All posts by Kayode Damali

A standout figure on BBC The Apprentice 2018, Kayode Damali is a Professional Speaker, accredited Professional status by the Professional Speaking Association (PSA) and he is also a member of the Global Speakers Federation (GSF). He writes about business learning and career development.
IT Services

Survey Reveals Resiliency Remains Elusive for Organizations

71% of US companies cited supply chain disruption as the biggest issue; in the UK 73% Brexit remains the primary source of disruption

London, UK; June 9th 2022: Disruption remains a constant for organizations, with the majority struggling to build resiliency into their operations, a survey from Orbus Software uncovered. The poll of 1,000 IT decision-makers in the US and UK found that 89% of companies have experienced some form of disruption over the last two years. However, over half of enterprises are struggling to increase resiliency, with 44% lacking a dedicated team.

In response to the pandemic digital initiatives have accelerated for the vast majority (83%) of enterprises, with seventy-eight percent reporting dramatic changes to their business models, including 39% migrating to the cloud and almost half (44%) restructuring their teams during this period. However, despite these strategic shifts, only 36% were able to report business growth.

Those enterprises that suffered disruption experienced knock-on effects, spanning staff shortages (56%), supply chain issues and increased business costs (48%) coupled with technology costs increasing (44%). This highlights the interdependencies of organizations and the need to prioritize resiliency. Many are struggling primarily because of the complex web of disparate or legacy systems along with a lack of buy-in from management or other departments.

Looking ahead, 52% of IT decision-makers believe they need to account for regulatory changes. Among the top technology investment priorities for the remainder of 2022 were:

  • Digital privacy (37%)
  • Digital transformation (35%)
  • Cybersecurity threats (35%)
  • Business continuity (31%)

Rupert Colbourne, Chief Technology Officer of Orbus Software, commented, “With the tsunami of disruption that organizations have experienced, it’s clear that operational resiliency needs prioritizing. Without creating agility, businesses leave themselves exposed to the whims of change and can expect their operations to continue to suffer.”

Software

SoftwareONE Unveils New ‘Goatpath’ Brand

Dedicated innovation brand to transform how customers and partners buy, sell and manage software, services and cloud in future

Stans, Switzerland | 24 February 2022 – SoftwareONE Holding AG, a leading global provider of end-to-end software and cloud technology solutions, has today unveiled a new brand to focus on delivering the next generation of technologies, platforms and products at speed. Called Goatpath by SoftwareONE, the innovations developed under the brand will radically change the way customers can buy, sell and manage their software, cloud and services.

Goatpath aims to make it easy for businesses to automate and govern procurement, management and security of software and cloud. The technologies, platforms and products developed will offer SoftwareONE partners and ISVs new routes to market, broadening their customer reach and enhancing their capabilities. In addition, Goatpath will focus on traditionally challenging cross-departmental areas in organizations where silos can lead to failed digital transformation projects.

‘Goatpath is an evolution of our strategy, approach and the outcomes we can achieve for our customers and partners. The new name and brand reflect our desire to find the fastest route across challenging terrain with nimbleness and surety. Market requirements are changing at pace. Our customers and partners need our technologies, platforms and products to keep ahead of these changes. With an entrenched culture of innovation, Goatpath is our route to achieve this,’ explains Mike Fitzgerald, GM of Goatpath, Chief Innovation Officer at SoftwareONE.

‘We want to empower our customers to automate and govern their software, cloud and services investments. Goatpath by SoftwareONE has highly talented and dedicated development teams that will place the customer at the centre of everything that is built. We see Goatpath as a core part of the SoftwareONE business that will drive growth and help us to continuously break new ground in an ever-changing digital world,’ says Dieter Schlosser, CEO of SoftwareONE.

Learn more at www.Goatpath.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Business, News

Newsflare Appoints New Head of B2B Growth Marketing following Series B Funding Round and Brand Refresh

London, New York, Los Angeles 10th February 2022: Newsflare, the world’s leading licensing platform and marketplace for user-generated video (UGV), has announced the appointment of Nick Mamouzellos as its new Head of B2B Growth Marketing. The first senior hire since attracting £5m Series B funding and announcing a milestone brand refresh, Nick will play a leading role in Newsflare’s accelerated growth strategy as it stakes its claim as category leader for the monetisation of premium UGV.

Nick is a highly experienced growth marketing expert, combining creativity with digital strategy to attract, engage and retain customers. Nick most recently served as Digital Strategist at VIXIO and brings vast experience of leading the strategy and execution of global marketing programmes for organisations such as Pepsi Co, ALM Media, The Michael J Fox Foundation, and Baretz + Brunelle. Results-oriented, Nick has a history of driving continuous growth and building highly engaged customer bases.

Speaking about the appointment, Newsflare’s CCO Neil Rampe said:

“I’m really excited to welcome Nick to the team. Marketing is key in developing our foundation for growth and he is going to help us build on the great work the team have achieved so far in getting us to this milestone moment in the evolution of our company. We were attracted by his obsession with growth, being data-informed, and his excitement about our proposition – capturing and sharing moments that matter.

“2022 is a pivotal year for Newsflare. A year when our dream to become the global market leader for the monetisation of user-generated video (UGV) starts to become a reality and within our reach. It’s nothing short of transformational for our business, for our talented team of people, for our army of filmers, for our customers – publishers, social publishers, TV producers, creative agencies, brands – and for the growth of the creator economy.”

IT Services, News

Ballerina Language Swan Lake GA Release Boosts Productivity by Radically Simplifying How Developers Build and Deploy Cloud-Native Applications

The latest release of Ballerina open-source language extends unique ability to simultaneously code using text and graphical views to Visual Studio; delivers capabilities for helping developers rapidly build, integrate, and deploy services and APIs in the cloud

London, UK – 9th February 2022 – Enterprises are moving to cloud-native applications to accelerate their innovation and scale their digital services. Yet too often programming languages that were never designed for the cloud cause unnecessary complexity and delays. Now with general availability (GA) of the Swan Lake release of Ballerina—announced today—organisations have an enterprise-grade, open-source language that radically simplifies how developers build, integrate, and deploy cloud-native applications.

Ballerina is a 100% open-source project created and sponsored by WSO2, with all parts of the project developed openly at https://github.com/ballerina-platform. Already downloaded by nearly 10,000 developers worldwide, Ballerina is the only modern cloud-native programming language that provides features for easily using, combining and creating network services for the cloud.

Uniquely, Ballerina provides a bidirectional mapping of sequence diagrams and code, meaning the diagram is the code, and the code is the diagram. As a result, developers can easily switch between working in a pro-code or low-code view of a program as needed to maximise their productivity. At the same time, Ballerina removes much of the complexity in developing enterprise-grade cloud-native applications, APIs and microservices by providing a first-class way to represent network interactions while streamlining many functions around data usage, configurations, cloud deployments, and more.

“The move to cloud-native applications—which are inherently integrations of services, data, transactions and processes—has rendered many older programming languages obsolete,” said Dr Sanjiva Weerawarana, founder of the Ballerina project and founder and CEO of WSO2. “With our Ballerina Swan Lake release now in GA, development teams for the first time have a modern programming language that simplifies cloud-native app development and integration, facilitates collaboration, and enables developers to rapidly innovate new digital products and services.”

“Ballerina provides an integration-centric approach to building cloud-native applications that leverages an HTTP-centric programming model,” said Jason Bloomberg, president of industry analyst firm Intellyx. “As a result, Ballerina shifts integration complexity away from protocol-centric challenges to the broader architectural considerations that drive the creation of high-quality, scalable cloud-native applications.”

Maximising Developer Productivity

The Swan Lake release extends the benefits of Ballerina to the global Microsoft Visual Studio (VS) developer community with the significantly expanded functionality of its Ballerina VSCode plugin. Now developers can use the widely adopted VS Code source-code editor while taking advantage of Ballerina to simultaneously edit programs both graphically and textually. The Ballerina VSCode plugin also features intelligent code completion for the Ballerina language via the Ballerina Editor, syntax highlighting and debugging.

The plugin complements Ballerina’s intuitive syntax for developing APIs and different types of services, including RESTful, GraphQL, WebSocket and gRPC services. Also included are seamless support for JSON, XML and ProtoBuf; powerful constructs for working with data; and automatic concurrency control to support enterprise-grade applications. Configuration management is an inherent feature of the language allowing DevOps teams to securely inject environment-specific configurations into Ballerina programs. Additionally, Ballerina observability enables developers to understand the execution and performance impact introduced by the Ballerina program. Collectively, Ballerina’s capabilities enable development teams to create and integrate resilient, secure, high-performance APIs and microservices that are easy to maintain and iterate on.

Ballerina also comes with deployment abstraction capabilities and supports the generation of Docker and Kubernetes artefacts from code without additional configuration. This simplifies the experience of developing and deploying Ballerina code in the cloud. Code-to-cloud features build the containers and required artefacts by deriving the required values from the Ballerina code to deploy an enterprise’s code into different cloud platforms, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.

“I am very impressed with Ballerina’s ideas. I would call this language, ‘Java for modern, agile microservices’,” said Kirill Keker, a solution architect in the Core Team at MVideo. “Thank you for that!”

Full Development Platform

The Ballerina platform provides comprehensive support for modern software engineering processes and toolchains, including:

  • A framework for package/module management, including dependency and version control, which produces repeatable builds from the same source code
  • Ballerina Central, a public web service for sharing modules among developers
  • A framework for documentation and testing of Ballerina programs
  • Built-in tooling for OpenAPI (Swagger), gRPC and AsyncAPI
  • An update tool for keeping Ballerina installations up to date with the latest releases
  • An interactive command-line shell for rapidly learning and prototyping Ballerina code
  • A comprehensive standard library with support for many network protocols, data sources, and data formats to ease Ballerina language adoption

Availability and Support

Ballerina Swan Lake version 2201.0.0 is generally available today. As a fully open-source implementation released under the Apache License 2.0, it does not carry any licensing fees and can be freely downloaded at https://ballerina.io/downloads. Users can find support through its growing open-source community on Ballerina’s Slack Channel, Google Group, or GitHub. Additionally, resources, such as the Quick Tour and Ballerina by Examples, can be found at https://ballerina.io/learn/by-example.

Sponsored and developed by WSO2

WSO2—which enables thousands of enterprises to drive their digital transformation journeys—has invested in Ballerina to address significant shortcomings in how middleware supports the cloud-native world. WSO2’s founder, Dr Sanjiva Weerawarana, created the project in August 2016 and led its technical design in collaboration with James Clark, bringing in their decades of software development and enterprise integration experience. WSO2’s engineering effort for Ballerina has included more than 300 person-years of investment in its nearly six years of development.

 

Business, News

Hampleton Partners advises Shopware on its USD 100 million growth capital raise from Carlyle and PayPal

Schöppingen, Frankfurt and London – 9 February 2022. Hampleton Partners, the international M&A and corporate finance advisory firm for technology companies, has advised shopware AG, a leading digital commerce software solutions provider in the DACH region, on its USD 100 million growth capital round from global investment firm Carlyle and PayPal, the global payments and commerce platform.

Headquartered in Schöppingen and led by brothers Sebastian and Stefan Hamann, Shopware offers a holistic omnichannel digital commerce platform that is highly flexible and has a rich set of features, supporting complex B2C, D2C, B2B and services-driven business models. Shopware’s technology is API-first and uses an open-source architecture, allowing merchants to scale while creating unique customer experiences. Its platform caters to a highly diversified customer base across a wide range of different industry verticals, focused on sophisticated mid-market merchants but also serving multinational market leaders including Philips, Jägermeister and Aston Martin. In 2021, Shopware approached a platform gross merchandise value (GMV) of USD 20 billion. Following the successful rollout of Shopware 6, the company was listed in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce. Recent product innovations have positioned the company as a leader in the expanding digital commerce software market for mid-market merchants in DACH.

Founders Sebastian and Stefan Hamann will retain a significant majority stake in the business and remain co-CEOs of the company. Carlyle and PayPal’s growth capital will help drive Shopware’s international expansion and the development of new products.

Stefan Hamann, co-CEO of Shopware, said: “This funding will help us supercharge our international growth – enabling Shopware to capture the significant opportunities ahead of us. Working with Hampleton: it was clear that the team understood the digital commerce software ecosystem and its key drivers at this critical moment in the market. Armed with that expertise, we were able to find the perfect partners in Carlyle and PayPal to execute on our shared strategic vision.”

Co-CEO Sebastian Hamman said: “The past few years have accelerated the need for an open-source approach that provides outstanding shopping experiences for customers, and we are poised to further benefit from this growth opportunity. We’re looking forward to working with Carlyle and PayPal and are grateful to be embarking on this journey after a structured process that allowed us to choose between several excellent options.”

Dr. Jan Eiben, managing director at Hampleton, commented: “Digital commerce is at an inflection point, not least due to the myriad new business models that are increasingly demanded by the market, from SMEs through to enterprise customers. With its flexible, open-source approach, Shopware is optimally positioned to serve evolving customer needs across all channels and business models to become an international leader in digital commerce technology. Stefan and Sebastian have built a pioneering, ambitious company and we look forward to the next stage of their journey that they will embark on with globally leading growth partners.”

The transaction represents another milestone in Hampleton’s leading digital commerce coverage, coming on the heels of Hampleton’s advisory of e-commerce personalization AI provider Loop54 on its sale to FACT-Finder, as well as the buyout of virtual queueing platform Queue-it by GRO Capital.

Miro Parizek, principal partner and founder at Hampleton added: “We are proud to have advised on this exciting combination between a cutting-edge European digital commerce player and two respected global investors and experts in commerce solutions. Stefan and Sebastian have built a game-changing technology, and I look forward to seeing them achieve even greater heights following this investment from Carlyle and PayPal.”

The engagement was led by Dr. Jan Eiben, Miro Parizek and Ralph Hübner, with Nicholas Milligan and Tim Stemkens supporting the transaction at Hampleton.

 

News

Umazi Collaborates with Artesian : DueDil to Automate and Accelerate SME Corporate Due Diligence

London 1st February 2022: Artesian : DueDil, a leading UK Fintech tackling some of financial services biggest challenges, is pleased to announce a new partnership with enterprise digital identity provider, Umazi. Aiming to set a new onboarding standard for due diligence processes in the SME market, the collaboration between these two influential digital leaders will uniquely facilitate a more streamlined and robust compliance landscape.

Regulated institutions such as banks, FSIs, and law firms must continuously scrutinise the identity and validity of SMEs to assess and classify risk. However, despite being time-sensitive, these processes are typically inefficient. This unique partnership eliminates the burden by combining Umazi’s open-source permissioned blockchain platform, with Artesian : DueDil’s Business Information Graph (B.I.G™) to surface unique insights for advanced validation and verification at scale.

Speaking about the partnership Justin Fitzpatrick, COO and Co-Founder at Artesian : DueDil, commented: “Businesses have suffered the consequences of onerous due diligence requirements and backwards processes for too long. Manual due diligence is not only expensive and time-consuming, but also leaves financial services providers open to unnecessary risk. By working in partnership with Umazi, our aim is to facilitate the cross-industry adoption of more streamlined and continuously updated due diligence. It’s a solution that is faster, cheaper and more robust for both businesses and financial services providers.”

Cindy van Niekerk, CEO of Umazi, added: “We are delighted to work with Artesian : DueDil, a partnership that we believe will act as a catalyst for change in the way financial institutions conduct their due diligence on corporate customers. Artesian : DueDil has a long-standing reputation for helping banks, insurers and FinTechs engage and onboard the right business customers. Umazi pioneering digital ledger technology adds to this, creating a re-usable identity that benefits businesses and financial institutions.”

 

Business Advice, Careers, L & D

Entrepreneur and BBC Apprentice offers useful careers advice ahead of 2020

Kayode Damali, the well-loved, cheeky BBC Apprentice from 2018 and cited among the Top 10 ‘Most Powerful Young Entrepreneurs in the World’ offers tips on changing your career – and how to stand out from the crowd as the ‘new year, new job’ motivation inspires many others to do the same.

I can now say I now know what works effectively to securing a dream job.

My own career journey spans from working at Charlton Athletic Football club in merchandising to featuring on the 2018 BBC Apprentice. Now I am a public speaker and an entrepreneur with a recently launched educational and professional podcast, The Right Route, in collaboration with national leading in training provider Qube Learning – and I hope I can help inspire other people to achieve their career goals.

After Christmas, many people feel a negative weight of returning to a monotonous cycle that leaves them feeling uninspired and lacking in enthusiasm in their workplace – and faking it can only last so long!   Here’s my tips for finding a new career in 2020:

Choose your path carefully

It’s important to remember that while changing careers can be exciting, a considered approach is key to choosing the right route.  Don’t accept a job because it’s looks like a glossy escape from the doom and gloom of your current situation, really think about whether you can see yourself working there in years to come. The grass is not always greener, and a hasty decision could mean you end up looking for another role soon after.

Before making contact, really read the company website, make sure you know what the business ethos is, what their company values are, who their clients are and ask yourself ‘would you be a good fit, would it suit you?’ Social media also means you can sneakily check out the people, their employers and make contact on LinkedIn.

CV top tips

  • Your CV is what will get you that interview. It’s the chance to showcase your experience, skillset and show a business how they can benefit from hiring you. Your summary paragraph is the opportunity to hook them in right off the bat, let them know what you have to offer, what it is that makes you stand out and remember, though predominantly work focused they will want to know about you and how you fill fit in.
  • Make it relevant. Employers needs will be different so ensuring your CV is topical to them will help encourage their interest in you. There is no point in sending one general email to all potential employers, this could get you are discounted very quickly before they even know what kind of professional you are. Personalisation and relevance are imperative, it shows you have done your research and taking the time to get to know them and their brand.
  • Don’t lie! Always be honest There is a high risk you will get found out and sometimes your time out of work is what makes you interesting. Were you travelling? maybe volunteering? You are who you are and that is what makes you a one-off.
  • Include personal information about you. What do you love? I don’t mean your pet or favourite food! Potential employers are always keen to hear about what you do outside of work – do you have a sports team you play for regularly, are you a champion of chess, where is your top travelling location and why, tell them something attention- grabbing.

Interview Tips – Prepare to Succeed

  • Being prepared will come off positively, knowing the job spec, the people interviewing you and having questions ready for them will show you have made the effort.
  • When discussing your work, have examples that you can talk them through as this is the chance to showcase your knowledge and experience.
  • Some interviewers like to throw a ‘weird’ question out there, for example ‘what would you do if you were trapped inside a giant’s pocket?’. They want to see how you react and are keen to know what your escape strategy would be.
  • Finally, whatever your experience, whether it be heavier on work experience, an Apprenticeship or Traineeship over academia such as college or university, remember both are valuable.

Be proud of who you are and what you have to offer, show courage and confidence in your abilities and this in turn will result in professional and personal success.

People don’t have to follow the ‘norm’ – however one of the biggest skills you can have is being able to communicate with people from all over the world.

The Right Route podcast series inspiring content will help those looking to take the right steps into the professional and learning side of life.

For more information and advice, visit our Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-right-route-your-options-your-choices-your-career/id1481185026?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/show/7IV70Oeeq9bv3Vk7ahh5kI