TechTouch Asia

By Wenhui Yang, GM, UnionPay International Southeast Asia There is no doubt that the unfolding of the global public health crisis today has had widespread impact on economies, businesses and almost all aspects of our lives, on a scale that we have never seen before. However, amidst the gloomy repercussions felt at various levels of the society, the payments industry as a whole is encouraged to see a silver lining in the acceleration of digital payment adoption during this exceptional time. Over a year ago, when we first released The Future of Payments Study conducted by UnionPay International in partnership with Nielsen on 400 mobile payment users in Singapore, we found that cash was clearly king across all consumer segments. Not only was cash the most popular mode of payment used by over nine in 10 (94%) respondents, it was also one of the most frequently-used payment modes. However, in light of the recent developments as a result of the global pandemic, we may well see an accele...

By Friedhelm Best, VP Asia Pacific, HIMA Source: HIMA. Best. The global COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a spanner in the works for many plants and factories, with legislated shutdowns and lockdowns that prevented many from continuing operations, or at limited operations with skeletal staff. While many plants and workers languished, leaders of such plants began to hasten re-engineering their plants for a post-COVID-19 world. This re-engineering will not merely be about COVID-19 safe distancing and hygiene measures mandated by regulators, but also automation, modernisation, and conforming to local industrial safety regimes, such as the Singapore Safety Case for MHIs (major hazard installations). Every plant is unique Every modernisation, whether to spruce up antiquated equipment and processes, or to completely change over to bleeding-edge technologies such as industrial robots and cobots (collaborative robots), is all about fitting the exact needs of the organisation. There is n...

By Sebastian Grady, President, Rimini Street Undertaking digital transformation means also transforming how IT success is defined, including metrics that address business in the cloud. With up to 90% of budgets spent keeping the lights on, cost is always an important metric for IT. Yet, the cloud hype is also about improving performance - going beyond these time and budget basics as the obvious performance metrics, it’s the secondary effects of operating in the cloud that are often the culprits for under-performance and over-spend. For example, a secondary-effect shortage of IT experts wielding skills in integration, interoperability and security can raise costs to the point where an organisation is unable to reskill current resources in a timely manner, forcing the rental of high-priced contractors to provide these ‘must-have’ skills for cloud projects or support. The occurrence of this type of unforeseen issue of business in the cloud can have a significant toll on overall impact. ...

EfficientIP , a provider of network security and automation solutions, has launched Cloud IPAM Sync , a new service that enables IT managers to improve control over applications hosted in multicloud environments. Cloud IPAM Sync uses DDI, which stands for domain name system (DNS), dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP), and Internet protocol address management (IPAM), to provide real-time repository information that enhances visibility and management for internal and cloud data centres. According to EfficientIP, the global COVID-19 pandemic has made the cloud more popular than ever, as enterprises drive an increasing number of applications to the cloud to better enable remote work. As they do so, companies are mixing the use of their own private clouds with the use of public, third-party clouds (such as Amazon Web Services or AWS and Microsoft Azure Cloud ), which creates a dispersed, hybrid-cloud environment that is difficult to oversee and protect. Even without COVID-19 c...

Fuji Xerox Singapore has launched 19 models from its digital multifunction printer ApeosPort and DocuPrint series. Combined with Fuji Xerox’s solutions, the new models will allow businesses to address challenges on security, efficiency, complexity as well as changes in workstyle and space. “Fuji Xerox gives businesses the freedom to overcome workplace obstacles through workflow efficiency,” said Kiyoyuki Miyasaka, GM, Strategic Business Operations, Fuji Xerox Singapore. “With the launch of the 19 new models, we have challenged ourselves to address the ever-evolving needs of businesses, to support and enable greater productivity for more flexible teams to innovate at speed and scale, free from interruption or risk of security breaches, in today’s new norm of working.” These new digital devices can be utilised to reinforce businesses for the future model of remote working and address collaborative team needs, without taking a compromise on security. Feature highlights include: 36...

Charlie Giancarlo, Chairman and CEO, Pure Storage , suggests that it’s time to rethink enterprise infrastructure. In his keynote at Pure//Accelerate Digital he said, “The nature of work has changed very suddenly, and probably forever. More than ever, you need more remote capabilities at scale. You need more automation and consolidation.” Giancarlo delivers his keynote at Pure//Accelerate Digital. The strategy that guides and differentiates Pure was introduced at Accelerate last year: the Modern Data Experience, Giancarlo said. "When we first introduced the Modern Data Experience I described it as a beginning and a long term vision, one that would take well into our second decade to complete,” he said. Giancarlo introduced three imperatives for surviving and thriving in a crisis from the enterprise storage perspective: Secure your foundation and focus on flexibility While rapid early responses in the COVID-19 crisis has meant dealing with the urgent and putting everyt...

Newly-launched Truescope is set to challenge the media intelligence industry. Entrepreneurs John Croll and Michael Bade have built a platform to help inform communicators about breaking news as well as identify issues and trends in real-time. Launched in Singapore and Australia, the cloud-based platform is designed to provide insights about consumer sentiment, brand awareness, campaign performance, and customer experience. The technology analyses millions of social and mainstream media stories in real-time. Machine learning and natural language processing are used to distill sentiment, potential effects on brand reputation and assist brands in measuring brand awareness and communications effectiveness. "We think our approach to people, product and scalability is revolutionary in this space, and we all have the unequivocal mindset that the client experience is central to everything we do. We're ready to build bridges between new technologies and the communications indust...