Category: Workato

Feed: The Connector by Workato. Author: Katharine Marais; Amid the buzz surrounding AI (a Gartner survey in 2018 reports that “11% of marketing technology executives reported AI as their top choice as the technology that would have the most impact on their marketing efforts in the next five years”), business leaders may ask if AI (artificial intelligence) is really mature and valuable today for marketing and sales- and if so, how it can be tangibly implemented.  Table of Contents Is there such a thing as AI marketing? According to McKinsey & Co., AI does currently offer real value for marketing ... Read More

Feed: The Connector by Workato. Author: Katharine Marais; The specific outcomes of digital transformation may vary by sector.  Companies in the pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospitality sector are newly able to offer paperless processes with an online, mobile-first mindset. In the financial sector processes are integrated more seamlessly into our everyday lives via mobile data plans and mobile banking (enabled by fintech). And in the retail sector, companies offer incredibly rapid order fulfillment processes. But from a philosophical and technological standpoint, there are many commonalities in the digital transformation process across verticals.  The initiatives involved in digital transformation: Meeting rising customer ... Read More

Feed: The Connector by Workato. Author: Katharine Marais; Novel fintech like cryptocurrency and blockchain have disrupted and fundamentally reimagined such previously eminent and staid realities such as the government monopoly on currency-creation. As fintech has risen to prominence, an unlikely mascot has emerged to represent the convenience enabled by novel financial technologies; mobile banking ads have portrayed ballerinas paying for goods while performing- logging into Visa or Chase apps from the wings, or hilariously, paying for goods while doing a “grand jete between two grand pianos,” in one tongue-in-cheek commercial by Chase. They portray a shared sentiment: that we are ... Read More

Feed: The Connector by Workato. Author: Katharine Marais; From software integration, to batch processing, to connectors, this encyclopedia introduces you to some foundational concepts in automation. Types of Integration and Automation Software Integration Software that’s been designed separately needs to be integrated for information to move between applications. Businesses today use many SaaS apps, databases, and microservices; it’s important to integrate applications in order to keep accounts in sync across applications and to automate processes across multiple applications. Software integration lays the foundation for automation.  Enterprise Application Integration Enterprise Application Integration refers to the process or infrastructure of integrating the ... Read More

Feed: The Connector by Workato. Author: Katharine Marais; Workflow automation amplifies human productivity. By tapping into the extraordinary processing and storage power of computers, humans can augment their own abilities and improve their productivity. -West, Darrel M. The Future of Work (pp. 19-20). Brookings Institution Press. Kindle Edition.  Pop cultural dialogue around automation tends to focus on anthropomorphic robotics- machines like Toyota’s humanoid T-HR3 robot, or industrial robot “arms” that simulate the biomechanics of a human arm. These types of robots are built to look like people and complete tasks by the same set of mechanical actions that people do ... Read More

Feed: The Connector by Workato. Author: Katharine Marais; Here are the key concepts to consider when designing your automation strategy and digital transformation strategy for 2020. Operating in real-time- not scheduled batch operations. Historically, businesses have reconciled on a calendar schedule, for example, syncing thousands of customer records at the end of the day into the central data management system or data warehouse. However, companies are increasingly moving toward real-time data syncs that keep data up-to-date in real time throughout the day as transactions occur, as best practice for a digitally transformed enterprise. This is an important shift, because companies ... Read More

Feed: The Connector by Workato. Author: Katharine Marais; The cloud era has changed directory services. No longer just a list of internal employee information such as IP and email addresses, the cloud directory is a dynamic set of connected credentials that’s used to control access to various internal resources, such as IT permissions. A cloud directory serves as the single source of truth for identity, and it allows for central administration. Considering that reports indicate 83% of enterprise workloads will be in the cloud by 2020, it follows that organizations require a cloud native solution to directory services. Considering that ... Read More

Feed: The Connector by Workato. Author: Katharine Marais; Why use artificial intelligence for HR automation? “AI is an accelerator – it allows us the ability to ingest a variety of data and provide context to a decision maker or employee or business leader. It allows us to deliver the right intelligence in the moment and achieve personalization at scale.” – Tom Stachura, Vice President Talent Solutions & People Analytics, IBM Artificial intelligence and HR may seem antithetical, and this seemingly unlikely yet increasingly common partnership between AI and HR can often cause public dialogue around artificial intelligence and workflow automation ... Read More

Feed: The Connector by Workato. Author: Katharine Marais; Integration platform as a service (iPaaS) has come about to fill a market need created by the proliferation of SaaS applications. Today’s cloud-based enterprise application landscape necessitates a cloud-based integration solution. So what is iPaaS, what is the difference between the market offerings for iPaaS, and what can it do for your organization? Table of Contents What is iPaaS?  Gartner defines iPaaS as: “a suite of cloud services enabling development, execution and governance of integration flows connecting any combination of on premises and cloud-based processes, services, applications and data within individual or ... Read More

Feed: The Connector by Workato. Author: Katharine Marais; Founded in 2013, Fundbox is a market-leading B2B payments and credit network designed to facilitate and accelerate B2B commerce at scale,. With Fundbox, sellers (of all sizes) can quickly increase average order volumes (AOV) and improve close rates by offering more competitive net terms and payment plans to their SMB buyers. With heavy investments in machine learning and the ability to quickly analyze transactional data, Fundbox is reimagining B2B payments and credit products in new category-defining ways.. Fundbox’s novel approach involves making data-driven decisions, rather than business owner information that traditional banks ... Read More