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Conduent Expands Finance and Procurement Capabilities with Fairmarkit's AI-Powered Technologies including GenAI

Conduent Expands Finance and Procurement Capabilities with Fairmarkit's AI-Powered Technologies including GenAI

Business Wire5 days ago
BUSINESS WIRE)-- Conduent Incorporated (Nasdaq: CNDT), a global technology-driven business solutions and services provider, today announced a strategic collaboration with Fairmarkit, an autonomous AI-powered sourcing platform designed to optimize procurement workflows from RFP to award for all levels of spend. The Fairmarkit sourcing technology will complement Conduent's FastCap® Finance Analytics, which improves financial performance by identifying cost-saving opportunities within procurement and spend management.
Fairmarkit Brings World-Class AI Tools to Drive More Powerful Results
Fairmarkit's platform utilizes the most impactful AI technologies to enable robust procurement support:
Streamline Procurement Processes – Support full range of workflow processes from sourcing strategic suppliers to managing RFP responses and awards to drive greater efficiency and visibility across suppliers.
Enhance Sourcing Accuracy – Use AI-driven insights to refine purchasing decisions.
Expand Cost-Saving Opportunities – Offer real-time data analytics to optimize spend management.
The data from FastCap, a finance analytics tool that prevents and recovers payment errors, can identify opportunities to improve tail spend. Combining the capabilities of FastCap and Fairmarkit automates the capture of those tail spend opportunities to accelerate savings.
By preventing or recovering overpayments, FastCap identified over $800 million of savings and recoveries, representing up to 10% of addressable spend, since 2021. Through spend compliance, automated bidding and enhanced supply options, FastCap and Fairmarkit together could drive 3-6% more in savings for companies.
'FastCap has resulted in significant savings for clients, while helping to drive contract compliance, risk reduction and financial visibility,' said Mike McDaniel, Group President of Commercial Solutions at Conduent. 'We will continue to expand FastCap's capabilities to solve key client challenges and generate business outcomes. Collaborating with innovative solution partners like Fairmarkit helps our clients further advance their objectives and create stronger financial results.'
'We're thrilled to partner with Conduent to bring the power of AI-powered sourcing to a broader range of procurement teams,' said Allison Yount, Vice President of Partnerships and Business Development at Fairmarkit. 'Conduent's deep expertise in procurement transformation, combined with Fairmarkit's intelligent technology and experience working with the world's leading procurement teams, creates a compelling solution that empowers organizations to optimize their spend, streamline processes, and unlock new value from their sourcing activities.'
Conduent's Finance, Accounting and Procurement Solutions —now enhanced by Fairmarkit's capabilities—accelerate cost savings while streamlining procurement processes, empowering organizations to make smarter, data-driven decisions.
About Fairmarkit
Fairmarkit is the premiere AI-powered autonomous sourcing solution for enterprise procurement, empowering teams to manage all types of spend more efficiently from demand to award. Fairmarkit's award-winning AI product suite delivers unparalleled efficiency to each step of the procurement cycle, equipping teams to source better, faster and cheaper with greater risk mitigation. Procurement teams from Amazon, BP, Goodyear, Nestle and other global powerhouses are using Fairmarkit to take on more spend under management, enhance compliance, strengthen supplier relationships, and achieve record savings. For more information, visit Fairmarkit.com.
About Conduent
Conduent delivers digital business solutions and services spanning the commercial, government and transportation spectrum – creating valuable outcomes for its clients and the millions of people who count on them. The Company leverages cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation and advanced analytics to deliver mission-critical solutions. Through a dedicated global team of approximately 56,000 associates, process expertise and advanced technologies, Conduent's solutions and services digitally transform its clients' operations to enhance customer experiences, improve performance, increase efficiencies and reduce costs. Conduent adds momentum to its clients' missions in many ways including disbursing approximately $85 billion in government payments annually, enabling 2.3 billion customer service interactions annually, empowering millions of employees through HR services every year and processing nearly 13 million tolling transactions every day. Learn more at www.conduent.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release, any exhibits or attachments to this release, and other public statements we make may contain "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The words 'anticipate,' 'believe,' 'estimate,' 'expect,' "expectations," "in front of us," "plan," 'intend,' 'will,' 'aim,' 'should,' 'could,' 'forecast,' 'target,' 'may,' "continue to," "looking to continue," 'endeavor,' "if,' 'growing,' 'projected,' 'potential,' 'likely,' "see," "ahead," "further," "going forward," "on the horizon," "as we progress," "going to," "path from here forward," "think," "path to deliver," "from here," "on track," "remain" and similar expressions (including the negative and plural forms of such words and phrases), as they relate to us, are intended to identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release or any attachment to this press release are forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the planned adoption of technology, including all statements made under the first paragraph under the caption 'Future EMV Chip and Mobile Wallet Integration' within this release. These statements reflect our current views with respect to future events and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions, many of which are outside of our control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected or implied by such forward-looking statements contained in this press release, any exhibits to this press release and other public statements we make.
Important factors and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those in our forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to those factors that are set forth in the 'Risk Factors' section, the 'Legal Proceedings' section, the 'Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations' section and other sections in our 2024 Annual Report on Form 10-K, as well as in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward-looking statements made by us in this release speak only as of the date on which they are made. We are under no obligation to, and expressly disclaim any obligation to, update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, subsequent events or otherwise, except as required by law.
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Apple's Innovation Slows as Valuation Stays Rich
Apple's Innovation Slows as Valuation Stays Rich

Yahoo

time38 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Apple's Innovation Slows as Valuation Stays Rich

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) recently held its WWDC 2025 presentation, and as always, some new developments were expected, which the company did deliver, but they fell far short of expectations or of being factors that would really change the thesis. And that, in my view, sums up Apple today. There is nothing wrong with the company (just as there was nothing exactly bad about the event), it is still quite solid and has huge moats, but in my view, the premium remains unjustifiable, and therefore, the total return, or IRR, is quite low with the current market cap. Before talking about WWDC 2025, let's talk about 2024. At the same event last year, the company revealed a number of interesting things for its operating systems. A series of features related to customization, a lot of interesting things for the iPad used with the Apple Pencil, and most importantly, Apple Intelligence. And this Apple's AI seemed very promising to boost its product cycle, and the company needed that. So, it was something that took away the burden of Apple being a loser in the AI race and put it back in the forefront, reinforcing the thesis that with its loyal user base and diverse products, it would be able to apply and monetize this well. Well, Apple Intelligence didn't exactly fail; its features are useful, but it's worth mentioning that it wasn't quite what it seemed to be a year ago. Some things still need to be improved, and all that. But the point is that, especially when compared to last year, this year's event can be labeled as disappointing. The main novelty of WWDC 2025 was Liquid Glass, an interface update that was even a little controversial, with some users concerned about how the interface will be in the next iOS, and some other features that even seem reasonable. But the point here is, there was no super innovative feature, nothing like Apple Intelligence, no eye-catching point related to AI or the like. And that may not seem super worrying, and it really isn't, since it's a conference more focused on software and the company will still have the opportunity to surprise us with the launch of the iPhone 17, but still, it's as if Apple missed an opportunity to prove itself, and it still needs to do that. When we analyze the last quarter, revenue was $95.3 billion. This gives us a YoY growth of 5.2%, which is already enough for compounding when dealing with a premium company like this. The problem is that in products, growth was less than 3%, i.e., what sustained this entire increase was the main bullish pillar of the thesis today: services. Services revenue grew almost 12% YoY. In addition to driving revenue, services are also driving gross margin, which reached 47%. This is clearly a very important pillar for Apple, and will most likely be the main generator of value in the coming years. There is nothing wrong with that, except for some uncertainties and dependence. First, there are uncertainties in services. Even if the company manages to continue adding more services and subscription prices grow at a reasonable pace, there are many regulatory uncertainties. Apple has already faced legal challenges regarding Apple Store fees, for instance. If the company has to lower this fee or open up part of its system for some reason, and this results in lower revenue from its platforms, we may see a slowdown in services growth. The second point is dependence. In my view, the moats are clear, but the valuation is also premium. Therefore, it is not possible to credit the entire value of the thesis to services. There also needs to be clearer triggers for its products, whether the company is implementing new features, innovating in the next iPhones, or creating/exploring new markets, as was the (so far unsuccessful) attempt with Apple Vision Pro. It is worth mentioning that both services and products, even with a loyal fan base and a complete ecosystem that ends up being a barrier to exit, are exposed to the risk of competition. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (SSNGY), for instance, has been doing a good job with its smartphones in terms of AI integration. India is an emerging market and is one of the triggers for Apple due to premiumization trends in emerging countries as people's incomes increase and they are able to buy their first smartphones and also migrate to more premium products. But even though this is one of the pillars for enhancing revenue growth, the competition is clear. In the table below, we can see that Apple posted YoY growth of 23% in the Indian market in Q1, but Vivo, Samsung, and other Chinese brands such as Oppo, Realme, and Xiaomi are doing very well too. This raises the bar for Apple and means that its strategies, innovation, and product appeal need to be even greater. As for the gurus, many are reducing their positions in Apple, and not just Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio). Some examples are Mario Gabelli (Trades, Portfolio), Li Lu, Tom Russo (Trades, Portfolio), and several others, as this tab shows. Many of these investors are stock pickers, care about value investing, and/or have low portfolio turnover, which indicates that Apple is not really compelling enough to make reducing positions an appropriate tactic. The 10-Year Treasury yield is currently at 4.5%. This means that if we used a discount rate of 4.5% for Apple's projected free cash flow, we would be asking for a 0% equity risk premium. To show how the current valuation is not so compelling, let's make optimistic assumptions. For the growth stage, let's assume a 10% CAGR for FCF. For the terminal stage, let's estimate 6%. Discounting this at a rate of 5% gives us a fair value of $197, still below Apple's current price. It is worth mentioning that this is only a proxy for fair value. It is possible to argue that Apple will not generate free cash flow for only 20 years, and that in good cycles it may present a CAGR above 6%. In the last decade, for example, this FCF grew by about 13.7% per share, a result not only of free cash flow growth but also of buybacks. But in my view, this scenario is enough to show that the current price does not offer a high margin of safety. Believing that the indicators will continue to grow at a consistently good pace and discounting at an incredibly low rate (0.5% equity risk premium) is very optimistic, and even then, there would be no upside. Apple is a premium company and deserves to be recognized for that. Its excellent track record, great profitability figures, strong margins, stable cash flow, and the prospect that it will continue to grow at a healthy pace really need a premium valuation. The question is just how premium it should be. The forward price-to-earnings ratio of 30x shows that for a reasonable upside, the company needs to surprise, and even if this scenario exists, it is not guaranteed. Therefore, at the current price, I am still more cautious about Apple. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Terra Firma Energy Welcome UK Government Consultation on Hydrogen Blending into Great Britains Gas Transmission Network
Terra Firma Energy Welcome UK Government Consultation on Hydrogen Blending into Great Britains Gas Transmission Network

Business Wire

time40 minutes ago

  • Business Wire

Terra Firma Energy Welcome UK Government Consultation on Hydrogen Blending into Great Britains Gas Transmission Network

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At Terra Firma Energy, we welcome the UK Government's consultation into the blending of Hydrogen into Britain's Gas Transmission Network as a timely and positive step forward for both the UK's decarbonisation goals and the future of flexible power generation. All our projects are engineered to be hydrogen-ready from the outset, ensuring long-term operational flexibility and resilience in a rapidly evolving energy landscape. By anticipating changes in fuel supply and regulatory frameworks, we have future-proofed our generation assets to adapt quickly to low-carbon solutions like hydrogen blending. The ability to support hydrogen integration, even at early-stage blend levels, reinforces our commitment to sustainable innovation and positions our portfolio to contribute meaningfully to a net zero grid. Terra Firma Energy welcome UK Government Consultation on Hydrogen Blending into Great Britains Gas Transmission Network. Share The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has launched a new consultation exploring the potential for blending low-carbon hydrogen into Great Britain's gas transmission network. Following previous consultations on hydrogen blending into local distribution networks, the government is now seeking views on whether introducing hydrogen at the transmission level - the high-pressure National Transmission System (NTS) - could offer strategic and economic value. A Step Toward Net Zero Hydrogen is seen as a key player in the UK's push to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Blending low-carbon hydrogen with natural gas could offer a transitional path, supporting early-stage hydrogen production while reducing the carbon intensity of the existing gas network. DESNZ is currently evaluating whether to enable blending of up to 2% hydrogen by volume into the NTS. This small percentage could act as an 'off-taker of last resort' for hydrogen producers, providing a backup market when dedicated customers are not available. Balancing Innovation with Risk The consultation outlines both the potential benefits and challenges. While hydrogen blending could support the growth of the hydrogen economy and help manage electricity system constraints, it also raises concerns for industrial users connected to the transmission system. Many of these users rely on stable, high-quality gas supplies, and even a 2% hydrogen blend could affect equipment performance, increase costs, or require infrastructure upgrades. Terra Firma Energy have been proactive in ensuring all our projects have been built utilising hydrogen ready generation sets that can accommodate a 20% blend of hydrogen into the network. Studies cited in the consultation show that most transmission-connected users could technically handle a 2% blend with minimal changes, though feasibility studies and equipment modifications may still be necessary. At higher blends (5% or 20%), the risks and costs escalate significantly. Cross-Border Considerations The UK's ability to blend hydrogen is also influenced by developments in the EU. Under the EU Hydrogen and Decarbonised Gas Market Package, Member States can blend up to 2% hydrogen by volume, but are not required to do so. This creates potential interoperability issues with the UK's gas inter-connectors to Ireland, Belgium, and the Netherlands - especially if hydrogen blends exceed that threshold.

AAPL LEGAL ALERT: Lose Money on Your Apple Inc. Investment? Contact BFA Law by August 19 Class Action Deadline (NASDAQ:AAPL)
AAPL LEGAL ALERT: Lose Money on Your Apple Inc. Investment? Contact BFA Law by August 19 Class Action Deadline (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Associated Press

time40 minutes ago

  • Associated Press

AAPL LEGAL ALERT: Lose Money on Your Apple Inc. Investment? Contact BFA Law by August 19 Class Action Deadline (NASDAQ:AAPL)

NEW YORK, Aug. 03, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Leading securities law firm Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP announces that a lawsuit has been filed against Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and certain of the Company's senior executives for potential violations of the federal securities laws. If you invested in Apple, you are encouraged to obtain additional information by visiting: Investors have until August 19, 2025, to ask the Court to be appointed to lead the case. The complaint asserts claims under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 on behalf of investors who purchased Apple securities. The case is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and is captioned Tucker v. Apple Inc., et al., No. 5:25-cv-05197. Why was Apple Sued for Securities Fraud? Apple is a multinational technology company that engages primarily in the businesses of smart-devices and artificial intelligence ('AI'). Apple's software includes a digital personal assistant called 'Siri,' which was first introduced in October 2011. The complaint alleges that Apple misrepresented Siri's advanced AI-based features as well as its ability to deliver them within the iPhone 16 product cycle. In truth, as alleged, Apple lacked a functional prototype of Siri's purported advanced AI-based features and misrepresented the time it would take to integrate such features into its devices. The Stock Declines as the Truth is Revealed On March 7, 2025, Apple announced it was indefinitely delaying several AI-based Siri features, citing development delays and pushing their release to sometime 'in the coming year.' On this news, the price of Apple stock declined $11.59 per share, or almost 5%, from $239.07 per share on March 7, 2025, to $227.48 per share on March 10, 2025, the following trading day. Then, on June 9, 2025, Apple hosted its Worldwide Developer Conference for 2025. Noticeably, Apple failed to announce any new updates regarding advanced Siri features. Analysts and media outlets described the WWDC as 'underwhelming' and 'disappointing,' with CNN stating that 'it's unlikely that any of the announcements made at Monday's event will change the perception that Apple is behind its competitors in AI.' On this news, the price of Apple stock declined $2.47 per share, or over 1%, from $203.92 on June 6, 2025, to $201.45 per share on June 9, 2025, the following trading day. Click here for more information: What Can You Do? If you invested in Apple you may have legal options and are encouraged to submit your information to the firm. All representation is on a contingency fee basis, there is no cost to you. Shareholders are not responsible for any court costs or expenses of litigation. The firm will seek court approval for any potential fees and expenses. Submit your information by visiting: Or contact: Ross Shikowitz [email protected] 212.789.3619 Why Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP? BFA is a leading international law firm representing plaintiffs in securities class actions and shareholder litigation. It has been named a top plaintiff law firm by Chambers USA, The Legal 500, and ISS SCAS, and its attorneys have been named 'Elite Trial Lawyers' by the National Law Journal, among the top '500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers' by Lawdragon, 'Titans of the Plaintiffs' Bar' by Law360 and 'SuperLawyers' by Thomson Reuters. Among its recent notable successes, BFA recovered over $900 million in value from Tesla, Inc.'s Board of Directors, as well as $420 million from Teva Pharmaceutical Ind. Ltd. For more information about BFA and its attorneys, please visit Attorney advertising. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.

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