Dedicated facility part of TTEC's purposeful expansion in Africa, grows global delivery footprint

TTEC Holdings Inc., a leading global CX (customer experience) technology and services innovator for AI-enabled CX with solutions from TTEC Engage and TTEC Digital, today announced the opening of a new global customer experience delivery center in Cape Town, South Africa.

TTEC is providing CX services to global brands across several industries, including automobile manufacturing, telecommunications, and healthcare. The new Cape Town delivery center can accommodate several hundred associates.

"We are adding to TTEC's growing delivery capabilities in Africa with this exciting new delivery center," said Adam Foster, President of TTEC EMEA. "South Africa has become a premier onshore and nearshore delivery location thanks to a talented, educated workforce, and this expansion enables TTEC to continue providing exceptional customer experiences to our global clients."

TTEC previously operated out of a shared site in Cape Town. In addition to bringing jobs to the region, the dedicated new site is in a desireable neighborhood, close to a talented workforce pool with valuable local amenities that contribute to an improved employee experience. This is also part of TTEC's long-term commitment to the continent, with plans to open additional delivery centers in Africa in 2024.

"We thank TTEC for putting their faith and confidence in this province and in the people of the Western Cape. This investment is appreciated and is in safe hands - in the land of good governance, great skills and great determination," said Mireille Wenger, Western Cape Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities. "Investments in BPO such as these, are important elements in growing the economy, not only from an investment and exports perspective, but also importantly for skills and career development."

Adopted by Organizations Globally, Savant's Cloud-native Analytics Automation Platform and AI Capabilities Boosts Analyst Productivity by 5x-10x

Savant Labs, pioneer of a generative AI-powered analytics automation platform, announces a strategic partnership with Continuum, a leading UK-based consulting and analytics solutions provider. Together, the two companies will help organizations realize the power of generative AI and analytics automation combined to enable any analyst in any business function to achieve analytics outcomes 5x-10x faster.

Savant provides a leading-edge cloud-native, no-code, low-code analytics automation platform that enables analysts to access, prepare, blend, and analyze data from over 200 modern data sources and deliver insights directly to 100+ modern applications and dashboards. With a choice of conversational GPT AI or drag-and-drop automation widgets, analysts in any business function can easily access, prep, transform data, create analytics logic and automate publishing insights. Even complex data tasks that otherwise necessitated expert analysts can now be achieved with prompts that leverage public or private LLMs. Further, Savant's cloud-native architecture is purpose-built for today's modern data sources and data-driven organizations, making it possible to scale to unlimited users, unlimited data processing, and unlimited analytic workflows at 50% lower TCO than traditional analytics automation solutions.

Despite other analytics solutions available in the market, most organizations are still straddled with manual tasks, high costs to scale, and inefficiencies when delivering analytics outcomes for day-to-day business and back-office operations. The reason for these deficiencies is that they were built for data scientists, expert data stewards, and IT teams as well as in the early days of understanding cloud-scaling. Savant's innovation takes into account every aspect of easing analytics, from simplifying access to data from modern data sources, SaaS applications, and Excel to efficient cloud-native scaling, to no-code drag-and-drop manipulation of data, to using conversational GPT for any step of analytics. As a result, with Savant, organizations are saving hundreds of hours by eliminating manual work and automating outcomes while lowering costs by over 50%.

"We use Savant across finance, supply chain, and many business functions to free up specialists so they can take fast actions on insights that are always-on and accurate," said David Williamson, Chief Information Officer at Abzena, a leading biotech company. "Savant's ability to provide business stakeholders the answers they need daily, and on-demand, is incredible."

"When ChatGPT launched, we immediately realized that generative AI combined with a cloud-native modern analytics automation platform has the potential to make analytics accessible to everyone," said Dan Hare, CEO and Founder of Continuum Consulting. "Savant is a perfect fit for our clients' needs, and we are thrilled to partner to offer them a revolutionary cloud-native GPT-powered analytics automation solution that will enable them to do more with their data than they could imagine."

"Together with Continuum, we will help organizations realize the power of cloud-native modern analytics automation and generative AI," said Chitrang Shah, CEO and Founder of Savant Labs. "With our focus on product innovation and Continuum's expertise in serving clients across the UK and Northern Europe, analytics teams in organizations of all sizes can access Savant's platform to realize analytics outcomes 5X faster."

Merger amplifies location insights for retail, real estate, telco and financial services clients along their location data journey

In a move that will redefine the location data and intelligence industry, Gravy Analytics, the enterprise location intelligence company, and Unacast, the location insights and data company, today announced a definitive agreement to merge, creating one of the largest and most comprehensive location analytics platforms in the industry.

The merger sets in motion a period of accelerated new product development and market expansion. Through synergies in data processing, the organization will quickly ramp investments in machine learning and AI, its self-service Insights platform and suite of analytic APIs, as well as its proprietary data processing technologies.

In the rapidly growing $22 billion global location intelligence market, scale and reach are paramount for any trusted data and analytics partner. With a strengthened footprint in both the U.S. and international markets, the combination of Gravy and Unacast will enhance service deliverability and support for clients across continents.

"We're creating THE global location intelligence company built for where the industry is headed," said Thomas Walle, founder and CEO of Unacast. "By combining Unacast's strengths in aggregated analytics, AI, and machine learning with Gravy's global data and processing technology, we will better serve our customers both now and in the future." 

The fusion of both companies' data, technologies, and products gives existing and future clients unparalleled access to rich location data insights and high-quality datasets. Customers benefit from on-demand access to privacy-friendly insights and data that reflect real-world consumer activity, enabling insights for decision-making in markets including real estate, retail, finance, and advertising.

"Gravy's high-quality location data supports critical business decisions for some of the biggest organizations in the world," said Jeff White, Gravy Analytics founder and CEO. "Now, we're bringing our data products to markets and SMBs that haven't been able to work with massive datasets or benefit from the incredible insights that location analytics provide. This is a game-changer."

Enterprise customers historically rely on Gravy's location data products to improve advertising and marketing performance and power industry-specific research platforms. Unacast's machine learning and AI technology provide companies of all sizes with the best location-based insights to make the right data-driven business decisions. Together, the new company's strength is in its diversified client base and an integrated product suite that is second to none.

The combined company will be headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia, with offices in Oslo, Norway, and Pilsen, Czech Republic. Mr. Walle will continue as CEO of the combined company with Mr. White serving as President. 

Branch, the industry leading mobile linking and measurement platform, announced today that it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency in the category of Advertising Intelligence and Measurement. This achievement recognizes Branch for its expertise in providing customers with both professional services and software solutions that empower advertisers and marketers to reinvent workloads with solutions and services that offer enhanced user experience and attribution across devices, platforms and channels.

As advertisers and marketers look to leverage the cloud to innovate and lean into digital transformation, they are increasingly looking for partners with services and solutions purpose-built to meet their needs. AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency Partners like Branch provide customers such as advertising agencies, marketers, publishers, advertising or marketing technology providers and analytics service providers with AWS validated solutions and services that help accelerate their advertising and marketing transformation. An added benefit for customers migrating or building advertising and marketing workloads on AWS is the number of integrations and distribution channels connecting shared data with flexibility and interoperability. Branch is powered by AWS to support use cases in this industry.

• No matter the channel – apps, email, paid ads, social media, influencers, CTV, QR codes, mobile web or desktop – Branch's continued investment in linking technology ensures an adaptable, fully-featured solution that covers even the most complex customer journeys.
• Branch provides crucial visibility into what works and what doesn't, so growth-focused teams can direct spend and efforts for the highest ROI.
• With best practices honed in partnership with hundreds of world-class brands, Branch's expertise enables us to react quickly to industry changes, so marketers and advertisers don't have to choose between performance and compliance.

Achieving the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency differentiates Branch as an AWS Partner Network (APN) member with demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success in running cloud solutions on AWS for the advertising and marketing industry. This program showcases advertising and marketing technology consulting and software AWS Partners who have domain knowledge and are providing cloud services powered by AWS. To receive the designation, AWS Partners must undergo a rigorous technical validation by AWS solution architects and have verified customer references.

"Branch is extremely proud to achieve the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency in Advertising Intelligence and Measurement," said Michelle Geltman, Senior Director Business Development at Branch. "By leveraging the agility, breadth of services and pace of innovation that AWS provides, our team is dedicated to helping maximize the value of evolving digital strategies so growth-oriented teams can acquire users, retain customers and drive higher conversions."

"Our partnership with Branch has been a game-changer for Jersey Mike's. With their insights, we've gained a deeper understanding of our customer journey, attributing revenue to specific channels like push and text messages. Branch has not only improved our overall customer experience but also helped us connect the dots between downloads, sales, and our digital marketing efforts, paving the way for a more successful and streamlined strategy," said Kelly McGee, Director of Digital Marketing at Jersey Mike's.

AWS is enabling scalable, flexible and cost-effective solutions from startups to global enterprises. To support the seamless integration and deployment of these solutions, the AWS Competency Program helps customers identify which AWS Partner solutions and services are powered by AWS for specific industry use cases. For a specific industry solution to meet a need, explore the AWS Partner solutions and/or services offered in AWS Marketplace or APN Partners, including Branch.

SAS empowers marketing organizations with cutting-edge AI and analytics to create personalized customer journeys that drive value at scale

SAS, a global leader in AI and analytics, announced today that it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency in the category of Digital Customer Experience. Achieving the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency recognizes SAS' marketing technology (Martech) business for its expertise in providing customers with professional services and software solutions. SAS' digital marketing and advertising solutions empower advertisers and marketers to reinvent workloads with solutions and services that offer enhanced infrastructure, storage, availability, advanced analytics and decision-making capabilities to deliver meaningful, successful digital platform experiences to customers.

As advertisers and marketers look to leverage the cloud to innovate and achieve digital transformation, they are increasingly in need of partners with services and solutions that are purpose-built to meet their needs. AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency Partners provide these customers – including advertising agencies, marketers, publishers, advertising and marketing technology providers, and analytics service providers – with AWS-validated solutions and services, helping to accelerate their transformation.

Achieving the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency differentiates SAS – and its Martech solutions – as an AWS Partner Network (APN) member with demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success in running cloud solutions on AWS for both advertisers and marketers.

To achieve the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency, AWS Partners must undergo a rigorous technical validation by AWS solution architects and have verified customer references.

"SAS is proud to achieve the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency," said Jonathan Moran, Head of Martech Solutions Marketing at SAS. "SAS^® Customer Intelligence 360 helps our customers responsibly grow their marketing and advertising prowess with simplicity, flexibility and scalability all in mind. By leveraging AWS capabilities, we're able to accelerate our customers' digital marketing and advertising initiatives to maximize impact across the customer lifecycle."

"Leveraging SAS Customer Intelligence 360 through AWS Marketplace is a win-win for DKB. We have easily scaled, extended and matured our use of the solution, while also consuming our pre-committed spend with AWS," said Florian Lindemann, Retail Cloud Platform Lead at DKB. "Procuring the solution was simply handled by the business and IT teams and we are now off and running – creating and activating digital customer journeys that are driving customer loyalty and growth."

AWS is enabling scalable, flexible and cost-effective solutions from startups to global enterprises. To support the seamless integration and deployment of these solutions, the AWS Competency Program helps customers identify validated AWS Partner solutions and services for specific industry use cases. Explore the AWS Partner solutions and/or services offered in AWS Data Exchange, AWS Marketplace, or APN Partners, including SAS.

HUMAN Defense Platform ensures ad inventory offers complete fraud protection on AWS from start to finish reaching real humans across all media channels

HUMAN Security, Inc., a digital fraud platform disrupting bot attacks, online fraud and abuse across the buyer's journey, announced today that it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency in the category of Advertising Intelligence and Measurement. This competency recognizes HUMAN for its expertise in empowering ad tech platforms, publishers, and advertisers to reinvent workloads with solutions to detect and mitigate disruptive ad fraud in the programmatic landscape and ensure ad inventory reaches real humans.

As advertisers and marketers look to leverage the cloud to innovate and achieve digital transformation, they are increasingly in need of partners with services and solutions purpose-built to meet their needs. AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency Partners provide these customers - including advertising agencies, marketers, publishers, advertising or marketing technology providers, and analytics service providers - with AWS validated solutions and services helping to accelerate their transformation.

The global advertising market will surpass $1 trillion global spend; and in 2025, more than 70% of those dollars will be spent on digital advertisements. HUMAN protects the digital advertising landscape and currently sees on average 18 billion fraudulent bid requests per day providing deep technical analysis and actionable insights that do more than simply measure the presence of fraud. HUMAN uses superior detection techniques, hacker intelligence, and collective protection to defeat fraud and abuse in digital advertising with unmatched scale, speed, and precision. The result is ad inventory free from fraud that increases trust and value throughout the supply chain.

HUMAN’s Programmatic Ad Fraud Defense solution, MediaGuard, offers both pre-bid mitigation and post-bid detection to safeguard Demand Side Platforms (DSPs), Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs), advertisers and agencies, from fraud. Key benefits include:

• Proactive Prevention: Prevent fraud with pre-bid mitigation across environments with real-time analysis of each impression in 12ms or less
• Maintain Trust: Eliminate fraudulent impressions and gain visibility into sources driving invalid traffic to ensure ads are seen by humans
• Optimize Returns: Improve ad performance by verifying critical inventory across mobile, desktop, Connected TV (CTV) and audio environments
• Improve Transparency: Protect existing revenue through increased transparency into all inventory to eliminate fraud and dramatically reduce IVT

Achieving the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency differentiates HUMAN Security as an AWS Partner Network (APN) member with demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success in running cloud solutions on AWS for the advertising and marketing industry. To achieve the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency, AWS Partners must undergo a rigorous technical validation by AWS solution architects and have verified customer references.

“Achieving the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency differentiates HUMAN in the AWS Partner Network (APN) with demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success running cloud solutions on AWS for the advertising and marketing industry,” said Frank Walsh, Field CTO at HUMAN. “The HUMAN Defense Platform ensures ad inventory is only reaching real humans across all media channels offering fraud protection on AWS from start to finish. The result is a landscape of ad inventory advertisers can trust with robust protection from fraudsters.”

HUMAN’s partner, Yieldmo, an ad tech platform that delivers AI-powered creative ad formats and superior campaign performance from proprietary data, needed to ensure a fraud-free marketplace for its advertisers and publishers would continue even as its available supply of ad opportunities rapidly grew. Combining internal protocols with HUMAN’s Programmatic Ad Fraud Defense proactively insulated Yieldmo from fraudulent activity on its platform despite its rapid growth. “Fighting fraud requires more than simple measurement. HUMAN’s focused and unique approach and reporting of IVT is a major reason we originally started our partnership,” said Daniel Contento, SVP of Partnerships and Operations at Yieldmo. Yieldmo’s IVT rate, already among the industry’s lowest at just 1%, declined 90% to just 0.1% after implementing HUMAN.

AWS is enabling scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions from startups to global enterprises. To support the seamless integration and deployment of these solutions, the AWS Competency Program helps customers identify validated AWS Partner solutions and services for specific industry use cases. Explore the AWS Partner solutions and/or services offered in AWS Data Exchange, AWS Marketplace, or APN Partners, including HUMAN.

The funding round led by Bright Pixel Capital, joined by 3TS Capital Partners and Pragmatech Ventures, will fuel product development and accelerate market expansion.

JENTIS, a leader in next-gen data capture technology, today announced that it raised €11 million in a Series A funding round led by Bright Pixel (former Sonae IM) and new co-investor 3TS Capital Partners, with participation by existing investor Pragmatech Ventures. JENTIS empowers businesses to own and control their web data capture independently of third parties. Its breakthrough technology enables radically improved data accuracy for business insights while complying with privacy regulations worldwide.

The funding round follows a year of high growth for JENTIS as businesses demand first-party data capture and data protection compliance. Its breakthrough server-side tracking technology that shifts website data collection from users' browsers to a secure cloud has found rapid adoption by large European e-commerce retailers, among trusted brands in banking and finance, and at major digital publishers in the US and Central Europe.

JENTIS' Data Capture Platform, positioned at the beginning of the data value chain, enhances data accuracy, availability, and compliance in real time. This positively impacts all upstream and downstream tools and platforms, including Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) and analytics platforms. Its broad compatibility enables quick implementation and cost-effective operation without changing existing technology setups. Customers report significant performance improvements, with data uplifts of up to 30%, data correction rates of up to 60%, and significantly faster web page load times. 

In an era where data control and ownership are becoming increasingly vital, JENTIS empowers businesses to adapt seamlessly to this changing landscape, offering them a competitive edge in data management and strategy. This capability is crucial in the context of Google's anticipated 2024 phase-out of third-party cookies. 

The company was founded in 2020 by a team of data analytics and web tracking specialists around CEO Thomas Tauchner. The company opened its German office in 2022 and was named the Austrian Scaleup of the Year in Digital Transformation by Ernst & Young in 2023. 

JENTIS will utilize the new investment to accelerate its geographic growth in key European and US markets and enhance its product development efforts, leading the way to realize universal data capture from all digital data sources – including web, mobile, and the Internet of Things – on one platform.

Thomas Tauchner, Founder and CEO, JENTIS, said: "We see first-party data capture rapidly gaining traction but marketers and advertisers are struggling to realize the full potential for their businesses. We developed our platform to make it easy for businesses to capture the highest web data quality while complying with data protection regulations. With this funding round, we are ready to accelerate our growth and bring our technology to new markets across the globe."

Leonor de L'Hermite, Operating Partner, Bright Pixel Capital, said: "We are seeing the demand for accurate data rising across industries while availability has plummeted. JENTIS has developed an elegant and powerful solution to a complex problem and is positioned to be the first to achieve universal data capture at the beginning of the value chain. We are excited to be part of the journey to make it vastly easier for businesses to achieve data-driven growth while respecting their users' privacy."

"We are impressed by JENTIS' breakthrough Data Capture Platform, which is defining a new, rapidly growing segment in the web infrastructure market. Clients from multiple verticals have realized significant increases in marketing and revenue results leveraging higher data quality, while taking back control over their customer data and ensuring compliance. We are thrilled to join forces and work alongside the JENTIS team as the Company scales." added Sever Totia, 3TS Partner, who is also joining JENTIS' board of directors. 

Evgeny Sergeev, Founder and General Partner, Pragmatech, said: "We are excited to continue supporting JENTIS as they grow into a leading vendor in the first-party data capture and privacy compliance space. From their early days, when we first met, the company has grown exponentially, which clearly demonstrates a strong market demand and relevance of innovation made by JENTIS. With this new backing, the team under Thomas's leadership is well-equipped to continue its global reach in key markets."

Experts at Regula, a global developer of forensic devices and identity verification (IDV) solutions, outline the trends for the industry. Rising identity fraud demands businesses adopt new, reliable verification methods. Beyond fighting fraud, they expect organizations to use IDV in various processes to enhance client relations and build trust.

Staying ahead in ID verification ensures a secure and flourishing future for organizations. This is why Regula experts are releasing their forecast for the trends for 2024 and beyond. Based on an analysis of recent developments in the IDV area, the experts highlighted nine trends, with those revolving around identity fraud being the most critical.

Liveness-centric approach and authenticity cross-checks as the only options to prevent sophisticated identity fraud

Addressing identity fraud is crucial, with 43% prioritizing it, according to Regula’s survey. To succeed in combating document fraud and counterfeiting, IDV vendors must go beyond basic checks and enable comprehensive cross-referencing of all the data. This will be one of the major trends when developing IDV solutions in the coming years.

Cross-referencing all the data in the document, including biometric checks, makes it possible to identify inconsistencies that may signal fraud. For example, a fraudster might attempt to replace an ID holder's portrait to bypass verification. However, such a substitution is likely to fail with secondary or ghost photos embedded in the document as holograms, lenticular images, or other security features, and portrait comparison will reveal this mismatch. Cross-checks play a crucial role in identifying data discrepancies, preventing fraud before it causes any harm.

However, the largest concerns are associated with the surge in AI-generated identity fraud, recognized by 80% of global companies in Regula’s identity verification report. These sentiments are especially shared in the USA.

An effective tool to combat AI-generated identity fraud is yet to be developed. However, it’s currently possible to spot and prevent such fraud if you choose to deal only with physical objects, not document scans or pictures of a person. Being able to verify real documents and real people in real time helps to confirm the presence of an actual individual and their ID. This requires comprehensive biometric checks and special technology for document liveness verification to ensure the authenticity of an ID by verifying its dynamic security features or checking if a document is being presented from a digital device. This is the road IDV vendors and users will have to take in the near future.

Use cases for IDV are expanding: Vendors to come up with flexibility and customization

Identity verification has gone beyond traditional KYC (Know Your Customer) in Banking or FinTech. Now, it’s an anti-fraud measure and a tool to enhance the customer experience in various industries, including car-sharing services, insurance, medical facilities, gaming platforms, etc. For instance, the online casino of Grand Casino Luzern implemented remote identity verification and managed to accelerate customer onboarding. Moreover, using IDV for account recovery, remote hiring, and elevating trust in marketplaces is becoming increasingly common.

According to Regula’s survey, 91% of businesses worldwide plan to increase their IDV spending within the next one to three years. This growing popularity means IDV vendors will have to develop new features and enhance the capabilities of existing IDV technologies. Also, many businesses need customized solutions to meet their unique requirements. This is creating a general trend for flexibility, both in the IDV process itself, and IDV solutions in general.

Digital nomads, IDV regulation, digital passports, and more

Among other trends that will make vendors and businesses reconsider their identity verification technologies and processes, Regula’s experts point out:

• the necessity to recognize an extended variety of IDs and provide additional language support due to the sharp and unstoppable rise of the digital nomad movement and general mass migration all around the world;
• the growing need for a single-vendor solution for both document and biometric checks;
• the prioritization of the document scan quality, which contributes to complete automation of capturing IDs;
• zero trust to mobile when verifying e-documents;
• implementation of new IDV regulations.
• Also, Regula’s vision encompasses the phenomenon of digital passports, which some countries have started piloting and many others are currently discussing.

“The evolution of identity documents into digital IDs, portable identity, or other non-physical forms represents a logical progression. While closely tied to government databases, it may currently feel like a local story only. A more plausible scenario involves a hybrid approach, requiring organizations to authenticate both physical and digital IDs. Theoretically, principles which are effective in remotely verifying physical IDs can be seamlessly adapted for digital IDs,” comments Ihar Kliashchou, Chief Technology Officer at Regula.