the conversational text marketing leader that helps retail, service, and restaurant passion brands connect with and learn from their customers in order to drive repeat purchase.
Ware2Go, Buckhead – Ware2Go, a UPS Company, is changing the traditional 3PL model to make 1-2-day delivery easy and affordable for all merchants.

Predicting ETAS Accurately

Through a global partnership with French transportation visibility specialist Shippeo, Krone Telematics can now accurately predict the estimated time of arrival (ETA) for every shipment. The collaboration is expected to yield further innovations.

Up to twelve hours in advance, the Krone Telematics technical monitoring system can accurately predict the arrival time of a truck. A cooperation with the European leader in real-time transportation visibility Shippeo makes this precise information possible. The estimated time of arrival (ETA) for a truck is much more difficult to calculate than for private parcel shipments, for example. This is because, in addition to traffic and weather conditions, it is influenced by many other parameters such as the duration of loading and unloading. Shippeo achieves the most accurate prediction of ETA on the market with machine learning and an algorithm that takes over 200 parameters into account. For Krone’s customers, this means they get reliable information about their shipments that they can use for planning and increasing efficiency.

Adverity continues to dominate as momentum leader in G2 Spring 2021 Report

Adverity, a leading marketing data intelligence platform, has once again been named as a top-five category leader in ETL Tools and Data Visualization Software in the G2 Spring 2021 Report.

It has also received recognition as a leader in two new categories; Small-Business for Business Intelligence Software – where it scored a superior Satisfaction Rating than the Grid category leader – and in Mid-Market ETL Tools; in both instances being ranked in the top five Grid Scores.

Continuing its success in the Grid Report for Business Intelligence, Adverity has progressed from a high performer in the G2 Summer 2020 report to a leader, and again, boasting a higher Satisfaction Rating than the category leader.

It maintains its top five rankings as a high performer in both the Grid Reports for E-Commerce Data Integration Software and Big Data Integration Platform – and in the latter is rated above the category leader for product satisfaction.

The latest report also sees Adverity move into the top ten Grid Report for Mid-Market for Data Visualization Software and acknowledged as a high performer in the Grid Score for Mid-Market for Business Intelligence Software.

Alexander Igelsböck, CEO and Co-Founder of Adverity, comments: “It’s a privilege to continue to be recognized as a leader in the G2 reports as it is a direct reflection of our platform helping enterprises of all sizes become more insight-driven – which is crucial in today’s business environment. The rankings represent the voice of real users and further validates our commitment to customer satisfaction with our platforms. Many enterprises are prioritizing their data capabilities and we want to continue to help them on their data maturity journey.”

Verusen and NTT DATA GSL Form Business Alliance to Transform SAP Materials and Inventory Management Deployments Through AI

As manufacturers and businesses ramp up the digital transformation of their supply chains to meet challenging times during the pandemic, Verusen, the Atlanta startup that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to build the intelligent, connected supply chain, and NTT DATA Global Solutions Corporation (NTT DATA GSL), a leading SAP partner in Japan, providing digital transformation and information technology services worldwide together with NTT DATA Group alliance, today announced their new business alliance. The collaboration utilizes Verusen’s cloud-based AI platform and real–time inventory data management capabilities to strengthen and optimize customers’ existing SAP supply chain and inventory management implementations.

Verusen’s purpose-built AI platform provides a supply chain solution that transforms material data and inventory optimization to bring “material truth” to organizations. By analyzing and visualizing the inventory information stored at different locations, the solution helps clients reduce their inventory, increase working capital and prevent opportunity loss due to either excess or deficiency of inventory. The relationship marks the debut of the Verusen cloud platform in the Japanese market.

Rheaply Raises $8M to Scale the Circular Economy and Enable Businesses to Take Action Against Climate Change

Rheaply, a climate tech company that combines a resource-sharing network with a user-friendly asset management platform, today announced that it has raised $8M in a Series A round led by High Alpha, with investment from 100 Black Angels & Allies Fund, Concrete Rose Capital, Hyde Park Angels, M25, MCJ Collective, Morgan Stanley Multicultural Innovation Lab, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, and Salesforce Ventures. Rheaply’s platform eliminates potential waste by instituting the principles of a circular economy, a model that emphasizes “designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems.”

Rheaply’s Series A is one of the largest rounds ever raised by a Chicago startup with a Black founder, and the majority of new investors are impact funds.

In the U.S. economy, over $630B of physical workplace assets sit idle every year.² Not knowing what assets exist and where they are frequently leads to inefficiencies in procurement practices, the inability to properly track and manage asset depreciation, and the purchase of duplicate assets, significantly impacting every organization’s bottom line. If never put to use, these assets will add over 60M tons of waste to landfill.

If you would like to know more about how Rheaply is helping Fortune 500 companies and the U.S. Federal Government better track and utilize their resources, visit rheaply.com.

SAP.iO & Publicis Sapient partner to mold the next generation of consumer engagement startups

Early stage strategic incubator, SAP.iO has joined forces with digital business transformation company Publicis Sapient to help shape the upcoming SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv – startup accelerator program – batch of startups. The program will focus on advanced marketing and commerce solutions that offer new ways for brands to improve consumer engagement. “For startup companies that develop relevant solutions, this is a unique opportunity to grow and go global ” says Lior Weizmann, who leads SAP.iO Foundry in Israel.

“A significant springboard for startups”

The SAP.iO Foundries are SAP’s global network of equity-free startup accelerators that help promising startups integrate with SAP solutions and accelerate their entry into a curated, inclusive ecosystem whose offerings can be easily accessed and deployed by SAP customers. Current locations of SAP.iO Foundries are in major startup hubs, including Paris, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Munich, New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Tokyo and Bangalore.

Publicis Sapient, which is part of the advertising giant Publicis, and an SAP client, will help SAP identify suitable startups from the global landscape to participate in the SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv – a 12 week program focused on elevating the very best startups with the very best solutions to the next level.

“In addition to partner with SAP and Publicis, which is a strategic achievement by itself, the start-ups that will participate the program and the joint solutions developed in it will be introduced by SAP and Publicis to their joint clients, which include some of the largest brands in the world. The initial exposure will be to the major consumer product companies, where we identify a strong need to strengthen the relationship with the end consumers,” Weizmann added.

The program is intended for enterprise software startups after their Seed or A round, that offer one or more of the following solutions: Personalized marketing, product discovery, social engagement, improved segmentation, consumer experience, 1st party consumer insights, new business models for direct-to-consumer marketing, and innovative integration use cases with Emarsys, SAP’s latest acquisition and a leading omnichannel customer engagement platform.

SAP.iO In Foundries, Press, Tel Aviv

SAP.iO and Publicis Sapient partner up for advanced marketing accelerator

SAP.iO, an Israeli early-stage venture arm for multinational software powerhouse SAP, has announced a partnership with Publicis Sapient for a startup accelerator program based in Tel Aviv. The program, which will last 12 weeks, will focus on advanced marketing and commerce solutions helping new brands improve consumer engagement. Publicis Sapient, part of advertising company Publicis and a SAP client, will work alongside SAP to identify startups across the world to participate in SAP.iO Foundry. The program will take place virtually and start in April 2021 after applications close and the startups are finalized. The deadline for companies to apply is February 26th.

“For startup companies that develop relevant solutions, this is a unique opportunity to grow and go global,” says Lior Weizmann, who leads SAP.iO Foundry in Israel. “In addition to partnering with SAP and Publicis, which is a strategic achievement by itself, the startups that will participate in the program and the joint solutions developed in it will be introduced by SAP and Publicis to their joint clients, which include some of the largest brands in the world. The initial exposure will be to the major consumer product companies, where we identify a strong need to strengthen the relationship with the end consumers.”Oded Lavie, VP of Innovation and Value Creation at Publicis Israel, added: “When we started exploring a collaboration with SAP, we understood that our combined expertise in technology and business, as well as our network of clients across major industries, could be a significant springboard for startups. We are excited to help our mutual clients, which include some of the biggest companies in the world, implement innovative solutions that address concrete business challenges and deliver immediate value.”