UK business group condemns Labour nationalisation plans, Brexit delay

Reuters | May 21, 2019

Plans by Britain’s opposition Labour Party to nationalise utilities including the country’s electricity grid will damage investment as well as hurting many small shareholders, one of the country’s main business groups warned on Tuesday. Last week, Labour published plans to renationalise the country’s 60-billion-pound energy networks, taking companies such as National Grid, Scottish Power and SSE into public ownership.Utilities warned this would damage investment, and on Tuesday the Confederation of British Industry’s president, John Allan, said he feared the impact would spread beyond the businesses directly affected.

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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY

ABBYY Expands Strategic Partnerships to Accelerate Modernization of Government Agencies

Businesswire | April 28, 2023

ABBYY today announced it has expanded its partnerships that serve state and local government agencies. Data from the Government Accountability Office revealed that federal IT legacy systems cost over $330 million annually to maintain, while delivering sub-optimal service and carrying risks inherent to older platforms. To address the agencies’ needs to modernize both back-end and consumer-facing IT systems, ABBYY partnerships will expand the accessibility of its intelligent automation solutions to streamline cumbersome processes, enhance citizen experiences and improve the overall ability to meet constituents’ needs. Among ABBYY’s expanded partnerships is MCCi, which was recently named as a company to watch in the annual GovTech 100. MCCi has numerous ongoing initiatives to digitally transform government services, including unemployment and Social Security fraud mitigation and accounts payable automation. The city of Coppell, Texas is among their customers that have successfully automated accounts payable processes using ABBYY intelligent document processing solutions to turn key document insights into efficient outcomes. By leveraging ABBYY technology, Coppell reduced invoice processing time from days to minutes. “Right out of the box, ABBYY intelligent document processing was very impressive,” said Jerod Anderson, director of Enterprise Solutions for the city of Coppell. “We gave it a dozen of our invoices, and it processed with 99% accuracy on 90% of those. It uses machine learning, so once it’s corrected, the next time an invoice from that vendor comes through, ABBYY understands it and will process it with 100% accuracy.” Additionally, MCCi holds a contract with the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) where ABBYY is a part of an approved distributor solution. ABBYY is also approved through several other government contracts, including the State of New York Information Technology Umbrella Contract, the State of California Software License Program, and the NASPO ValuePoint Cooperative Purchasing Contract via Carahsoft. Furthermore, our approval through Carahsoft has enabled state agencies to leverage ABBYY IDP and Proof of Identity in the motor vehicle sector to expedite document review and identity verification and proofing. “Our expanded partnership with ABBYY to serve the public sector is crucial because in many cases paper processes are necessary to provide services to constituents caught in the digital divide,” stated Donny Barstow, CEO of MCCi. “Paper forms do not have to slow modernization efforts. Clients like Coppell, TX are accelerating their adoption of automation technologies because of all the aforementioned drivers and are having proven, repeated success in improving their citizens’ experience.” Bruce Orcutt, SVP of Product Marketing at ABBYY commented, "Agencies in the public sector work with trusted, best-in-breed solutions that are scalable and easy to deploy. We have the expertise to address the growing document-centric challenges of these agencies, especially as rises in unemployment claims increase the need to accelerate processing while mitigating fraud risk. MCCi has deep connections and understands the public sector, enabling them to navigate citizens’ weariness toward poor service experiences. Strategic partnerships like these are instrumental to our growth and contributions in the public sector.” As citizens grow accustomed to exemplary customer experiences provided by Amazon and banking institutions, their expectations of government entities evolve. For example, a recent ABBYY survey identified the top three factors contributing to the public dropping out of registration for government services as taking too much time/too many steps (54%), requiring excessive and repetitive manual entry (50%), and making identity verification too difficult (26%). About ABBYY ABBYY powers intelligent automation. We reimagine the way people work and how companies accelerate business by delivering the intelligence that fuels automation platforms. Our solutions transform enterprise data and empower you with the insights you need to work smarter and faster. We help more than 10,000 companies globally, including many of the Fortune 500, to drive significant impact where it matters most: customer experience, profitability, and competitive advantage. ABBYY is a US-based global company with offices in 14 countries. For more information, visit www.abbyy.com. About MCCi MCCi is a business process automation company that accelerates digital transformation by adding intelligence to your processes. As an IT services company with expertise in delivering end-to-end professional services provider, we provide our clients some of the leading technologies for business process automation, including Laserfiche for content services, Blue Prism and UiPath for robotic process automation, ABBYY for intelligent capture, and One Span for digital signatures. We are a trusted partner to over 1,100 government organizations, including cities, counties, state agencies, special districts, K-12, and higher education and are a proud GovTech 100 company for 2023.

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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY

Second Front Systems and Snowflake Announce Partnership

Prnewswire | April 26, 2023

Second Front Systems, a public-benefit software company focused on accelerating the delivery of mission-critical software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to government, is collaborating with Snowflake to offer a comprehensive DevSecOps capability to organizations serving the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and Intelligence Community markets. "Second Front™ is proud to be partnering with Snowflake, the leader in the data cloud industry. This collaboration expands the impact of both company's solutions and positions us to jointly enable secure, streamlined delivery of innovative technology to the DoD, Intelligence Community, and beyond," said Tyler Sweatt, Chief Revenue Officer of Second Front. "By combining components of Data Cloud and the Game Warden® platform, SaaS companies can leverage a best-in-breed offering that positions them for both initial adoption and long-term success with the federal government." Snowflake enables every organization to mobilize their data with Snowflake's Data Cloud. Customers use the Data Cloud to unite siloed data, discover and securely share data, and execute diverse analytic workloads. Wherever data or users live, Snowflake delivers a single data experience that spans multiple clouds and geographies. "Snowflake is excited to be collaborating with our partner and mission-driven innovator, Second Front. Our combined technologies create a unique solution that better serves the federal government by reducing friction around access to and adoption of cutting-edge technologies," said Winston Chang, Snowflake's Global Public Sector CTO. "Working directly with Second Front on this DevSecOps initiative positions Snowflake to continue enabling data as a strategic asset in a variety of relevant national defense workloads." Second Front will continue to expand its partnerships with other defense innovation enablers like Snowflake, AWS, and Carahsoft in order to provide our commercial customers the best available solutions for delivery to the DoD and Intelligence Community market. About Second Front Systems Second Front Systems (2F) fast-tracks government access to disruptive, commercially-proven software as a service (SaaS) applications for national security missions. Leading software providers—ranging from publicly traded defense contractors to startups—and government agencies trust 2F's Game Warden DevSecOps platform and secure cloud hosting environment to accelerate their delivery and harness the cloud revolution at scale. Founded by former U.S. Marines, this public benefit, venture-backed software company is driven by firsthand experience of the dangers outdated technology poses in combat. For more information, visit https://secondfront.com/ About Snowflake Snowflake enables every organization to mobilize their data with Snowflake's Data Cloud. Customers use the Data Cloud to unite siloed data, discover and securely share data, and execute diverse analytic workloads. Wherever data or users live, Snowflake delivers a single data experience that spans multiple clouds and geographies. Thousands of customers across many industries, including 573 of the 2022 Forbes Global 2000 (G2K) as of January 31, 2023, use Snowflake Data Cloud to power their businesses. Learn more at snowflake.com.

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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY

Inmarsat Government's GX LITE wins Government Mobile Innovation Award by MSUA

Inmarsat Government | March 16, 2023

On March 15, 2023, Inmarsat Government, one of the most advanced global mobile satellite communication service providers, announced that its GX LITE land user terminal has won the 2023 Satellite Mobile Innovation Award from the Mobile Satellite User Association (MSUA). The terminal won the Government Mobile Innovation category, marking the seventh time in the past eight years that Inmarsat has been awarded this annual award. The new GX LITE terminal offers reliable and safe broadband connectivity for tactical military and non-military users globally. The terminal is provided through Inmarsat's Global Xpress (GX) Ka-band network. Built for land users with 'grab and go' applications, the terminal's global access, portability, and secure operations come at an affordable price. GX LITE was developed with Get SAT, Inmarsat Government's value-added manufacturing partner. Get SAT innovates lightweight satellite communication for airborne, ground and maritime applications. The terminal is simple to install and operate, requiring no user configuration to establish a network connection anywhere. In addition, it has a front-panel interface and a Wi-Fi capability that the user can enable or disable. GX LITE utilizes efficient, flat-panel antenna technologies and supports Committed Information Rate (CIR) and unique Maximum Information Rate (MIR) users globally. It is lightweight (21.4 lbs.), thin (16.6" W, 11.5" L and 3.3" D) and effortlessly transportable with a carrying case that fits in the overhead compartment of a commercial aircraft. In addition, the terminal has low power consumption and can operate for up to three hours on batteries alone. About Inmarsat Government Inmarsat Government is one of the leading mission-critical telecommunications service provider, offers reliable, secure and affordable connectivity to the U.S. intelligence, defense, public safety, homeland security, and civilian agencies. The company was established in 1979 and is implementing solutions considering government users' needs. It offers flexible capabilities to complement government satellite resources anywhere, anytime. Utilizing an industry-leading scalable multiband network infrastructure, Inmarsat Government provides managed network services and end-to-end communication solutions to help users on land, at sea and in the air, even in the world's most remote regions.

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