Easy to use, manage and deploy, RingCX combines omnichannel contact center with Conversation Intelligence capabilities

Integrates with RingCentral MVP for a complete employee and customer experience

RingCentral, Inc. (NYSE: RNG), a leading provider of AI-powered global enterprise cloud communications, video meetings, collaboration, and contact center solutions, today announced the launch of RingCX^™, a native, intelligent contact center. RingCX is an easy to deploy and use solution that combines RingCentral’s flagship unified communications (including message, video, phone, SMS, and fax) with contact center, plus generative AI capabilities. The result is a next generation, AI-first solution that delivers a complete native omnichannel experience and transforms customer journeys across various touchpoints.

“We have seen great success selling RingCentral MVP^® with RingCentral Contact Center^™ powered by NICE. Our joint solution is well-differentiated as it integrates our respective Gartner Magic Quadrant leading products into a unified offering from a single provider,” said Vlad Shmunis, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of RingCentral. “We continue to invest in the NICE partnership and see significant continued potential. However, in listening to our customers, we’ve recognized an additional need for a native intelligent contact center solution that would be better suited towards addressing simpler use cases. Importantly, in conjunction with MVP, it will allow contact center agents and employees beyond the contact center to act as one unified organization focused on addressing customer needs, leading to improved customer satisfaction and greater efficiency in handling calls.”

RingCX will have more than 1,000 features at launch and streamlines everything into one intelligent communications hub. Key RingCX features include:

• Native omnichannel:
  • Delivers seamless customer experiences across inbound and outbound voice, 20+ digital channels, including email, SMS, live chat, and messaging applications, and seamlessly transitions to video for high touch customer service scenarios.
  • Interactions are distributed via intelligent skills-based routing. RingCX also supports predictive, progressive, and preview modes for outbound calling.
  • Enables administrators and supervisors with unified business intelligence analytics and real-time dashboards and historical reports, including 200+ pre-built reports.
  • RingCX currently provides integrations with Salesforce and Zendesk, with additional integrations, including Hubspot, Microsoft Dynamics, and ServiceNow, coming soon. Built on RingCentral’s open platform with a rich set of APIs, these integrations facilitate workflows between business systems and eliminate data silos, thus driving better business outcomes.

• AI-powered transcripts, summaries, and conversational insights:
  • Includes Intelligent Virtual Agents powered by Google Dialogflow for voice and digital channels, enabling more cost efficiency, while giving end-users the ability to have their questions answered quickly and accurately.
  • Provides native real-time AI-generated transcription and post-call summaries freeing agents from having to take notes or capture action items so they can focus more on customer conversations. Transcripts and action items can be seamlessly stored in CRM systems, facilitating post-call customer management, documentation, compliance, and analysis.

• AI-first workforce engagement management:
  • Real-time, AI-driven agent assistance via partner integration helps agents navigate customer interactions. Guides agents on what to say to improve customer support experiences and reduces agent training and attrition.
  • Native Generative AI-based Automated Quality Management and Conversation Analytics via RingSense™ AI, coming later this year, will provide automated interaction scoring, coaching and guidance for agents with the ability for supervisors to customize agent evaluation criteria.

RingCX is a modern cloud native solution leveraging state of the art architecture. It follows the same design principles that made RingCentral MVP into an industry-leading solution used by millions of users, and is known for its reliability, scalability, and adaptability.

“RingCentral recognizes the need to dramatically simplify contact center management and operation by striving to merge unified communications, contact center, digital channels, and AI," said Jim Lundy, CEO, Aragon Research. "We're at the beginning of this evolution, and it's great to see RingCentral recognizing this need. Their RingCX solution is a bold step forward in empowering employees across the organization while removing the complexities of delivering great customer service experiences."

Data Literacy in Practice sets learners on an analytics career journey

The explosion of generative AI has accelerated the need for data literacy in what was already a fast-paced, data-driven world. Data literacy is no longer a nice-to-have skill but a must-have in any field. To help more people develop these critical skills, SAS has launched its second, free Data Literacy e-learning course, Data Literacy in Practice, that empowers individuals and professionals to explore and visualize data with confidence.

"In a world overflowing with data, unlocking its power sets you apart. Data literacy is more relevant than ever for young learners and professionals wishing to upskill and reskill," said Dr. Emily Pressman, who developed the SAS Data Literacy series. "Our courses are designed to be easily consumed by learners and integrated into instruction and professional development offerings."

Whether a student, educator or professional, everyone can benefit from better data literacy. Educators can better prepare students for careers, while employers can improve the data literacy of their workforces. Business professionals can enhance their decision making through data analysis, and individuals can explore the power of data for personal and professional enrichment. 

Key features make building relevant data literacy easy

Data Literacy in Practice makes learning about data fun, easy and practical. Key features include:

• User-friendly design – The course is for everyone, no matter where they are on their data literacy journey. By focusing on conceptual and practical understanding rather than distracting mathematical jargon, learners feel supported and encouraged throughout the process.
• Real-world examples – Data Literacy in Practice incorporates real-world examples, putting course takers in the shoes of a small business owner who utilizes data to drive informed decision making. By working through practical scenarios, learners develop the skills to apply data literacy knowledge in real-life situations.
• Convenient and self-paced – SAS Data Literacy e-learning courses offer the flexibility to learn at any pace, anytime and anywhere. With modularized content accessible on any device, users can easily fit learning into their schedules. The self-paced course can be completed in under three hours.

Part of a powerful data literacy duo

While Data Literacy in Practice can stand alone, it is even more powerful when combined with the free SAS Data Literacy Essentials course. Starting from the basics, Data Literacy Essentials introduces learners to fundamental data literacy concepts, such as what data is and why data literacy matters.

Data Literacy Essentials has been activated about 20,000 times in nearly 80 countries by more than 600 colleges and universities and 3,500 nonacademic organizations, including small businesses, large companies, government agencies and others. Users include hundreds of higher education faculty, including Paul Hansford, Associate Professor in the Business and Public Services Division at Sinclair Community College.

"Using short, impactful, high-quality videos, the course does an excellent job of introducing ways data is used in our professional and everyday lives, providing students with an entry-level, but solid foundation of data literacy concepts," said Hansford. "Importantly, the course also addresses ethical considerations of data analysis. I highly recommend that everyone include this great intro to data literacy in their repertoire of tools for a competitive advantage in the workforce."

By combining the knowledge gained from Data Literacy Essentials with the practical data visualization and exploration skills acquired in Data Literacy in Practice, learners will be fully equipped to embark on the next step toward data literacy: SAS^® Visual Analytics 1. This three-course learning pathway of Data Literacy Essentials, Data Literacy in Practice and SAS Visual Analytics 1 sets learners on their analytics career journey.   

Data literacy is a key to business resilience

In a time of global disruptions, resiliency determines which organizations struggle and which survive and thrive. In March, SAS released a global business survey report, Resiliency Rules, which explores the current state of business resiliency and what steps organizations are taking to navigate change and seize opportunity.

The survey of more than 2,400 business executives revealed a trend that high-resiliency organizations have a strong focus on data culture and literacy. More than having a tool for data management, resilient organizations create a culture of looking to data to help solve problems, answer questions and make decisions.

The SEO leader’s new proprietary metric accurately measures online brand strength and supercharges competitive analysis to spot threats, opportunities, and areas of improvement.

The leading SEO and marketing solutions company, Moz, has launched a first-to-market metric called Brand Authority^TM, allowing business leaders and marketers to measure online brand strength on a scale of one to 100 and easily analyze the competitive landscape with an all new brand comparison visualization. Understanding that the industry is shifting and that there is a clear need for a way to measure brand salience, Moz’s search scientists and product team came together to develop this new metric. By leveraging Moz's industry leading search data and a new proprietary algorithm, Brand Authority provides marketers with critical insight into the performance of their brand and potential opportunities for growth.

Brand Authority — now available in Moz Pro and via the Moz API — makes the power of brand measurable for marketers and public relations professionals. With Brand Authority, users can assess their marketing gaps to maximize their return on investment (ROI), see the true value of sales prospects and potential acquisition targets, and assess the real influence of the media brands that pick up their stories. Brand Authority can help these leaders understand the full picture, leading to more impactful strategies and better outcomes.

“We know brands matter in the world and on search engines like Google. With Brand Authority, we can finally understand how much they matter and put that power to work. Brand Authority takes away the hand-waving and makes the concept of brands concrete so businesses can see the big picture of their sites, their prospects, and their marketing and PR efforts,” said Dr. Peter J. Meyers, Marketing Scientist at Moz. “By measuring the full power of any brand, including offline influences previously out of reach, users can make more informed decisions and drive better results and higher ROI."

Along with the release of this new metric, Moz has published a list of the top 500 US brands based on Brand Authority. Marketers, SEOs and PR professionals can use this list, along with the new Brand Authorithttps://moz.com/top-brandsy comparison visualization in Moz Pro to bolster their competitive analysis. These new features provide a tangible way for users to benchmark their brand strength against the competitors.

In the current data-driven world, businesses that can adapt to customer needs and preferences are more likely to stand out from the competition. With this in mind, Moz developed Brand Authority to continue to provide industry-leading SEO tools to help business leaders make informed decisions about their marketing strategies. Since 2004, Moz — known for their Domain Authority^TM metric, best in class link index and search volume data — has been at the forefront of the industry, consistently offering innovative solutions that help businesses thrive in the digital era. With a deep understanding of market dynamics and customer needs, the company has built a reputation for delivering results-driven products and services.

“The new Brand Authority metric has the ability to fundamentally change the way marketers measure the success of their efforts. Quantifying a brand has always been a challenge for organizations but this metric can accurately determine how successful they’ve been at establishing brand excellence,” said Ross Simmonds, Founder & CEO of content marketing agency, Foundation. “Whether you’re a marketer planning billboards or overseeing SEO the metric will support your business planning and ability to measure impact. The most interesting part of the metric – beyond marketing and SEO – is that it can be used to determine which organizations actually have a brand moat and which brands have work to do.”

The Brand Authority metric will officially launch at MozCon on August 7, 2023. This metric is currently based on US data. Moz is planning to include data from additional regions by 2024. MozCon is an annual conference hosted by Moz where digital marketers and industry experts come together to explore the future of search, gain insights from each other, and connect with fellow professionals. MozCon 2023 speakers include Jackie Chu (Uber), Daniel Walsberg (Google), Dr. Pete Meyers (Moz), and more.

Michelson to Guide Sisense’s Overarching Product Strategy with Emphasis on Product-Led Growth and a Robust Product Roadmap

Sisense, a platform that provides thousands of companies with the ability to build and embed analytics into customer-facing data products, today announces the appointment of Ayala Michelson as Chief Products and Technology Officer, as well as General Manager of its Israeli operation. Michelson will oversee product engineering, product management and product marketing. Emphasis will be placed on product-led growth and providing developers with the tools they need to flexibly and efficiently embed analytics into their products and platforms. Today’s announcement comes on the heels of Sisense naming Ariel Katz CEO and Kristina Agassi, COO and signifies an expansion of the company’s executive team.

Michelson brings to Sisense over 20 years experience in developing and delivering innovative products, having most recently served Executive Vice President of Product and Analytics at Gloat, an agile workforce operating system. At Gloat, Michelson spearheaded the launch of Gloat Talent Marketplace, a new product category as well as helped the company introduce new Data and Analytics product lines. With a strong background in SaaS platforms and data analytics, Michelson has also held leadership roles at SimilarWeb and Perion and has a MBA in Finance and Marketing from Tel Aviv University and a B.S.C in Computer Science and Math from Bar-Ilan University.

“I have a passion for building and scaling complex products from inception to impact and I am excited to bring that passion and expertise to Sisense, a company that has shown great leadership and traction in the embedded analytics market,” said Ayala Michelson, Chief Product Officer, Sisense. “In the coming months, you will see several new offerings from Sisense, targeted at helping engineering teams more efficiently and strategically embed data analytics into their products. I am delighted to be joining the Sisense team at such an exciting time.”

In the past year, Sisense has hit multiple financial milestones including profitability and double-digit product growth. Additionally, in June 2023, Sisense secured a term loan facility of $60 million with Hercules Capital, Inc., the leading and largest specialty finance company providing senior secured venture growth loans to high-growth, innovative venture capital-backed companies. This, combined with recent awards, such as being named a Visionary by Gartner for the 6th time, and a Leader in G2's report for Embedded BI, position the company as the de facto leader in the embedded analytics space.

“There are few roles as important as Chief Product Officer in any company and I am confident Ayala will provide immense value to Sisense, helping us to deliver the forward-looking, technologically advanced analytics products our customers have come to expect at a cadence that keeps pace with our ever-evolving industry,” said Ariel Katz, CEO, Sisense.

Cybersecurity experts operationalize third- and fourth-party cyber risk management, drive action with security ratings, and mitigate global supply chain risk

SecurityScorecard today announced new partner-focused Managed Cyber Risk Services designed to help customers of all types and sizes operationalize third-party cyber risk management. With 98% of organizations having a relationship with at least one-third party that experienced a breach, SecurityScorecard combines its industry-leading platform and experts to solve the third-party cyber risk puzzle.

“Many CISOs are challenged with manual third-party risk approaches that are inconsistent and focused on checkbox compliance. Customers consistently shared that they need a way to operationalize third- and fourth-party cyber risk management,” said Aleksandr Yampolskiy, CEO and Co-Founder, SecurityScorecard. “Today, SecurityScorecard is meeting that customer need. The next evolution of security ratings will focus on operationalizing cyber risk management and threat intelligence to directly impact our customers’ ability to deliver on their mission.”

Industry-first integrated security ratings platform + third-party managed cyber risk services approach

SecurityScorecard’s offering is unique in the market as the only solution of its kind to combine Managed Cyber Risk Services with a complete, battle-tested product suite of solutions.

With over 3,000 customers across the globe, SecurityScorecard Managed Cyber Risk Services was developed with customers and will be delivered by partners to achieve strategic business and security outcomes, including:

• Identifies and mitigates third-party cyber risk: Dynamically discovers risk across a customer’s attack surface, including their third- and fourth-party ecosystem, to dramatically reduce the risk of a compromise. Verifies that vendors’ vulnerabilities or other security issues are remediated.
• Addresses cybersecurity skills gap: Improves the capacity of customers’ security teams. SecurityScorecard works hand-in-hand with customers or through partners to deliver the strategic and tactical capabilities needed to maximize the value of the SecurityScorecard platform.
• Manages third- and fourth-party risk portfolio: Continuous monitoring, investigation, and analysis of risk indicators with centralized threat intelligence. Proactively identifies cyber threats across a customer’s unique attack surface. Manages alerts for customers.
• Makes security ratings more actionable: Incorporates business context to drive decisions. Deploys best practices to improve security posture. Proven playbooks proactively protect customers and support incident response if an incident occurs.
• Verifies contract compliance: Streamlines contract security compliance through a defensible, traceable process. Proactively manages vendor communication, questionnaires, and escalation management.
• Tracks issues resolved: Measures results based on trusted analysis, timely delivery, and empowering guidance. Estimates time saved to demonstrate return on investment.
• Enhances board reporting: Effectively communicates third-party cyber risk and benchmarks against peers. Customers also have the flexibility to run their own research, reports, and investigations.
• Delivers peace of mind: Ensures customers’ third-party risk management program is handled by the best and brightest minds in the industry. SecurityScorecard solves complex customers’ challenges by evaluating, improving, and implementing their third-party cyber risk programs.

SecurityScorecard Managed Cyber Risk Services are directly connected to the SecurityScorecard Platform, allowing drill down into specific portfolios, companies, findings, and issues. Built on an API-first architecture, data can be directly ingested into their own security stack and reporting tools or integrate into their preferred MSSP or services provider to achieve improved security and business outcomes.

SecurityScorecard adds former Mandiant leader to the executive team

With the acquisition of LIFARS in 2022, SecurityScorecard gained a team of elite cybersecurity risk experts. Then in July 2023, the company appointed cybersecurity veteran and former Mandiant leader Jeff Laskowski as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Professional Services.

“Over the past year, SecurityScorecard has delivered several innovative solutions to the market: The world’s first third-party focused attack surface management solution. Automatic vendor detection to identify unknown third- and fourth parties connected to their business. Risk quantification technology that helps risk management teams understand their financial exposure,” said Jeff Laskowski, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Professional Services, SecurityScorecard. “As we consolidate adjacent solutions into our platform, combined with expert services, we not only help our customers build economic efficiencies but also effectively mitigate third-party risk.”

Partner-focused approach closes third-party cyber risk gaps for customers

SecurityScorecard’s partner-focused managed services approach enables customers to leverage SecurityScorecard experts and a broad ecosystem of service delivery partners. This approach amplifies the benefits of the SecurityScorecard platform, gaining the economic benefits of scale and further enhancing customer relationships with service providers.

In addition, partners that leverage the “Powered by SecurityScorecard” brand will deliver the fastest time to value to their customers and ensure they are providing the gold standard of service based on SecurityScorecard’s decade of experience in third-party cyber risk management.

“Operationalizing third-party cyber risk management requires a specialized and skilled workforce. Many organizations struggle with lack of visibility into their vendor landscape, questionnaires, threats, and financial impact of risks,” said Larry Slusser, Vice President, Global Head of Professional Services Delivery, SecurityScorecard. “By applying the principles of incident response to vendor risk management, customers can take charge with a turn-key, proactive, and comprehensive program designed to eliminate business disruption and drive cyber resilience.”

Wong joins Yext from digital software provider Optimizely with more than 20 years leading product management

Yext, Inc, a leading digital experience platform, announced the appointment of Tzi-Kei Wong as chief product officer. Wong will report directly to President and Chief Operating Officer Marc Ferrentino and will serve on Yext's leadership team.

As CPO, Wong will lead Yext’s innovation and digital experience platform strategy to deliver exceptional value to customers. With more than 20 years of expertise in product management and design for digital marketing software, she brings a wealth of knowledge to Yext.

Wong joins Yext from Optimizely where she served as vice president of product. During her tenure, she led the product and design team responsible for market-advancing products in the areas of content management, content marketing, and digital asset management systems. Wong joined the company through its acquisition of Welcome where she served on the executive team and led product strategy, product management, and design. Prior to Welcome, Wong served in product and marketing leadership roles at several SaaS and enterprise software companies, including Percolate, BrightEdge, Responsys, Oracle, and SAP.

Wong holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering & Operations Research from University at California, Berkeley.

“We have a new vision for the industry and the opportunity to help companies deliver customer experiences that were not possible before,” said Ferrentino. “Tzi-Kei Wong is a talented executive and a proven operator to lead the company’s market-shaping innovation and deepen the value our platform creates for customers.”

“Yext has a clear advantage to drive broader industry change around how companies use digital to deliver the one-of-a-kind experiences customers want,” said Wong. “Leading product at Yext presents an exciting opportunity to build a new type of digital experience platform that sits at the intersection of AI, data, and design. We’re going to change the way the market thinks about AI and digital experiences. I am beyond excited to be part of Yext’s journey to unleash this extraordinary potential together.”

Tarek Robbiati to Assume CEO Role;
Vlad Shmunis to Become Executive Chairman

RingCentral, Inc. ,a leading provider of AI-powered global enterprise cloud communications, video meetings, collaboration, and contact center solutions, today announced that Tarek Robbiati, a member of the RingCentral Board of Directors since December 2022 and Chief Financial Officer and EVP of Finance and Strategy of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE), has been appointed as the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, effective August 28, 2023. Robbiati will remain a member of the Company’s Board.

Vlad Shmunis, the Company’s current Chief Executive Officer, will transition to the role of Executive Chairman with focus on driving the Company’s strategic product vision and innovation. Under Shmunis’ leadership, RingCentral has become a recognized industry leader in cloud communications, with more than $2.2 billion in annual revenues, 400,000 customers, 15,000 channel partners and approximately 4,000 full time employees.

Shmunis said, “When I founded RingCentral two decades ago, we were a tiny, unfunded startup with an ambitious mission to improve how businesses around the world communicate internally and with their customers. From those humble beginnings, we have become a recognized leader in our space and one of the largest pure-play SaaS companies in the world. My plan is to stay engaged in the Company, while dedicating most of my time to innovation, product development and long-term strategy. I am excited for the road ahead.”

Rob Theis, lead independent director of RingCentral, said, “Vlad has been the architect of RingCentral’s growth and innovation. The Company’s success has long been defined by its ability to keep its customers ahead of megatrends – mobility, broadband, cloud and now, AI – which is a direct result of Vlad’s visionary leadership.”

With nearly three decades of experience, Robbiati is a renowned strategic and financial operator known for his leadership roles within the telecom, media, technology and financial services industries. Since 2018, he has served as CFO and EVP of Finance and Strategy for Hewlett Packard Enterprise where he was instrumental in driving the pivot of the HPE portfolio to higher-growth, higher-margin areas, and as a result more than doubling ARR while growing free cash flow significantly. Prior to HPE, Robbiati was CFO at Sprint Corp. where he led the company’s strategic efforts to reposition the company. Prior to Sprint, he held numerous leadership positions, including CEO roles at publicly listed and private companies in Australia and Hong Kong.

Theis added, “Tarek is a proven senior business leader who knows our company well and shares our vision and values. His insights have been invaluable in our boardroom. Tarek has an outstanding track record, having successfully scaled businesses, while driving growth and profitability. As we planned for Vlad’s transition to the Executive Chairman role, it was critical that we find a CEO who could lead the next phase of our growth. We strongly believe Tarek is the right executive for this role.”

“The world and how we communicate is rapidly changing and this is an exciting time for RingCentral,” said Robbiati. “We are at the forefront of our industry, developing differentiated, cutting-edge solutions to meet the emerging needs of our customers. My focus will be on our customers and delivering operational excellence and sustainable, profitable growth. I am honored to take on the CEO role and deliver value to all our stakeholders.”

The Company also announced that Mo Katibeh, President and Chief Operating Officer, will be stepping down. Mo will remain a special advisor to the Company and will help with a smooth transition.

Shmunis concluded, “Mo has played a pivotal role building out our team, evolving our product roadmap, expanding our partner ecosystem, shaping our winning culture, and driving meaningful efficiencies in the business. I want to personally thank him for his outstanding work ethic and the many contributions he has made to our company, and wish him the best of luck moving forward.”

AI advancements to AppLovin’s user acquisition solution, AppDiscovery, are already resulting in increased efficiency and better performing mobile campaigns

AppLovin Corporation, a leading marketing platform, today announced new AI advancements to its mobile user acquisition (UA) platform, AppDiscovery. By leveraging more powerful models to enhance the AXON engine behind AppDiscovery, it is helping partners achieve their campaign goals with greater accuracy, improved performance and speed on a larger global scale.

“We have been working to upgrade our advertising algorithm with the latest AI techniques and we are very excited about the early results,” explained Adam Foroughi, CEO and Co-founder, at AppLovin. “Our advertisers are benefiting from increased automation and seeing better return on ad spend (ROAS), at a much larger scale. We believe this paves the way for materially more opportunity and growth for our partners over the coming years.”

Peak Games, a leading global mobile games studio and creator of mega hits, Toon Blast and Toy Blast, has already seen success. Can Salih Yarangümelioğlu, Marketing Director at Peak, stated, “AppDiscovery’s AI advancements have led to substantial growth in our ROAS campaigns.”

AppDiscovery’s advancements include:

• Greater automation: More accurately determines where to spend to best deliver on performance goals – across geographies, devices, apps and more. The need for manual optimization and campaign filtering is effectively eliminated, resulting in increased efficiency for advertisers of all sizes.
• Increased accuracy: Improvements in targeting have resulted in improved alignment with advertiser campaign goals that closely deliver on campaign targets, enabling greater control and confidence in UA spend.
• Improved campaign effectiveness: Advertisers can run multiple campaign types to acquire users with different, but complementary, retention and ROAS curves. This identifies which campaigns work best to achieve specific targets and reveals new incremental audiences to engage with.
• More agile campaigns: AppLovin’s models learn fast, so costs associated with learning phases have been significantly reduced. Advertisers can immediately start running advanced campaign types, allowing them to hit targets faster.
• Global expansion: Advertisers can now find high-value users worldwide instead of focusing on a smaller set of regional markets. Running a single global campaign enables marketers to realize massive scale while hitting their target objectives.

“Ultimately, it’s about improving outcomes,” said Idil Canal, General Manager of AdTech at AppLovin. “Investing further in the latest AI technologies to enhance our systems improves advertising quality to provide better experiences for advertisers and their consumers. This, in turn, drives increased conversion rates for a higher return on ad spend allowing for business acceleration.”