Category Archives: Industry News

Industry News, News

Digital Water Will Increase Efficiency in the Water and Wastewater Industries

Digital water technologies will innovate and drive forward new solutions in the water and wastewater industries. The new IDTechEx report, “Digital Water Networks 2020-2030”, discusses the players, technologies, and market opportunities for this exciting new technology area.

A digital, or “smart”, water network is a water network which has additional capabilities, sensors, IoT devices, which allow the user to maintain and run a network more efficiently and effectively.

Such a water network enables water utilities to:
• Remotely monitor and identify problems, so that they can pre-emptively prioritize and identify maintenance issues. They can then remotely control all aspects of the water distribution network using data insights.
• The customer can be provided with information and tools so that they can make informed choices about their behaviour patterns.
• Transparently and confidentially comply with regulations and policies on water quality and conservation.

The image below shows the different aspects of the value chain which digital water can influence. Firstly, there is the utilities industry. In distribution, monitoring the network and distribution pipes can simplify the management of the system. For example, data provided by smart water meters can provide real-time consumption patterns. Furthermore, water demand response can be quicker and thus help with pressure regulation in the network. Poor water quality can have an impact on health. Sensors can measure a wide range of chemicals and pollution in real-time. This means water quality can be tracked throughout the whole water network. Finally, with the new data insights with smart networks, utilities can communicate with customers and engage with them in new ways.

Data insights also mean that consumers have more control over their water usage – with more detailed bills and up to date readings, they are able to contact the utilities company if they notice an increase in water, which could indicate a leak. This would identify leaks quicker for the utilities company.

In order to provide these services, water utilities companies need to ensure that they can still be flexible in their approaches to future water networks and sensors as insights from current usage and data become more widespread across the industry. Communications technology and data analytics are now at a point where the water industry’s needs can be met.

“Digital Water Networks 2020-2030” provides an insight into the variety of opportunities which sensors can provide management and maintenance data for providers. Most countries water networks are built of a variety of parts. There are the larger pipes which create the main network, and there are smaller distribution pipes, with larger pipes requiring different measurement mechanisms to smaller pipes. Different areas can have different pipe materials, and this can limit the techniques for measurement. Wastewater pipes typically are not always completely full and have solids which negate the use of mechanical mechanisms inside the pipe. Therefore, it is important to have a wide choice of sensors to market which can be used. Greater competition provides greater innovation and will help grow the digital water industry.

The IDTechEx report, “Digital Water Networks 2020-2030”, gives comprehensive information on various processes, sensors, in systems offered by the top players in the water and wastewater treatment markets. The holistic overview includes industry analysis, a detailed summary of how each of the sensor groups can impact specific aspects of both the water and wastewater industries, and where the opportunities and hype will take this exciting technology in the coming decade. For more information on the report, please visit www.IDTechEx.com/DigitalWater or for the full portfolio of sensors research available from IDTechEx please visit www.IDTechEx.com/research/Sensors.

Coronavirus, Industry News, Logistics, Retail

How the Delivery and E-Commerce Sectors are Responding to the Global Pandemic

Matthew Robertson, Co-CEO, NetDespatch, discusses the multiple challenges for e-commerce and logistics operators during the global Covid-19 pandemic

As COVID-19 grips the nation and indeed countries around the globe, there is a degree of trepidation in the air with most of us locked down in our homes remote-working, apart from the essential key workers.

This has meant that many stores around the country have been forced to close and have seen their spring sales completely disrupted.  However, where supermarkets and convenience stores are concerned, these have boomed, with Tesco reporting a 30% uplift in sales.  We’ve also seen some real innovation across the industry, for example Morrisons creating pop-ups in hospital car parks to serve our amazing NHS workers.

Similar to what is happening in supermarkets online retail sales have risen dramatically in March, with a 74% growth in average transaction volumes compared with the same period last year, according to data from ACI Worldwide. The analysis, of hundreds of millions of transactions from global online retailers, demonstrates the extent to which people’s shopping habits have changed as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

As you can imagine, this rise in eCommerce sales has been particularly profound in products related to staying indoors, such as home products and furnishings, DIY, electronics and garden essentials. Likewise, the food and beverage industry has seen a dramatic increase in online purchases.   I know from my own experience that trying to get a slot for an online delivery with any of the major supermarkets has proved somewhat difficult with slots all taken for the next few weeks.  Categories which witnessed a decline in transaction volume in this same period included ticketing by 60%, travel by 44%, and online dating by 8.9%.  I guess if you are self-isolating you can’t really meet up with anyone new and with travel severely restricted that market was always going to experience a decline.

Having reached the Easter holidays, this quarantine is set to continue for the foreseeable future which will be tough on the retail stores, who might not be able to quickly convert in-store sales to online.  Many have in fact closed their online operations as they simply don’t have the resources and manpower to run these from a logistics perspective.

To compound the above, any organisations that wish to take advantage of growing ecommerce opportunities also need to be mindful of the security landscape that this pandemic presents. In particular, the increase in online sales has led to an increase in fraud activity. According to Forter, the leader in ecommerce fraud prevention, fraudsters are exploiting confusion and uncertainty caused by government and corporate policies.  As people adjust to working from home, Forter sees a marked increase in social engineering fraud, associated with fake emails purporting to be from HR and corporate addresses. Here fraudsters invite people to click for more information, instead taking victims to malicious sites.

Likewise, with a shift to online shopping in apparel and accessories, Forter sees an increase in gift card purchases. While a higher number of legitimate buyers usually means that fraud rates drop, gift card fraud rates have not. Fraudsters have noticed an increased demand for the completely virtual merchandise that is easy to monetise.

The COVID-19 pandemic is also putting pressure on deliveries and local logistics.  I have heard some talk in the industry about the possibility of autonomous vehicles (AVs) helping to alleviate the strain on existing delivery services while reducing the risk of exposure for citizens.  However, there are significant regulatory hurdles to overcome before AVs can be deployed at scale.

The World Economic Forum recently published a report on “The Future of the Last-Mile Ecosystem,” where it anticipates that demand for e-commerce delivery will result in 36% more delivery vehicles in inner cities by 2030.  Again, COVID-19 has caused a huge increase in demand, as people around the world are self-isolating, quarantining or working from home for extended periods, suddenly increasing the need for food, groceries, household items and even medical supplies to be delivered to the homes of millions of people.  But using AVs for deliveries will require some work on the regulatory front.

Broadly speaking,  in order to trial an automated vehicle designed to operate without an occupant on the public roads, the AV developer must petition the regulator to make an exemption from the existing vehicle safety standards, which require human-operable controls and mirrors, for example.

Although it may be too late to ease the burden attributed to the current pandemic, I would urge regulators to consider the opportunities to streamline these processes for the future while upholding standards for safety and look at a new generation of agile regulation. This will enable trials of these technologies to help maintain the delivery ecosystem in future difficult times.

Out of adversity, comes innovation, and I’ve certainly seen plenty of that in the last few weeks.  Also, communities coming together and supporting each other as well as our NHS workers, who are doing a tremendous job.  Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone knows how long this pandemic will continue but I am sure we will come out of this stronger as a result.

To everyone reading this article – keep safe.

Business Research, Industry News

Business confidence rallies in Q4

Following a generally downward trend since April 2018, the Savanta Business Confidence Index rallied during Q4, with a significant rise to 48.

Larger businesses with annual sales above £1m continue to be the most confident group with a confidence index of 50, representing an increase in score of 1 point compared to Q3.

Change in confidence was greatest among smaller established businesses, who represent most enterprises by number, and whose confidence index rose by 4 points to finish Q4 at 48.

Although new start-ups remain the least confident segment at 44, this too represents an increase in confidence of 1 point on their Q3 score.

In terms of geographic location, confidence increased across all 6 regions. This was most notable in Scotland, the North & North-West which recorded a rise of 4 and 5 points respectively.

Despite this rise in confidence, Scotland remains the least confident region with an index of 42. The North/North-West now becomes the most optimistic region with an index of 52. London is the second most optimistic region with a score of 50 (and a rise in index of 3 from Q3 to Q4).

The index of less than 50 in other regions means more businesses are pessimistic rather than optimistic about the current state of the economy.

Of note, whilst 5 of the 6 regions enjoyed at least a 3-point rise in confidence score, the South East index only increased by 1 point at Q4.

Industry sector continues to be a stronger differentiator of sentiment than region, both in terms of the size of the quarterly shifts within a given sector and the degree of variation from one sector to another.

As Q4 confidence rose in 8 of the 9 sectors – confidence in the Wholesale market remained stable.

The biggest rises occurred in Education (up 12 points to 52), Production (up 9 to 50), Transport (up 6 to 48) and Accommodation (up 5 to 49). Confidence is highest in the Education (52), Construction (51) and Production (50) sectors.

In terms of age of business owners, the change noted at Q3 for the 65+ group to be the most confident continues.

Confidence amongst the youngest age group (unchanged at 34) has remained stable following the fall in confidence at Q3 whilst confidence has risen by 4 points amongst both those aged 35-64 (to 47) and those aged 65+ (to 52).

Mark Dennis, Director of Savanta, said:

“With the majority of our fieldwork conducted in the quarter before the 12th December general election, it is interesting to see confidence levels rise virtually across the board. We eagerly await the results from Q1 2020 to see if this trend continues now the election outcome is known.”

Q4 findings are from Savanta’s MarketVue Business Confidence programme, conducted among 3,081 British businesses from start-ups to companies with £1bn turnover, surveyed from 1st October to 18h December 2019. Indices are mean scores based on a scale of ‘extremely positive’ (100), ‘fairly positive’ (75), ‘neither positive nor negative’ (50), ‘fairly negative’ (25) and ‘extremely negative’ (0).

Industry News, News

International expansion for KAM Project Consultants as it announces German office

UK-based KAM Project Consultants has expanded into Europe with the opening of its first international office, KAM Project Consultants GmbH, in Germany.

Founded in 2013, the independent construction company of project managers and cost consultants has enjoyed year on year growth; with offices in Milton Keynes, Leicester and now Frankfurt.

KAM GmbH is located in the AGENDIS Business Center – just walking distance from Frankfurt Airport – providing convenient transport links to the rest of Germany and mainland Europe, which had a significant influence on the selection of the location.

Already working on a number of high-profile projects in Europe and with further developments in the pipeline, KAM has invested in a permanent presence in Frankfurt to better support its German and wider European client base.

Tobias Neumeier, director of project management and country lead for KAM business in Germany will be based at the Frankfurt office, focusing on leading and growing the KAM GmbH business in the country, supporting existing clients in mainland Europe and managing contracted consulting services.

With a Masters in Civil and Structural Engineering from the Technical University Munich (Dipl. Ing. Bauwesen) and as a member of the Association for Project Management (since 2015) and Bavarian Chamber of Civil Engineers (since 2000), Tobias has 24 years’ experience in the industry, working for the likes of AECOM, BMW, Rolls Royce and MINI.

Fully professional with English and German, he is ideally positioned to develop KAM GmbH and educate and guide clients in Germany – his bilingualism will help to mitigate any language barriers and misunderstandings in multi-national projects.

Tobias commented:

“I am very much looking forward to a new challenge working for an innovative business that explores new markets, utilising my industrial skill set and combining my UK and German construction knowledge to further establish KAM GmbH in Germany and mainland Europe as a prime project and cost management consultancy.

“Having worked for many international high-profile brands as a client and a consultant, my experience enables me to understand both sides of a project and manage these effectively. I wish to combine my UK and German market experience to create a successful base in mainland Europe, to open up new markets for KAM.

David French, director at KAM Project Consultants said:

“Germany is experiencing substantial growth in the logistics and distribution sector and with our expertise in this area, moving into Germany was a natural step for us. The formation of our German company gives us a permanent presence to better serve our international clients as well as further build our European portfolio.

“We specialise in working in the logistics and distribution industry and an office in Frankfurt opens up even more great opportunities in this sector for us. At our new office we will be bringing in dedicated commercial managers to support our project managers and contract administrators; further strengthening the services that we can offer.”

Mike Wilcock, director and founder of KAM Project Consultants said:

“We have enjoyed six years of growing the UK business, and have been continually successful in delivering logistics and distribution facilities for both developers and occupiers in the UK. Our expansion into mainland Europe is an exciting time for the business and we are looking forward to delivering projects in Germany and beyond.”

Industry News, Marketing, PR and SEO

UK and Australian DMAs agree new deal to bring UK’s world- leading learning solutions to APAC region

Today the UK Data & Marketing Association can announce that its Institute of Data & Marketing (IDM) has agreed a new partnership with the Association for Data-Driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA), based in Australia, to extend their world-leading learning solutions to the APAC region’s data and marketing community.

The UK DMA is recognised as a global leader in the data and marketing industry with pioneering, customer-focussed principles and learning platforms. As a proud member of The Global Alliance of Data-Driven Marketing Associations (GDMA) network, the UK DMA aims to help support marketing associations from around the globe that focus on data-driven marketing.

Andy Dorling, general manager, the IDM said:

“The IDM is a social enterprise dedicated to raising professional standards in marketing. Through this partnership, we are collaborating to ensure that data and marketing professionals around the world are able to deliver better services that improve the customer experience. Our industry never stands still, and so businesses and their marketers must be equipped with the latest skills and insights that reflect the evolving demands of the customer.”

ADMA, like the UK DMA, strive to equip all data and marketing professionals with the tools and capabilities they require to flourish in a global economy that is rapidly evolving.

Earlier this year, ADMA announced its commitment to harnessing more educational resources and this new partnership will help to expand their learning service offering.

“ADMA is committed to data-driven marketing that prioritises the needs of the customer. This new partnership will ensure we are not only able to offer internationally renowned services to our membership and community, but we are able to do so with enhanced content and an extensive service offering,” said Andrea Martens, CEO, ADMA.

“This means refreshing our curriculum, and improving our online and face-to-face training programmes, albeit refined with an Australian component.”

ADMA also aims to use the IDM’s services to help them engage with aspiring data and marketing professionals, and current professionals at various stages of their careers, with a major focus on entry-level training, and expansion of the intermediate elements of its curriculum.

Dorling summarised:

“We are in a fortunate position where we are able to assist the international data and marketing community, partnering with GDMA members to develop the very best customer-focussed learning content, created by industry professionals at the top of their game. We look forward to creating further opportunities for the IDM to offer our expertise to help advance the careers of future generations across the globe.”

Industry News, Technology

Do UK Tech Employers need a mental health check?

New research released ahead of World Mental Health Day this week reveals that tech employees are struggling at work.

The Harvey Nash Tech Survey spoke to 2000 of the UK’s tech professionals – and heard that more than half of them have had mental health concerns largely due to work, whether in the past or at the present time.  With 1.3 million tech workers in the UK (ONS), if this pattern is followed across the industry, we could have over 600,000 UK tech professionals having experienced mental health concerns as a result of their work.

While the survey found that companies are relatively supportive when it comes to mental health issues, with three-quarters (77%) having at least some kind of support in place, it also found that those companies who are ‘unsupportive’ have almost three times as many workers concerned about their mental health right now as ‘very supportive’ ones.

A similar trend emerged regarding how flexible an employer is on working arrangements: very inflexible businesses are three times more likely than highly flexible ones to have workers with mental health issues (31% versus 9%).

The causes of stress?

The single highest cause of stress is being short of staff. This has become a major issue as recently revealed by the Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey which found that the UK’s tech industry is experiencing the highest skills shortage for more than a decade, with almost two thirds of CIOs (64%) reporting a shortfall of talent. It seems that the existing tech team are the ones being stretched to breaking point to make up for this.

Hours worked has a direct impact on stress levels, with the tipping point at over 50 hours a week. Tech professionals working these hours are twice as likely to be affected by stress to a great extent – and see their work suffer as a result – than those that work under 50 hours a week.

Tech professionals are most likely to be currently affected by mental health concerns if they:

  • Work 60+ hours per week – 21%
  • Work in IT operations– 20%
  • Work for a very small company (revenue <$1m) – 17%
  • Work in retail or leisure – 22%

Albert Ellis, CEO of Harvey Nash, said:

“No one would pretend that working in the tech sector is a walk in the park, but for it to be pushing over half its workers into a state of mental health concern is a real issue for the sector, and in particular, for those very small companies where a greater proportion of workers report that they are currently affected by stress.

 Albert Ellis continued:

“While it’s understandable that tech leaders are focused on tackling the combined pressures of widespread skills shortages, Brexit planning, and the impact of automation on their business, they still need to look very closely at how they provide support to those members of the tech team that feel overwhelmed by their mounting work load and associated pressures. This is particularly relevant as our research clearly found that there is a strong connection between mental wellbeing and how supportive a company is.”

Michael Grant, President of BCS – The Chartered Institute for IT, said:

“These findings clearly underline that, as a sector, tech needs to do more about mental wellbeing. While tech firms continue to be a hotbed of creativity and dynamism, driving innovation and growth in the economy, there is also a flipside that the pace and pressure can take its toll on individuals sometimes. Whether a large corporate or a small start-up, the right support needs to be there. This is an area that BCS is already actively discussing and researching within the IT community, and we look forward to progressing thinking and best practice on this hugely important issue in the coming months.”

Of course, there are other issues which concern the tech community, including:

  • Impact of automation on jobs – Over one-third (34%) of tech professionals believe their job will be affected significantly by automation in the next decade, of whom 7% believe it is happening right now – especially in testing, infrastructure and operations.
  • Skills won’t last forever – Keeping up with new tech is a tough game and, as technology evolves, so do the skills required to be successful. In fact, three in ten tech professionals expect their current skills to be out of date within three years, rising to over six in ten in six years. Testers and Operations feel the most pressure to keep their skills up to date.
  • Work/life balance – A quarter of respondents left their last job because it didn’t provide them with an acceptable work/life balance, with finding the right work/life balance being the second most important factor when looking for a new job.
  • Where are the women – While organisations have implemented diversity and inclusion programmes, they seem to be making little difference to the gender balance, with women making up just 16% of tech teams in the UK.

With so many concerns and a severe shortage of talent, the industry as a whole is not serving it’s workforce and more needs to be done.

Albert Ellis, concluded:

“Good work/life balance is key to retaining and attracting tech talent and keeping them well and happy. But our survey shows that the tech sector has further to go – and more still needs to be done to attract a wider range of people into the industry. Part of this is about showing the individual how a job will work with their own personal life, not just highlighting how amazing the job will be.

 “With so much set to change so quickly in the coming years, it’s vital that the tech sector makes itself resilient by looking after its people and giving them the support and flexible tools they need.”

Industry News, Technology

Scale Computing Honoured as Winner of Three Industry-Ranking XCellence Awards at the 2019 Midsize Enterprise Summit: Fall Conference

Scale Computing, a market leader in edge computing, virtualisation and hyperconverged solutions, today announced that it has been honoured with three XCellence Awards in the “Best Midmarket Solution: Hardware,” “Best Boardroom: Premier” and “Best in Show: Premier” categories at The Channel Company’s 2019 Midsize Enterprise Summit®: Fall Conference. This is the second time this year that Scale Computing has received awards in these three categories.

The XCellence Awards winners are determined by the midmarket CIOs and senior IT executives who attend the annual event. Voting is held to determine the most distinguished midmarket products, services, programs and presentations. Having won this award twice in one year, Scale Computing continues to demonstrate its commitment to understanding the unique IT technology and business needs of the midmarket.

Scale Computing has a history of being recognised at MES conferences and has received the following XCellence Awards at previous MES conferences:

  • At the MES Spring 2019 conference, Scale Computing was named “Best Midmarket Solution: Hardware,” “Best Boardroom: Premier Sponsor,” and “Best of Show: Premier Sponsor”.
  • At the MES Spring 2018 conference, Scale Computing was named “Best Midmarket Solution: Hardware” and “Best of Show: Premier Sponsor.”
  • At the MES Fall 2017 conference, Scale Computing was named “Best Midmarket Solution: Hardware,” “Best Boardroom” and “Best of Show.”

This is another honour for Scale Computing this year, as the company was also recognised as a winner in the Converged/Hyperconverged Infrastructure and Desktop/Server Virtualisation categories of the CRN® 2019 Annual Report Card (ARC) awards program, as well as winning all subcategories for both categories including: Product Innovation, Support, Partnership, and Managed/Cloud Services.

At MES, Scale Computing demonstrated HE500 series, which have been designed to replace traditional complex and expensive on-premises infrastructure with a modern solution optimised for environments where application uptime is critical, yet on-premises IT resources are highly limited. Scale Computing’s HE500 series delivers reliable, easy to deploy, and affordable infrastructure at the edge of the network in a highly available, self-healing and simple to operate solution. The solution is highly suited for remote multi-site deployments across industries, including healthcare, retail and manufacturing.

“We are extremely honoured to have won these three awards for a second time this year. It is amazing to have the attendees vote for Scale Computing and displays the continued confidence the industry has in us. Knowing that CIOs and IT executives attend MES to spend time with all of the participating vendors, and then vote on who they consider are the best companies per category, we are thrilled to have won three awards this year,” said Jeff Ready, CEO and co-founder of Scale Computing.

“With Scale Computing HC3, we are dedicated to continuing to enable businesses of all sizes to succeed with an easy to use, highly available, cost-effective solution for IT professionals, that grows and expands as their organisation does.”

Industry News, Technology

AI Specialists Aim To Transform Public Sector Market

A new Seedrs campaign  has been launched by AI specialists, We Build Bots, as the company sets its sights on the public sector market.

The company specialises in developing AI platforms that leverage chatbots, voice, data analytics, machine learning and API’s to help companies and organisations automate crucial areas of their operations.

Through its IntelAgent platform, the company is using AI to help companies and organisations automate important aspects of their customer engagement processes, to free up human resources, improve customer service, and lower costs.

Seeking £350k before closing its Seedrs bridge round, the company will use the funds to expand its development team and infrastructure, to support its expansion strategy and to secure new public sector clients.

With excitement building for the IntelAgent platform, We Build Bots has already secured £130k (37 per cent) of its target through private investment.

Since launching in 2016, the company has worked with some of the UK’s most recognised brands – including The Telegraph, AA, Bacardi and Amnesty International.

With a strong portfolio of private sector clients, We Build Bots has now seen a new opportunity to revolutionise the way every UK resident interacts with their local authority.

The IntelAgent platform can help automate millions of low value, repetitive calls and emails that public sector organisations across the UK spend huge amounts of resources to deal with each year.

With £4.7bn spent with SME’s on public sector technology since 2012 and an open commitment from the UK Government to spend £1.33 in every £3 with SME’s on cloud and software services via the G-Cloud framework, there is a growing opportunity for We Build Bots to become a key service provider.

Discussing the upcoming Seedrs campaign, Paul Shepherd, CEO of We Build Bots, said:

“The use of AI within the public sector is a largely untapped market and there’s a real opportunity to position ourselves as the go-to AI platform provider. Now more than ever, public sector organisations are open to using technology to benefit those they service and better allocate their resources. Through using our IntelAgent platform, humans can do what they do best, which is solve complex problems, while robots can take care of the rest.

“We have two tried, tested and monetised AI products already launched within the public sector and through our new Seedrs campaign we can open new doors to work with more organisations.”

We Build Bots first partnered with Monmouthshire County Council to deploy IntelAgent at the start of 2019, using its bilingual chatbot ‘Monty’. Commenting on the success of that project, Matthew Gatehouse, head of policy and governance at Monmouthshire Country County Council, said:

“It’s been really enjoyable working with the We Build Bots team over the last eighteen months and we’ve seen some very pleasing results, both in terms of feedback from our citizens and the efficiencies we’re seeing across the Council.

“In Monmouthshire, we take around 50,000 phone calls a year and the chatbot is able to deal with the lower level queries to free up our staff to handle more complex problems.”

In the first six months, Monty handled more than 36,000 users and processed over 230,000 customer messages. As ‘Monty’ continued to learn from his exchanges, he was able to handle more queries automatically, and as a result only 6 per cent of users are now being handled by an agent.

To invest in the We Build Bots, visit https://www.seedrs.com/webuildbots1.

Industry News, Technology

Vuealta expands senior leadership team with two new key hires

Connected planning specialist, Vuealta, has today announced that Nick Nesbitt has joined the team as Managing Director, UK & Ireland, responsible for continuing to increase revenue for applications built on the Anaplan platform and related services.

Mark Laughton also joins as Group Chief Financial Officer, overseeing Vuealta’s finance, operations, legal and HR activities on a global basis.

As the new Managing Director of UK & Ireland, Nick Nesbitt brings more than 19 years’ experience in corporate management performance (CPM) to Vuealta. Nick’s career so far has seen him managing large CPM technology practices in independent software organisations, with a particular specialism in Cognos, Hyperion and Tagetik. His work has involved selling and delivering solutions across a wide range of industry sectors – a skill which will complement the delivery of Vuealta and Anaplan products.

Mark Laughton is joining the Vuealta global team with more than 15 years’ experience in senior finance leadership roles in the UK and internationally, having previously worked at GE, Lloyds Bank, Visa, RSA Insurance and NewDay Cards.

Ian Stone, CEO of Vuealta comments:

“We are delighted to welcome Nick and Mark to our fast-growing team. We have an enormous opportunity to expand our customer footprint through the provision of Anaplan powered applications for business modelling and planning and related global support for Anaplan customers across the world. We are also proud to be a Premier Sponsor of Anaplan’s CPX event in London today, offering our customers a fantastic opportunity to meet the newest members of our team.”

Industry News, Technology

Influencer Marketing Platform CreatorIQ Appoints EMEA Managing Director to Spearhead Growth

CreatorIQ, the leading influencer marketing platform for global brands and agencies including Disney, Airbnb, and Ralph Lauren, has announced the appointment of Kam Zulawski as its new Managing Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

At CreatorIQ, Zulawski will be responsible for EMEA growth and go-to-market efforts, including building on the recent $12 million investment from TVC Capital and Unilever Ventures in the company’s Enterprise Creator Cloud.

Zulawski joins the company with over 13 years’ global experience across the consulting, influencer marketing, social media, and PR space where he focused on building and scaling teams whilst supporting large enterprises and agencies in digital transformation. Prior to joining CreatorIQ, Zulawski worked for Onalytica, Hootsuite, Cision, and Gartner in executive managerial and business development roles across North America and EMEA.

Dan Murray, President, CreatorIQ, said:

“Kam is a proven performer and his record speaks for itself, making him the ideal candidate to lead our growth strategy in EMEA. Having worked extensively on SaaS business models, and with leading influencer marketing platforms, Kam’s wealth of knowledge and experience will be instrumental in accelerating CreatorIQ’s expansion across the region.”

Kam Zulawski, Managing Director EMEA, CreatorIQ, said:

“Influencer Marketing is emerging as one of the most exciting and disruptive marketing channels for companies to take advantage of. CreatorIQ has the perfect combination of cutting-edge technology and a forward-thinking team, all of which play an important part in our mission to become the global leader in this field. I’m thrilled to be joining the leadership team to help CreatorIQ in its next phase of growth.”

CreatorIQ is the leading cloud solution for global enterprises to manage and optimize influencer campaigns at scale. With a technology-first focus, the company is developing AI-backed solutions for influencer marketing workflow, measurement insights, fraud detection, and industry benchmarking to meet the needs of Fortune 500 brands and their agencies.

For more information, visit https://creatoriq.com/