NFL, NHS, Appian, Celonis & more – Process Excellence news

PEX Network brings you the latest news in process and operational excellence (OPEX), business process management (BPM), digital transformation, process mining/intelligence, low-code technology, intelligent document processing (IDP), Lean Six Sigma, Kaizen and more.

Week of 05/06, 2024, includes:

• NFL names Accenture as business and technology consulting partner
• IT outage shuts down ePassport operations at major UK airports
• Celonis appoints Mark Jacobs as go-to-market leader for North America
• UK NHS saves over £1 million with messaging app
• Appian opens new office in Melbourne to support Australian growth and partnerships
• IDG welcomes Ani Shehigian as new EVP transformation business operations
• AlTi Global publishes Family Office Operational Excellence Report
• Frasers Group invests in digital transformation to enhance operational efficiency
• AdvancedAdvT to acquire IDP vendor Celaton
• iGrafx and Planaletix partner to deliver AI-driven process intelligence solutions
• Fabcon announces new management team to enhance operational excellence and drive growth
• ABBYY supports non-profit ForHumanity to develop independent AI audit systems

NFL names Accenture as business and technology consulting partner

The National Football League (NFL) named Accenture its official business and technology consulting partner. Throughout the five-year partnership, the NFL will harness Accenture’s technology and data expertise to help shape the future of football. To innovate both on and off the field, Accenture and the NFL will team up to enhance data-driven decision making in three key league business areas: Football, financial operations and human resources, according to a press release.

Accenture will deploy its experience, expertise and best practices to elevate the NFL’s corporate and club financial operations across its systems, processes and personnel. This will be driven by increased visibility into the data and metrics behind the numbers. In addition, the NFL will collaborate with Accenture to support and transform human resource and enterprise resource planning (ERP) functions and analytics, with Accenture driving new efficiencies and automation across the NFL’s back-office functions.

IT outage shuts down ePassport operations at major UK airports

A “nationwide issue” caused huge delays at passport e-gates at major UK airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Edinburgh. eGates are automated gates that use facial recognition to check a person’s identity, allowing them to enter the country without talking to a Border Force officer. There are more than 270 of them in place at 15 air and rail ports in the UK. Due to the outage, staff were left manually processing passengers instead. One passenger told the BBC he spent longer queuing for passport control than he did on his flight from Lisbon.

The UK Home Office, which oversees Border Force, said in a statement early on Wednesday: “eGates at UK airports came back online shortly after midnight.” A spokesperson explained that the problems were caused by a “system network issue” that persisted for more than four hours.

“News of a nationwide IT outage that caused huge delays at passport e-gates is the latest in a long line of incidents that seem to be happening with alarming frequency,” commented Alan Stephenson-Brown, CEO at Evolve Business Group. “These events should be seen as a reminder that no sector is immune to IT troubles. The importance of both contingency planning and preventative measures to protect IT systems cannot be understated, and I urge business leaders to seriously appraise the systems they have in place to identify potential vulnerabilities before they find themselves the subject of the next IT outages headline.”

READ: Copenhagen Airport uses business intelligence & data analytics to enhance operations

Celonis appoints Mark Jacobs as go-to-market leader for North America

Process mining company appointed Mark Jacobs to the role of SVP North America sales. As the go-to-market leader for North America, Jacobs will work closely with new and existing customers to drive the company’s continued growth in the market, the vendor said. Celonis has a strong presence in North America, with more than 25 percent of the market’s Fortune 500 companies as partners and customers including household names, such as Johnson & Johnson, US Army, GE HealthCare, The Coca-Cola Company, Uber Technologies, HSBC Bank, Accenture and KPMG.

“Over the past two years, I’ve seen the radical, rapid impact of process mining and process intelligence on companies in ways I’ve not seen with any other technology available today,” said Jacobs. “We have an impressive team in North America who are excited to keep delivering unprecedented value for our customers and partners.”

Last week, Celonis was named a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Process Mining Platforms report.

UK NHS saves over £1 million with messaging app

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) has saved more than £1 million in the last year by using the NHS App to send information. During 2023/24, 22.5 million messages were sent through the NHS App, which would have previously been sent as a text message or letter. The average cost of sending a text message is around 5p, which represents a saving of at least £1.1 million, according to an NHS Digital press release. The messaging services available in the NHS App include:

• Viewing messages from NHS healthcare services.
• Viewing responses from doctor practices or following up on things like test results.
• Viewing messages to healthcare providers (such as specialist doctors at a hospital).

New features are being added to the NHS App regularly as the NHS encourages more people to use the app in their everyday lives. These features enable patients to view their GP health record, order repeat prescriptions, view or manage hospital appointments, nominate their preferred pharmacy, find local NHS services and get health advice via 111 online.

“When we talk about the benefits of the NHS App, we usually focus on patient convenience, or the admin time saved for frontline staff – but the NHS App is also saving the NHS significant amounts of money on text messages and postal stamps, and these savings will only get larger as more features are added to the app in the future,” commented Dr Vin Diwakar, national transformation director at NHS England. “By encouraging more people to use the NHS App, with notifications switched on, we can really start to reduce the estimated £450 million per year that is currently spent on communicating with patients.”

Appian opens new office in Melbourne to support Australian growth and partnerships

Business process automation vendor Appian announced the opening of a new office in Melbourne, Australia to support its growing team and serve as a central hub for enhancing customer and partner engagement. The new office is situated in the heart of Melbourne’s central business district, in the 100 Queen Street development.

“Our remarkable growth in the Australian market, evidenced by a 69 percent increase in business from our partners in 2023 over 2022, signifies the value our platform brings to businesses aiming for digital excellence,” said Luke Thomas, area VP Asia Pacific and Japan at Appian. “Our new Melbourne office not only brings us closer to our customers and partners in the southern region, but also serves as a beacon of our commitment to driving digital innovation and process excellence.”

IDG welcomes Ani Shehigian as new EVP transformation business operations

International Data Group (IDG) announced the appointment of Ani Shehigian as its new EVP, transformation business operations. Shehigian has more than two decades leading large-scale business transformation for global iconic companies such as The Walt Disney Co., Condé Nast and Deloitte. In the newly created role, Shehigian will be creating a transformation center of excellence that will oversee change management and non-technical project management, enabling operational excellence and cross-functional collaboration at IDG, IDC and Foundry.

AlTi Global publishes Family Office Operational Excellence Report

Global wealth management company AlTi Global, Inc. launched its inaugural Family Office Operational Excellence Report, developed in partnership with Campden Wealth. The report explores the inner workings of single-family offices (privately held companies that handle investment management and wealth management for wealthy families) amid increasingly complex business challenges and the factors impacting their operations. The survey garnered responses from 98 family offices, primarily based in North America.

Key findings include:

• The vast majority (80 percent) of family members value their dedicated staff, but most of them (70 percent) report real difficulty recruiting new talent and (65 percent) have real concerns about staff retention.
• The majority of C-level executives and family members are satisfied with how the family office operates but those levels of satisfaction decline noticeably as size shrinks.
• All family offices polled have made major investments in their tech stack, but only a quarter (26 percent) claim to have leading-edge solutions for investing and operations.

“With the significant expansion of services family offices are being asked to deliver, the need for professionalization and accountability in achieving optimal outcomes has never been more pressing,” said Erik Christoffersen, head of family office practice, AlTi Tiedemann Global. “However, the unique and private nature of family offices makes it challenging for family offices to generate reliable benchmarking data and insights into how other offices operate.”

READ: PEX Guide: What is operational excellence?

Frasers Group invests in digital transformation to enhance operational efficiency

Retail giant Frasers Group announced a significant investment in its digital infrastructure to enhance operations and ecommerce platforms across its various brands. The Group has forged partnerships with leading industry experts including digital product development firm AND Digital, innovation experience specialist Valtech and technology agency Lab Digital, reported 365 Retail. These collaborations are set to create a state-of-the-art digital platform utilizing MACH architecture, streamlining operations such as inventory allocation, stock management and product tracking.

“We are partnering with some of the very best minds to build this new digital infrastructure that will make our business more customer-centric and operate more efficiently, while elevating the digital shopping experience for our customers,” commented David Clark, chief customer officer for Frasers Group. “This is a major project for Frasers, and the significant investment made demonstrates our confidence in our strategy and the strength of our business, as we continue to provide unmatched retail experiences for our customers, both in our store and online.”

AdvancedAdvT to acquire IDP vendor Celaton

International software solutions provider for the business solutions, healthcare compliance and human capital management sectors AdvancedAdvT has agreed to acquire IDP platform Celaton. Celaton is a machine-learning AI-based intelligent process automation (IPA) platform that provides IDP with automatic data recognition, classification, validation and enrichment, process automation with machine-learning AI algorithms and analytics. Completion of the acquisition is subject to and conditional upon National Security and Investment Act approval.

“Celaton operates within a market experiencing significant rising demand for AI, automation and efficiencies,” said Vin Murria, AdvancedAdvT’s executive chairperson. “It will be immediately beneficial to the wider AdvT client base, with its e-invoicing, AI, document processing IP-centric product. This is especially timely considering the recent notice that a material alternative supplier intends to withdraw from the market, creating further immediate opportunities.”

READ: Conversational AI in intelligent document processing

iGrafx and Planaletix partner to deliver AI-driven process intelligence solutions

Process intelligence solutions provider iGrafx announced a strategic partnership with Planaletix, an AI company based in the United Arab Emirates, to redefine productivity through AI-driven solutions. The collaboration combines iGrafx’s expertise in process intelligence with Planaletix’s dedication to efficiency and innovation, integrating Process360 Live into their services to enhance productivity in organizations, the pair said. This highlights a joint commitment to achieve operational excellence and successful digital transformation, helping organizations stay at the forefront of AI-driven business enhancements, they added.

Process360 Live will integrate with Planaletix services across various use cases including optical character recognition (OCR), document automation, workflow prediction, KPI benchmarking and large language model customization.

Fabcon announces new management team to enhance operational excellence and drive growth

US-based precision metal fabricator and contract manufacturer Fabcon revealed a new management team to spearhead strategic initiatives aimed at enhancing operational excellence and driving growth. The new management team comprises experienced leaders committed to the employees that make Fabcon’s vertically integrated operations successful and poised to strengthen Fabcon’s position in the industry, the firm said. They include Francisco Palop, VP of operations and Mark Brushaber, who will manage Fabcon’s financial operations and reporting.

“Each member of our new management team brings a wealth of experience and a proven track record of success,” commented Hamid Sarshar, CEO of Fabcon. “Their diverse skills and deep industry knowledge are vital as we continue to innovate and improve our offerings to meet the needs of our customers.”

ABBYY supports non-profit ForHumanity to develop independent AI audit systems

Business process automation vendor ABBYY is supporting non-profit public charity ForHumanity to assist financial services organizations in meeting new regulations on the use of AI. ABBYY will be a co-leader of a working group focused on establishing audit criteria for using AI, algorithmic and autonomous systems (AAA). This is in response to the EU AI Act and US AI Executive Order that have set in motion regulations governing the ethics, bias, privacy, trust and cyber security of AAA systems that will require global organizations to affirm compliance.

“The unique, socio-technical characteristics of AAA systems necessitate additional governance, oversight and accountability to meet the requirements of regulators and uphold the laws designed to protect consumers,” said Ryan Carrier, executive director at ForHumanity. “We are fortunate to have ABBYY’s expertise supporting this initiative.”

Supporting the development of independent audit criteria is part of ABBYY’s commitment to building trustworthy AI that is purpose-built for financial services organizations’ business-critical processes, added Andrew Pery, AI ethics evangelist at ABBYY. “From cutting-edge investment strategies to credit risk assessments, ensuring the ethical use of AI is paramount to consumer trust and safety.”

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