Tag Archives: Industry News

News

Get It Made offers manufacturing grant for innovative robotics startups

 

CNC machining specialist and manufacturing partner, Get It Made has announced a brand new initiative aimed at innovative startups in the robotics industry who could be eligible to receive a manufacturing grant of up to £2,500. 

Get It Made – which works alongside top UK universities, established household names and early stage startups – is developing a programme to enable new businesses to turn their ideas from design to reality. This will be done by working closely with the chosen business to advance their manufacturing capabilities, improve efficiency and foster a quality manufacturing partnership. 

“We are thrilled to be offering our support and manufacturing expertise to robotics startups. We will help identify, understand and remove barriers so their innovation can become a reality and get to market quicker. We have worked with a number of great names in the robotics industry and are excited to be able to offer a £2,500 grant to access manufacturing services and become the next pioneers in this unique industry,” says Luke Smoothy, Managing Director at Get It Made.

The grant is designed to enable cutting-edge research and development needed to support UK innovation and to underpin continued sustainable growth. Applicants for the Robotics grant will be judged on the impact to the startup, to the robotics industry, and how urgent the hardware is needed.

The manufacturing grant is available to startup businesses in the robotics space that has launched in the last three years and has fewer than 25 employees. University-based research projects are also eligible for the grant, and you will have direct access to Get It Made engineers who will help support your project from a Design for Manufacturing perspective.

Applications for the grants close at 12:00am GMT on 30 April 2021 and can be submitted through the website here: https://get-it-made.co.uk/grants/robotics/ 

Additional information can be found on the Get It Made website: https://get-it-made.co.uk/

Environment, News

Brand partnership with Trees For Cities to give back to the planet

Sustainable clothing brand Absolutely Bear has partnered with a charity that is working to make lives better by planting trees!

When you choose to wear sustainable clothing, you are not only opting for organic and sustainable fashion but also contributing to our investment in the planet. At Absolutely Bear we feel it’s not only our responsibility to have as low an impact as possible, but also to give back to the earth by cultivating change.

What is Trees for Cities?

Trees for Cities is the only UK based charity that is working to make lives better by planting trees. They plant trees in urban areas where the social and environmental benefits have the greatest impact, engage with the community, and centre the local people at the heart of every project. They have managed to plant over a million trees since they were founded in 1993. Climate change has had such a negative impact on our trees and the effects are already being felt: warmer, dryer summers and colder, wetter winters, and so Trees for Cities is working to build resilience against the threats facing our natural environment.

Their work includes:

Planting urban trees: Trees bring so many benefits to city life, including our health and wellbeing. Helping to encourage nature in our cities helps us feel less stressed and well-restored which is why the charity is dedicated to planting thousands of trees every year. Did you know that London’s trees remove 2.4 million tonnes of air pollution each year?

Educating the next generation: Trees for Cities aims to educate children about where their food comes from, which they have achieved by building edible playgrounds to help improve attitudes towards healthy eating and provide schools with fresh nutritious food. Their ‘Planting Healthy Air’ programme helps address the issue of London’s poor air quality and gives children an everyday connection with trees and woods.

Working Internationally: Trees For Cities send seeds and help grow trees all over the world that will flourish for generations, planting an impressive 7,800 trees in Africa last year alone. Working with community groups, they aim to provide long-term practical solutions and provide local people with the skills to create sustainable livelihoods.

Why Absolutely bear has decided to partner with them

Absolutely Bear are a brand committed to helping reconnect urbanites with nature and with trees being one of the core elements of nature, this partnership is a perfect fit. There are many incredible psychological benefits of being close to trees. They have a very important role in decreasing our stress and anxiety and in the city, they improve the appearance of built-up areas and add character to our landscapes.

At every stage of production, Absolutely Bear aims to be as eco-friendly as possible, from our ‘leave no trace’ packaging to our plastic-free swing-tags. We believe designing clothing based on sustainability is one important way we can reconnect every day with the natural world we love.

News, Tech

Accenture and ServiceNow Launch Dedicated Business Group to Help Organisations Transform Work

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) have formed a new business group to help private and public sector clients accelerate their digital transformation and better address today’s dynamic operational challenges. The Accenture ServiceNow Business Group represents a significant multi-million dollar investment from both companies over the next five years.

In the COVID-19 era, organisations are under more pressure than ever to innovate faster, reduce costs, enhance productivity, and meet their customers’ needs. The Accenture ServiceNow Business Group will help organisations rapidly evolve organisational processes and unlock the full value of technology investments by adopting digital workflows that deliver modern, personalised customer and employee experiences. This includes empowering employees and customers with self-service and remote work programs that offer increased flexibility, mobility, and choice. By establishing a more modern workplace with platform-driven, technology-enabled workflows, organisations are better positioned to balance business needs, satisfy customer demands, drive employee engagement, deliver productivity expectations, and realise workplace cost optimisation.

“By further strengthening our strategic alliance with ServiceNow, we will enable our clients to more quickly embrace change,” said Julie Sweet, chief executive officer, Accenture. “With a move to the cloud, they can reimagine their operations, reskill their employees, and become more sustainable. Working together with ServiceNow to automate complex processes and create better experiences across industries, we will help organisations deliver greater 360-degree value that benefits all — their customers, people, shareholders, partners, and communities.”

ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott said: “Leaders in every organisation know that their 20th century technologies are too slow, too siloed, too stuck in the status quo to meet the dynamic digital demands of employees and customers today. Speed, agility, and resilience are what’s needed now. Our ServiceNow and Accenture partnership brings together world-class teams, expertise, and our modern workflow platform to accelerate every organisation’s digital transformation. The Accenture ServiceNow Business Group will help every organisation become a 21st century digital business.”

The Accenture ServiceNow Business Group will deliver industry- and domain-specific solutions and services to customers. Together, Accenture and ServiceNow will initially help accelerate digital transformation programs for customers in telecommunications, financial services, government, manufacturing, healthcare, and life sciences. Workflow innovation will focus on employee engagement, customer service and operations, artificial intelligence for IT operations, and security and risk. Additional industry solutions will be developed in the future.

Supported by approximately 8,500 Accenture people skilled in ServiceNow, the new group brings together dedicated professionals from both organisations with expertise in transformational workflow and platform development, marketing, sales, and business development across numerous priority industries. The business group will develop advanced industry and domain-focused solutions designed to deliver tangible, positive outcomes for clients at scale.

For example, Boehringer Ingelheim, a leading, research-driven pharmaceutical company with more than 51,000 employees and an Accenture and ServiceNow customer, uses ServiceNow’s technology and Accenture services to create a seamless, consumer-grade experience for global employees and customers.

“Our work with Accenture and ServiceNow has strategically fueled our innovation power. By optimising our global employee experience, we’ve made our work processes across business functions faster and more efficient, ultimately driving better patient outcomes,” said Andreas Henrich, corporate vice president of IT Enterprise Data Services at Boehringer Ingelheim. “We’ve reduced complexity across our disparate bespoke systems and, in doing so, have transformed our business for growth.”

Accenture and ServiceNow also collaborate to serve government entities. Earlier this year, Accenture Federal Services (AFS) announced a $96 million task order to help the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) modernise its enterprise service management and IT capabilities, using ServiceNow to power the digital transformations end-to-end. Using the Now Platform, AFS will work with the VA to automate its manual workflows and introduce applied intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities, allowing the VA workforce to focus on more complex tasks that serve veterans.

“Today, Veterans Affairs is truly running IT like a business,” said Greg Rankin, Service Management Office Director, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Information & Technology. “We are utilising ServiceNow’s powerful discovery engine and Accenture’s expertise to create top-down business service maps that eliminate the guessing game as to which configuration items underpin which business service. With a mission as critical as providing service to veterans, it’s imperative that we have real-time visibility into the health, availability, and costs of the services we provide – we have that now.”

Accenture’s use of ServiceNow is a strategic enabler of customer-facing innovation at scale and, as a ServiceNow customer, the company uses ServiceNow workflows for employee engagement, invoice processing, asset management, artificial intelligence for IT operations, and its universal service desk. Accenture recently made the Now Mobile app available to its more than 500,000 people.

As a ServiceNow Global Elite Partner, Accenture is one of ServiceNow’s largest global go-to-market partners and winner of its Global Partner of the Year award in 2020. For more information on the Accenture ServiceNow Business Group, visit:
• https://www.accenture.com/us-en/services/alliances/servicenow?src=SOMS
• https://www.servicenow.com/partners/accenture.html

Environment News, News

Whitepaper finds manufacturing workers are still being exposed to dangerous levels of air pollutants in the workplace

A new whitepaper by Global Action Plan and Zehnder Clean Air Solutions finds the quality of the air in the manufacturing sector continues to be underplayed and not acted upon with workers in the UK still being exposed to unhealthy levels of airborne hazards and pollution. The whitepaper further presents a renewed case for tackling air pollution in industry workplaces with urgent actions for policy makers, regulators and manufacturers.

The whitepaper, titled “With Every Breath We Make: Ensuring Healthy Air for Manufacturing Workers”, identifies:

  • An estimated 440,000 workers with health conditions that are exacerbated by air pollution are still being exposed to unhealthy levels of airborne hazards and pollution in manufacturing workplaces.
  • The presence of airborne hazards causes production issues, product quality and that impacts profit margins.
  • Current regulation allows levels of airborne hazards and pollution that are dangerous to manufacturing workers’ health.
  • Regulation enforcement is not meeting the necessary standards.

Urgent action is required to protect workers who are unable to work remotely given increasing evidence shows that poor air quality worsens underlying health conditions that make a person more vulnerable to complications if they contract COVID-19 and workers in the manufacturing sector are at greater risk of being exposed to dust, toxic particles and pollution.

The most urgent action from the whitepaper, which is supported by the Trade Unions Clean Air Network (TUCAN) and the Hazards campaign, is to call on the government to update regulation to lower the acceptable limits for air pollutants in the industrial workplace, echoing the call from the Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM) and Trades Union Congress (TUC) that limits be changed to 1mg/m3 for respirable dust from the current 4mg/m3 COSHH trigger.

In addition to the government call, the whitepaper further advises that regulators review exposure limits of all air pollutants, beyond current regulation and in line with new research which finds that airborne hazards can cause health conditions including heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, cognitive function, and depression. This includes launching long-term research programmes which combine air quality monitoring in manufacturing sites with tracking of workforce health issues.

Manufacturers are also urged to review the business case for action on air pollution, with help from the authorities and adopt measures to eliminate airborne pollution.
For an exclusive overview of the whitepaper, regulators, manufacturers and professionals in the health & safety sector are invited to attend a free virtual seminar, “Every Breath We Make – Ensuring Healthy Air for Manufacturing”. On November 5th at 12pm, Global Action Plan and Zehnder Clean Air Solutions will present an exclusive overview of the whitepaper and provide further detail on the latest scientific evidence as well as what manufacturers can do to protect their workers and advocate for better practices in the sector. Additional guests include MP Geraint Davies, Chair of the All Parliamentary Group on Air Pollution (APPG) and Graham Petersen, Founder of Greener Jobs Alliance.

The full whitepaper, titled With Every Breath We Make: Ensuring Healthy Air for Manufacturing Workers, can be downloaded here: www.cleanairworkplaces.org

Chris Large, Co-CEO, Global Action Plan: “Manufacturers are increasingly paying attention to employee wellbeing, especially as workplaces look to become COVID-secure, but the quality of the air and the working environment continues to be underplayed as a foundation of good employee wellbeing. Regulators must enforce lower limits to protect the hidden heroes who have continued to work throughout the pandemic, especially given ongoing research increasingly links poor air quality to the worsening of COVID-19 symptoms. Current regulation continues to allow unacceptable levels of airborne hazards and pollution that are dangerous to manufacturing workers’ health.”

Ben Simons, Head of Clean Air West Europe, Zehnder Clean Air Solutions: “We’ve been working with our clients in the manufacturing sector for a decade now so we’ve come to understand the importance of Clean Air to their businesses. What this report highlights is both the serious health issues that need to be addressed to protect workers but also the opportunities that there are for businesses to take positive steps which in many cases will be more than paid back by increased efficiency.
Given the challenges posed for the sector in this moment, along with Global Action Plan we felt the urgency to share this with as wider audience as possible to give manufacturers the knowledge and guidance to help them understand the changes they can make now to put their business and people in a heathier, more sustainable position for the long term.

We also want to appeal to lawmakers to ensure that these long-term health effects are not ignored in the current health crisis and that we take the time now to set a course for UK manufacturing that supports its successes in the next decade and beyond.”

Hilda Palmer, Hazards Campaign and the Trade Unions Clean Air Network (TUCAN): “The full harm and inequalities to workers caused by toxic chemicals and dust in workplace air is not captured by official figures but is enormous, killing tens of thousands each year, making hundreds of thousands seriously ill. Trade union safety reps using their full legal rights to consultation, involvement in risk assessments and safe systems of work, have reduced workers exposure to many toxic substances, and made union organised workplaces far safer and healthier. We welcome this initiative to increase the rights of all workers to reduced exposure levels and increased enforcement of health and safety law, especially the control hierarchy of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health, COSHH, Regulations. Workers and trade unions are at the forefront of the fight to eliminate and substitute harmful substances first, use effective engineering controls, administrative controls next, and PPE only as a last resort.

Trade unions in TUCAN want to create cleaner jobs for all workers and citizens by removing unequal exposure to the toxic substances that kill and make them ill.”

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/

Industry News, Technology

Park Place Technologies awarded sole supplier status by the Scottish Government

Park Place Technologies, a leading global provider of data centre hardware maintenance, has been awarded status as the sole supplier on Scotland’s Server and Infrastructure Maintenance Framework.

The framework is administered by the Scottish Government and provides services to Scotland’s public sector. The deal is believed to be worth around £5m over a 2-year period with an option to extend for a further two years, and had 5 other companies alongside Park Place Technologies in the running.

The framework is live and will support local government, education, national government and other public bodies while offering core IT support and infrastructure services. These services to be procured on the framework can include but not limited to; server hardware maintenance, identification of hardware failure, warranty management, and the installation of replacement hardware and components.

Commenting on the news Chris Adams, CEO, Park Place Technologies, said;

“We are deeply honoured to be awarded sole supplier status. It’s a role we are looking forward to immensely as it will give us the opportunity to improve public sector experiences in the region and support some of the most nimble and forward-thinking organisations Scotland has to offer.”

By awarding the contract to Park Place Technologies, public sector organisations are likely to receive multiple benefits including 24/7 availability to a dedicated team of specialist technology experts. All services will be delivered from a local Scottish office, based in Glasgow, which will provide local knowledge and insight, as well as helping to reduce costs by having all the necessary expertise close by. Local support teams will also have access to Park Place Technologies multinational services too.

“The point of this framework is that Scottish public sector bodies no longer need to worry about procurement when it comes to server and IT maintenance. Park Place Technologies was appointed following a comprehensive tender exercise, under EU public procurement regulations, which means quality and consistency is assured – something businesses of any size should feel good about”, said Adams

More information on the Server Maintenance framework can be found on the Scottish Procurement’s website.

For further information on Park Place Technologies, please visit https://www.parkplacetechnologies.com/