Experienced global executive to spearhead operations for unified communications leader

Mitel®, a global leader in business communications, today announced the appointment of Charles-Henry Duroyon as Chief Operating Officer (COO). Duroyon will oversee Mitel’s global business operations, supply chain, and data privacy office as well as lead the company’s strategic planning and M&A initiatives.

With Mitel’s recent acquisition of Unify and goals of further market share expansion, Duroyon will focus on developing operational strategies that support company growth initiatives and optimize organizational efficiency, while ensuring quality, compliance, and accountability to critical business metrics.

Duroyon brings a deep knowledge of international markets from prior leadership roles as Chief Human Resources Officer, COO, and Chief Executive Officer in a variety of industries. In his previous role as Senior Vice President at Atos Tech Foundation, he led corporate development and transformation efforts, including chairing the sale of Unify to Mitel concluded in September 2023. Prior to that, Duroyon served as Global COO of Unify where he was responsible for supply chain, IT, quality, performance excellence, cloud partnerships, and strategic planning. He was also formerly CEO of Fastviewer, a cloud company specializing in remote support and web collaboration, where he led the company to a successful sale, and earlier in his career held key roles at Atos, Faurecia, and Taleo.

“Operational excellence is central to Mitel’s growth strategy and the addition of a senior operations leader to our executive team reflects that focus,” said Tarun Loomba, Mitel President and Chief Executive Officer. “In addition to his deep knowledge of the Unify business, Charles-Henry brings significant experience leading organizations through transformation and a well-developed global perspective that will help Mitel accelerate current priorities and build a foundation for long-term success.”

"With the recent addition of Unify, Mitel has demonstrated a clear commitment to the communications space and laid a path for an exciting future,” said Charles-Henry Duroyon. “I look forward to working with this talented team to ensure customers continue to have exceptional experiences with Mitel solutions and services for many years to come."

Analysts Explore How Generative AI is Shifting How People and Machines Interact During Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2023, October 16-19

Artificial intelligence (AI) – especially the leap in generative AI (GenAI) – is part of a larger shift in how humans and machines interact, according to Gartner, Inc. This shift provides two key focus areas for CIOs and IT executives as AI becomes an enterprise initiative, not just an IT initiative.

“GenAI is not just a technology or just a business trend. It is a profound shift in how humans and machines interact,” said Mary Mesaglio, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “We are moving from what machines can do for us to what machines can be for us. Machines are evolving from being our tools to becoming our teammates. Gartner predicts that by 2025, GenAI will be a workforce partner for 90% of companies worldwide.”

“CIOs have a major role in how they shape AI and how AI shapes us,” said Don Scheibenreif, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “According to recent Gartner surveys of CEOs, CIOs are their number one choice to unlock the value of GenAI.”

During the opening keynote of Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo, which is taking place here through Thursday, Gartner analysts told the audience of over 8,000 CIOs and IT executives to prioritize two areas to unleash the possibility of AI over the next 12-24 months – decide their AI Ambition and become AI-Ready.

Decide Your AI Ambition

There are two flavors of AI:

• Everyday AI is focused on productivity. The machine is a productivity partner. It enables workers to do what they already do faster and more efficiently. Currently, 77% of CIOs and technology leaders worldwide are focused on the opportunities of everyday AI. “It is important to note that everyday AI will go from dazzling to ordinary with outrageous speed,” said Mesaglio. “Everyone will have access to the same tools, and it will not provide a sustainable competitive advantage. Everyday AI is the new table stakes.”
• Game-changing AI is focused primarily on creativity. “It doesn’t just make us faster or better. Either it creates new results, via AI-enabled products and services; or it creates new ways to create new results, such as with AI-enabled new core capabilities. With game-changing AI, machines will disrupt business models and entire industries,” said Mesaglio.

“More and more AI will be jointly delivered by IT and the wider enterprise,” said Scheibenreif. “To succeed, the whole executive team must be engaged. This provides a tremendous opportunity for CIOs to make a difference.”

CIOs can help their CEO and CxO peers cut through AI complexity and define their organization’s AI ambition by examining the opportunities and risks of using GenAI in four areas: the back office, the front office, new products and services, and new core capabilities (See Figure 1).

Be AI-Ready

“As AI continues transforming the relationship between humans and machines, CIOs must actively shape the nature of this change,” said Scheibenreif. “In this new era of human-machine interaction, there will be many unforeseen consequences.”

“A technology decision is not just a technology decision anymore. It is a technology, economic, social and ethical decision all at once,” said Mesaglio. “To navigate decisions about AI in their organization, CIOs and IT leaders need lighthouse principles — a vision for AI that lights the way and says what kind of human-machine relationships they will and will not accept.”

However, few organizations have established lighthouse principles or even a clear vision for AI. A Gartner survey in June 2023 of 606 CIOs and technology leaders found that only 9% of organizations have an AI vision statement in place, and more than one-third of respondents had no plans to create an AI vision statement.

To facilitate swift and safe adoption of generative AI in the next 12 months, organizations must do three things:

• Establish AI-ready principles: Lighthouse principles must align with the values of the organization. The organization’s values must be the guiding light for navigating the unknowns of how humans and machines will interact.
• Make data AI-ready: For data to be AI-ready, it must meet five criteria. It is secure, enriched, fair, accurate and is governed by the lighthouse principles.
• Implement AI-ready security: For every positive use of AI, someone is putting that same technology to negative use. This is the dark side of AI. CIOs should prepare for new attack vectors and work with the executive team to create an acceptable use policy for public generative AI solutions.

“The era of AI-powered business will lead to unintended consequences without advance planning. CIOs need a way to light the way forward, even when everything seems new or murky,” said Scheibenreif. “To safely harness this disruption, CIOs must work with executive leaders to define their ambitions for using everyday AI and game-changing AI, and to establish AI-ready principles, data and security.”

Executive brings over two decades of expertise in driving innovation and leading digital transformations

Rent Group Inc., a leading provider of integrated marketing solutions for the multi- and single-family housing industries and operator of Rent.com, ApartmentGuide.com and Rentals.com, today announced that Chris Huff has joined the company as Chief Technology Officer. Chris will helm engineering and development efforts to continuously innovate and deliver solutions that simplify the experience of connecting people and properties. He brings more than two decades of building consumer-focused mobile experiences and leading digital transformations.

“Chris is an exceptional leader with an amazing blend of technical expertise, innovation and culture building. He will be a critical catalyst for our continued success and will drive innovative solutions for Rent,” said Jon Ziglar, CEO of Rent. “His experience with large-scale mobile app development, machine learning and mobile technologies makes him the ideal technology leader for Rent.”

Prior to joining Rent, Huff was CTO at ParkMobile, where he was responsible for both the product and technology teams, guiding the development of the most successful parking app in North America. Prior to that, his extensive career included Head of Engineering for Watson Marketing (IBM), Vice President of Mobile and Consumer App Development at The Weather Channel and senior IT leadership roles at The Home Depot. Chris holds an MBA from Georgia State University and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Georgia.

“I’m thrilled to join the Rent team and continue to build on the incredible momentum the organization has created in the last 18 months,” Huff said. “I look forward to working with the team to build new solutions and experiences that continue to accelerate growth and deliver on best-in-class experiences for our clients, as well as the renters who visit our sites daily.”

Rent is a comprehensive technology platform focused on addressing the needs of modern multifamily marketing teams. RentMarketplace Tour Calendar is the latest feature to enhance the listing experience and offer rich insights into a listed property, joining features such as Google Aerial View, Places Nearby, Walk Score®, Transit Score® and Profile Sync with Google Business Profile. Rent also recently launched the multifamily industry’s only automated solution for TikTok advertising and is the first and only rental marketplace network to provide access to two of the country's largest real estate sites, Redfin.com and Realtor.com.

The Trade Surveillance Market Review is available to download from: https://info.eventus.com/acuiti-2023-report-combating-market-manipulation

 The complexity of trade surveillance is continuing to grow, as firms struggle with record volatility, high volumes and fragmented markets, an Acuiti report released today has found.

The report, Trade Surveillance Market Review: Rising Alerts, Rising Complexity, which was commissioned by Eventus and based on a survey and series of interviews with senior executives at 64 firms, found that senior trade surveillance executives expect the volume of alerts and complex issues they must address to continue to grow over the next five years.

A majority of respondents to the survey expected to see higher volumes of alerts in a range of areas, most notably in order book manipulation, price manipulation and market disruptions (such as excessive messaging).

Concerningly, the hardest-to-detect abuses were among those areas in which alert volumes were expected to grow, suggesting that pressure on surveillance teams will continue to mount.

This year's report based on qualitative and quantitative data followed the inaugural trade surveillance market study conducted in 2022. Over the past year, the challenges of finding skilled staff and the time spent evaluating false positives have increased in severity for the market.

While investments have been made in automating and increasing the sophistication of trade surveillance, respondents to the survey still experienced significant numbers of false positives. Almost 90% of respondents said that less than one in ten of the alerts they received required some level of intervention or reporting.

As a result, investment into trade surveillance software is a key strategy for a majority of firms, with 38% considering upgrading their systems over the next 12-18 months and 15% definitely planning to do so.

Firms that had invested in this type of software reported lower regulatory risk, greater satisfaction among compliance staff and less concern from senior management as key benefits of that investment.

They also pointed to numerous feature improvements from investment in surveillance technology, including improved investigative tools, a greater range of procedures available to them and increased flexibility to customise the software.

"This year's trade surveillance survey found a market that was facing an increasing challenge from higher numbers of alerts and greater market complexity," says Ross Lancaster, head of research at Acuiti.

"These challenges are exacerbated by challenges in finding skilled staff, which has become even more of an issue for firms since our last report in 2022. These trends are driving firms to invest in automation and increasing the sophistication of their trade surveillance software."

Eventus CEO Travis Schwab said: "The report clearly illustrates the tremendous pressures and challenges faced by surveillance staff that are expected to grow.  Interviews with executives also reinforced the need not only to take the pressure off of these professionals with robust automation but also ensure they have the ability to fully explain behaviours and the procedures that led them to their conclusions."

Download full report here: https://info.eventus.com/acuiti-2023-report-combating-market-manipulation.

Digitate, a leading provider of SaaS-based enterprise software for IT and business operations, today released a study conducted in partnership with ASUG, America's largest network of SAP customers, partners, and professionals, probing the issues that are top-of-mind for SAP users. The results revealed that 90% of the SAP users experienced SAP application downtime. Furthermore, two-thirds of respondents report that they spent up to 25% of their daily time resolving these unpredictable issues.

SAP dominates the enterprise resource planning (ERP) market and its ability to automate, optimize, and analyze a vast range of business functions makes it the first choice for many organizations. Yet SAP solutions can be complex and challenging to administer, particularly as users are being encouraged to migrate to SAP’s latest cloud-based S/4HANA platform.

The survey, Evaluating Automation and SAP Transformations, polled SAP power users and administrators from more than 150 different organizations in North America spanning industries ranging from manufacturing to retail to utilities. The goal of the study was to better identify how they experience SAP operational transformations, business process redesign, and automation at their organizations.

While internal downtime impacts were said to be experienced much more than external impacts, business user impacts due to SAP downtime were, unsurprisingly, the overriding concern for respondents, with 39% noting a direct impact on customers. Integration challenges were identified as the top contributor to unplanned downtime. In fact, almost all respondents (95%) reported facing integration issues, with data inconsistency representing the most widely experienced challenge.

“Users across the SAP landscape are looking for technology optimizations to reduce their challenges of scale, speed, and performance – and this is confirmed by the findings of the survey,” said Ugo Orsi, Chief Customer Officer at Digitate. “We have applied AI/ML and automation to SAP operations across the IT and business landscape and helped enable digital transformation across many of the major global enterprises.”

Keys findings of the survey include:

• Impacts of downtime
  • For the majority of respondents (66%), up to one quarter of their time is spent on unpredictable issues that affect SAP application downtime.
  • Overwhelmingly, business user impacts are the top concern/impact due to downtime. Internal downtime impacts are experienced much more than external impacts, though 39% still noted direct impact to customers.

• Leveraging SAP automation solutions
  • Leveraging SAP automation solutions represents uncertainty as almost half of respondents were unable to assess this at their organization.
  • That said, when they were certain, the largest share (42%) feel their organizations are not leveraging solutions as much as they could. Overall, more openness and efforts to adapt new technology, back-end support, and automation across systems are needed to realize benefits.

• Transforming SAP operations
  • Given the anticipation for automation to reduce the amount of time spent on manual patch upgrades, reducing manual processes is the top-ranked initiative needed to improve SAP operations.
  • Data analytics/dashboard insights and supply chain optimization are other leading technologies/initiatives needed. More than half also selected automation.

• Usage of AI/ML and monitoring tools
  • Though just 15% are currently using AI/ML, 33% are considering it in the future.
  • The majority of respondents are using up to 20 tools to monitor different elements of their SAP systems.

• Operational KPIs and ticket resolution
  • The KPI of resolving tickets without human intervention is still a distant goal for many; only 41% said they often met it. The largest share of respondents said 10% or less of tickets are resolved automatically. 29% had no tickets resolved automatically.

It’s clear from the survey that automation and SAP S/4HANA are top-of-mind for customers. While some respondents are eager to move from their legacy systems to S/4 to take advantage of new capabilities/features, quite a few others must migrate their legacy systems to S/4HANA as a mandate.

President Nimesh Davé Named to PRovoke Media’s 2023 Innovator 25 Group in the Americas, GlobeNewswire Ranked as Market Leader in G2’s Fall 2023 Grid® for Press Release Distribution Software

Notified, a globally trusted technology partner for public relations, investor relations, and marketing professionals, today announced that President Nimesh Davé has been named to PRovoke Media’s 2023 Innovator 25 Group in the Americas. Davé is honored for his commitment to ingenuity within the communications industry, pioneering the development and launch of GlobeNewswire’s AI Press Release Generator – the first AI-powered press release generator launched by a newswire service – in March of 2023, as well as filing a patent for its Smart Press Release solution in July of 2023.

“At Notified, we’re passionate about Artificial Intelligence, and how it can empower PR pros to work smarter – not harder – to tell their stories,” said Nimesh Davé, President, Notified. “I’m honored to be recognized by PRovoke Media, on behalf of the entire Notified team, who has shown immense dedication and passion for developing transformative AI solutions. We remain committed to driving innovation that leads to a more efficient, secure and tech-enabled future for all communicators.”

Launching in 2013, PRovoke’s Innovator 25 has established itself as an important barometer of global marketing and communications innovation – identifying 25 individuals each year in the Americas, EMEA and APAC who have elevated and evolved industry engagement and influence.

In tandem with launching groundbreaking AI solutions throughout 2023, Davé’s perspective on AI has been featured throughout key industry publications – encouraging communicators to approach the technology with confidence:

• PRovoke Media, Perspectives On The Impact Of AI On Communications And Storytelling, From A Lifelong Technologist
• IR Magazine, NIRI 2023: Nimesh Davé of Notified on how AI can elevate IR
• O’Dwyers, The Age of Intelligent Engagement

Contextual AI support and easier partner integrations can help enhance the learning experience

D2L, a global learning technology company, today highlighted enhanced Brightspace product features — developed over the past six months — that can help global learners and educators simplify the learning experience by bringing learning solutions together in one place. 

"I'm thrilled to share that D2L continues to invest in its existing solutions and broaden its portfolio of products, partner solutions and services to assist educators, organizations, and learners in their readiness for the future," said Rajesh Talpade, Senior Vice President of Product Management at D2L. "D2L's new and enhanced product features can make it easier than ever to offer effective learning in online and blended environments to help see  that learners have the opportunity to succeed."

Announced in September 2023, D2L introduced a new, all-in-one solution for businesses: D2L for Business. This integrated, easy-to-use corporate solution combines the benefits of an existing network of world-class education providers, skill development solutions, and expert consulting services as an learning experience platform (LXP).

Brightspace functionalities and offerings that can provide customers with tools and resources to help enhance outcomes and save time. Brightspace now offers:

• Even more Creator+ tools for educators, including: new accessible layouts, expanded types of interactive elements, and a fully accessible hotspot practice question type. This can help enable educators to continue building beautiful and instructionally sound content using familiar Brightspace workflows.
• An AI-driven, first line of contexual help and support embedded within Brightspace Brightspace Virtual Assistant.
• More datasets and improved data dashboards to help make it easier for educators and businesses to gain insights and understand metrics in their organizations.

Recent Brightspace updates continue to make workflows more intuitive, efficient, effective and consistent. This includes:

• An improved Quiz experience that can offer support for high-stakes exams with strict time limits, support for synchronous quizzing windows, and other improvements.
• A familiar and upgraded Discussion experience with workflows to help bring new functionality to educators.
• New content authoring functionality to help make it easier to manage both the required and optional course materials. In addition, enhancements to the Media Library are now more user-friendly, with new time-saving indicators to track progress and surface common actions. And, new changes to course merging options that can empower educators and save administrative time.
• New self-enrollment enhancements for Brightspace customers that offer professional development opportunities and allow educators to see that learners are enrolling in the right courses.

D2L has also enhanced its robust learning ecosystem by simplifying access to Brightspace and encouraging new interactions among educators, administrators, and learners. These updates, features and tools include:

• An easier, course registration process through Course Merchant, a modern e-commerce experience, whose front-end course catalog and payment and enrollment system is now offered as a D2L product after more than nine years as a key integration partner.
• Visualized Brightspace Analytics within Ellucian Experience, help advisors to quickly identify at-risk learners by aggregating Brightspace data with external data to holistically determine appropriate intervention.
• Early access to D2L Link, which can connect Brightspace with the systems of record clients use every day. The integrations enabled through D2L Link can help minimize manual tasks and see that data is synchronized between systems.
• D2L's new IntegrationHub, built on LTI 1.3. and launched as a new catalog site that lists partner solutions that are available for integrations with Brightpsace. The IntegrationHub makes it easy for Brightspace users to browse D2L's extensive list of integrated technologies and solutions, such as accessibility tools, student information systems, secure proctoring assessment platforms, and many other partner solutions.