Latest news with #PublicisSapient
Channel Post MEA
4 days ago
- Business
- Channel Post MEA
Salesforce Rewards its Partners with Awards for Delivering Growth in the Region
Salesforce has announced that its partner ecosystem in the Middle East experienced a 23% year-over-year growth in fiscal year (FY) 2025, reaching a cumulative total of 275 partners. Furthermore, these partners have expanded their expertise through a 24% increase in certifications over the same timeframe, resulting in a cumulative total of more than 5,800 certifications. Meanwhile, Salesforce Certified Individuals increased by 9% year-on-year in FY 2025, giving a total of 1,403 Salesforce Certified Individuals in the region. Additionally, Agentforce Specialist Certifications – a new category of certification – reached 194. Salesforce shone a spotlight on its top-performing partners last Wednesday at the Middle East Partner Awards, held at the Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai as part of the Agentforce World Tour Dubai, which gathered more than 2,000 attendees across Salesforce's regional ecosystem. This year saw the introduction of two new award categories to recognise the importance of Agentforce and AI-powered digital labour as a catalyst for transformation: The Agentforce Readiness Partner award and the Agentforce Live Use Case Partner award underscored Salesforce's commitment to empowering its partners to help drive AI transformation in the region. Mukesh Kumar, Regional Vice President for Salesforce Alliance and Channels Middle East, said: 'The growth and development of our partner network in the past year has been phenomenal, with solid growth of the network and an increase in the depth of knowledge and skills, which will enhance Salesforce's ability to deliver AI transformation in the region. Our partner network has also been very excited by the introduction of Agentforce which is making agentic AI and safe, efficient, digital labour a reality for organisations in the region. 'The Salesforce Middle East Alliance & Channels Awards truly underscored the immense value and expertise our partners bring to the entire Salesforce ecosystem. This event showcased the impact of a truly empowered partner network, celebrating the remarkable success they deliver for our shared customers,' Mukesh added. 'The continuous expansion, innovation, and unwavering dedication within our partner community made the 2025 awards a memorable occasion, and I extend my congratulations to all the winners for their outstanding work and well-earned recognition.' The winners of the 2025 Awards were as follows: Customer Success Partner : EI Technologies MENA EI Technologies MENA Outstanding Knowledge Partner : Publicis Sapient Publicis Sapient Sales Excellence Partner : Arcsen Arcsen Community Impact Partner : Cloud 11 Cloud 11 Digital Partner of the Year : ConX Digital ConX Digital Outstanding New Logo Partner : Globant Globant Data and AI Partner of the Year : PwC PwC One A&C Partner of the Year : Leadex Leadex Rising Star Partner : T1A – Databorn Databorn Agentforce Readiness Partner : Deloitte Deloitte Agentforce Live Use Case Partner: Horizontal Horizontal Overall Partner of the Year: ConX Digital 0 0
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Enterprises eye AI assistants to modernize systems
This story was originally published on CIO Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily CIO Dive newsletter. Enterprises are turning to generative AI tools to drive modernization and cut through technical debt, according to Publicis Sapient. The digital consulting firm commissioned HFS Research to survey more than 600 IT and business leaders for a report published Thursday. Four in 5 respondents expect generative AI coding assistants to help them break free from managing outdated systems by documenting legacy applications, rewriting old code and automating software testing, the report found. Technical debt is an expensive headache, accounting for $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in spending among Global 2000 companies, according to HFS Research. 'Tech debt isn't just a weight — it's a ticking time bomb that's threatening the future of global enterprises,' the firm's Chief Analyst and CEO Phil Fersht said in the report. As coding assistants rose to the top of a heap of generative AI use cases with ROI potential, vendors mobilized to deploy tools trained to decipher and refactor decades-old applications. IBM taught watsonx more than 100 programming languages and trained its open model to translate COBOL applications into Java. AWS trained its AI assistant, Amazon Q Developer, to build applications and set the tool loose on mainframe modernization last year. As cloud and enterprise software vendors rolled out similar capabilities, banking became a proving ground for the technology, according to Accenture. Goldman Sachs saw its army of 12,000 developers achieve efficiency gains of roughly 20% with GitHub Copilot, the company's CIO Marco Argenti told CIO Dive last month. Bank of America and Citigroup saw similar returns on AI investments. Enterprises across industries can cut years off of modernization initiatives by harnessing the technology, according to Sheldon Monteiro, Publicis Sapient EVP and chief product officer. 'AI really is a jackhammer,' Monteiro said in an interview. 'CIOs need to be thinking about this in terms of some pretty major concrete breaking.' Publicis Sapient inked a five-year partnership with AWS to build AI-powered modernization tools in March. In addition to leveraging the hyperscaler's cloud-based services, the alliance aims to expand the reach of the Sapient Slingshot software development platform. The modernization opportunities are vast, according to HFS Research. A $1.5 trillion IT industry has grown up around servicing rather than eliminating technical debt, the firm estimates. Enterprises spend an average of nearly 30% of IT budgets maintaining legacy technologies, the report found. Yet, fewer than one-third of respondents said their organization has modernized core applications. 'Something's broken in the way clients are buying IT services and the way the service industry has been incentivized,' Monteiro said, pointing to a tendency to see staff augmentation as a means of containing technical debt. Monteiro added, 'If modernization is going to take 10 years to complete, what CIO is going to look at that with any sense that it can get done within their tenure?' 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
Forbes
08-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How AI Can Demolish Tech Debt
getty This is the published version of Forbes' CIO newsletter, which offers the latest news for chief innovation officers and other technology-focused leaders. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox every Thursday. As CIOs know, tech debt will keep piling on until it's taken care of. Estimates from HFS Research indicate Forbes Global 2000 companies are carrying $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion worth of tech debt. But bringing AI into the workplace, HFS and Publicis Sapient say in a new report, has the potential to eradicate that tech debt and get enterprises to modernize. The report calls AI the jackhammer that can smash through tech debt, and highlights a path for companies to use AI to fully modernize—something 80% of surveyed leaders believe it can do. 'Enterprises need to stop tinkering with outdated models and start smashing through the barriers holding them back,' HFS Research CEO and Chief Analyst Phil Fersht said in a release. 'This is the moment to rewrite the rules of modernization, and those who don't act decisively risk being left behind in the dust.' The study shows that only three in 10 enterprises feel they have 'fully modernized' their IT applications—nearly the same amount that say they are 'legacy-heavy' (25%) or at risk of obsolescence (4%). About half of the survey respondents said that they're looking to move to AI because existing IT services mostly just maintain these legacy systems. And even though it may seem like every company is already using AI, the study reiterates that it isn't the case. Just 22% of companies said they are actively scaling AI across multiple IT functions. A third are experimenting with AI in select functions now, while 27% are exploring AI in IT, but not yet implementing it. The study recommends that an enterprise's AI transition does away with siloed data and information, instead bringing everything together in a connected value chain that all departments can access. Governance should be built into the foundation through functions like automated controls and real-time monitoring, breaking from traditional steering committees and policy hierarchies. AI stewardship should also be a part of everyone's job description now, the report recommends. People can focus on using AI to complete tasks and pull information, which will make their workflow more efficient and outcomes more effective. Through making information flow more freely and giving more people the responsibility to work with it, the system is much more likely to adapt alongside technology, reducing the possibility of future tech debt issues. Protecting data and advancing cybersecurity isn't just the CIO's responsibility. CFOs also should be a resource here, especially since the data is often used for projections and forecasts—and breaches can be incredibly expensive. I talked to Abhesh Kumar, chief technology officer at financial advisory firm Springline Advisory, about how CIOs and CFOs can come together. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter. The days of Google's dominance on Apple devices may be waning, an Apple exec testified in court this week. Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Apple's services unit overseeing the App Store and Safari browser, said that the company is 'actively looking' to add AI-powered search options to Safari, though Cue added he believes Google should remain the default search option. The testimony, which was part of the federal government's ongoing antitrust case against Google, led to a 7.5% drop in the company's stock on Wednesday. It recovered a bit on Thursday, but Google's stock is still more than 5% down this week. This testimony really shouldn't be a surprise to investors. Most big tech companies—especially Apple, Google, Microsoft and Meta—have spent the last year in regulators' crosshairs in both the U.S. and EU. Antitrust litigation in the U.S. and the EU's Digital Markets Act, which aims to level the playing field for companies in the tech space, have been pushing Big Tech to reevaluate their policies that push users into preferred providers for app downloads, web browsing and search, and utility applications. Wednesday's testimony was part of ongoing hearings for U.S. courts to figure out an appropriate remedy after a ruling last year that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. Photo Illustration by Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images OpenAI has reportedly reached a deal to buy vibe coding platform Windsurf for $3 billion, which would be the generative AI powerhouse's largest deal yet, writes Forbes contributor John Werner. Windsurf has an AI-powered tool that lets users use regular language to describe what they want a system to do, and Windsurf writes appropriate code. It's a powerful tool for code development, but Werner points out that Windsurf also has a specific focus on hardware, with a priority on developing custom AI chips and server clusters. The deal has not yet closed, according to Bloomberg, which broke the story. getty President Donald Trump passed 100 days in office for his second term last week, and a group of cybersecurity leaders and experts talked about what that meant at last week's RSAC 2025 conference, writes Forbes senior contributor Tony Bradley. The top takeaway: It isn't good. While Trump has said he wants to put in place policies to help U.S. tech companies continue to be global leaders, panelists said his focus on drastically cutting the federal workforce and undoing many of his predecessor Joe Biden's policies have undermined progress. Jen Easterly, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the loss of tech talent at government agencies damages cybersecurity readiness. Trump tends to prioritize loyalty above skill, which panelists said erodes morale and independence of federal cybersecurity functions—and makes other nations reluctant to share information about threats. 'We built trust and catalyzed trust and collaboration, and we did it with integrity, we did it with humility, we did it with transparency, and we did it with character. And that's what you all should demand from your government,' Easterly said. Springline Advisory CTO Abhesh Kumar. Springline Advisory In today's business world, data and cybersecurity threats are always multiplying. Abhesh Kumar, chief technology officer of accounting at financial advisory firm Springline Advisory, sees one way to strengthen both a company's use and understanding of data and its security: Having finance and data or technology leaders work together on it. I talked to him about why this is an important partnership and how to make it work. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity. It was also excerpted in the Forbes CFO newsletter. A longer version is available here. What do you see as some of the biggest hazards in a company in terms of safeguarding their data? Kumar: The short answer, the absolute biggest risk is lack of shared accountability, which arises from lack of shared visibility. But let me elaborate a little bit. We need to view the risk in the context of the fast-evolving threat landscape. So you've got different data assets—whether it's financial data, strategic data, client data, employee data. Unfortunately, most organizations are operating in silos. That means CFOs do not really have full visibility on where the data lies, and they have not really incorporated protecting them or taking any cybersecurity measures as part of their financial risk management. Because of this disconnect, and generally how the CIOs or CTOs and CFOs collaborate, this leads to the presence and increasing expansion of shadow data: Nobody knows where the data is or what kind of data it is, or how it can be tracked back to some of the crown jewels. The increasing diversity of data assets; the emerging sophistication of hackers; and the lack of proactive, collaborative, culturally driven operating models between the CTOs and [CFOs], they all contribute to the explosion in the risk exposure. When you look at cybersecurity threats, they're always changing, with bad actors finding new ways to try to get into data, get into systems, that sort of thing. How does collaboration help, not just for now but for the future? It's always a game of who stays one step ahead of the other. If we are going to take them in isolation and one by one, there will be cases where the attackers will win and the defenders will lose. Where there is joint accountability, when parties—especially senior leaders like CTOs and CFOs—have a good understanding of the threat landscape, they also understand where the data resides, what is the risk exposure, it automatically heightens their preparedness and approach toward proactively putting in place a set of mechanisms to guard that data. This automatically reduces your threat exposure by a lot. Some of these provisions can be technology-based: You could have a NIST-based security assessment, you could have penetration testing, you could have parameter scanning, you could have advanced edge computing-based security. Some of these are technology, some of these have to do with human capital, where there's sponsorship and initiative to build that knowledge. A lot of these hackers find humans as the most vulnerable and easy way to hack the system, so enabling that human capital to be a robust wall in front of these attacks is important. Third is the general culture of being cybersecurity aware, and practice simple things, like locking computers when you're walking away even two minutes away from your desk, do not use public WiFi if you are working on sensitive strategic data files. A culture where parties see the leaders leading by example, and then they emulate it. What advice would you give to a CIO to start working with their CFO? The CIOs have to step up from playing an operational role to a more strategic role. Instead of just putting down the nails and the locks around the place and securing it, they have to elevate the articulation of the problem at the strategic level where it can be communicated to the board: What is the overall risk impact? They almost have to take on a risk manager role from a cybersecurity perspective, and not just be the operator of those security mechanisms. We need to be able to tell a good story: If you don't do this, these are the things that could go wrong, and this is going to cost you in the dollar terms, and have that communication with the board. This is part of stepping up and expanding their point of view from being just a technology or internal service provider to a stakeholder in the business. It's not just about, 'Tell me your data and I'll put it in a vault and secure it,' but 'Help me understand your business and let me be a partner in delivering the business outcome that you're intending [for] your shareholders, the board and other stakeholders.' As generative AI becomes more of a force in everyday life online, companies need to develop strategies for generative engine operation—GEO—that rival what they've had in place for SEO. Here are some ways to start making AI more likely to cite your pages. It's important for leaders to connect with their teams, and if you're having trouble doing that, the underlying reason could be that you don't truly know yourself. Here's how to realign your leadership based on the 3D method—aligning efforts across yourself, your team and the world—and get a better understanding of yourself and your experience. Web applications come and go—even the ones that were once vital to us. Which of these once-indispensable applications sunset this week? A. ICQ B. Vine C. Skype D. Napster See if you got the answer right here.
Gulf Business
12-03-2025
- Business
- Gulf Business
Publicis Sapient, AWS announce strategic collaboration
Image: Supplied Publicis Sapient, a digital business transformation firm, has signed a five-year strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to leverage AI and machine learning for enterprise IT modernisation and customer experience enhancement, the companies said on Tuesday. The collaboration aims to integrate Publicis Sapient's SPEED methodology — spanning strategy, product, experience, engineering, and data and AI — with AWS' cloud services to accelerate the migration of legacy IT workloads. The companies will develop generative AI-powered solutions for personalised digital experiences, software development optimisation, and cloud adoption acceleration. Publicis Sapient will offer clients access to its AI and ML ecosystem, including Bodhi, an enterprise AI/ML platform built on AWS. Bodhi utilises Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock, providing model selection, enterprise-grade AI capabilities, and security measures. Another tool, Slingshot, will facilitate software lifecycle automation and legacy system modernisation. 'Publicis Sapient has been a proud AWS partner for years. This agreement strengthens our commitment to harnessing AWS's generative AI services to drive transformation for our clients,' said Nigel Vaz, CEO of Publicis Sapient. AWS CEO Matt Garman said the collaboration 'marries AWS's advanced AI capabilities with Publicis Sapient's transformation expertise to help businesses accelerate cloud adoption and deepen customer engagement'. Publicis Sapient to set up an AWS business unit As part of the agreement, The partnership builds on existing initiatives, such as a digital showroom for a global automaker that consolidated online car shopping data across 190 markets, increasing test drives by over 900 per cent. Another project for a pharmaceutical firm used AskBodhi on AWS to automate localised marketing content, cutting content creation costs by 35-45 per cent. Additionally, a wealth management firm transitioned its financial data platform to AWS, reducing search response time by 80 per cent and increasing advisor satisfaction. Saudi Arabia's national carrier, Saudia, is among the enterprises leveraging the collaboration. 'AWS's generative AI services, combined with Publicis Sapient's expertise, are helping us innovate while ensuring security standards,' said Abdulgader Attiah, Saudia Group's chief data and technology officer. Publicis Sapient, recently named a leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Professional Services 2024 Vendor Assessment, is also offering solutions like AskBodhi and Wealth Management Accelerator via AWS Marketplace. Read:
Zawya
11-03-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Publicis Sapient announces global strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services
Publicis Sapient will leverage AWS's advanced generative AI services to help enterprises accelerate their digital business transformation journeys and more easily build personalized campaigns and experiences to reduce churn and enhance customer loyalty NEW YORK – Publicis Sapient, a digital business transformation company, today announced a five-year global strategic collaboration agreement (SCA) with Amazon Web Services (AWS) where they will use AWS's artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies to accelerate how enterprises modernize and migrate their IT workloads and build personalized customer experiences that deliver business impact at scale. Through this collaboration, the two companies will build solutions that combine Publicis Sapient's deep delivery capability across its Strategy, Product, Experience, Engineering and Data and AI (SPEED) methodology – Publicis Sapient's approach to digital business transformation success – and AWS's advanced cloud services to help customers across industries accelerate migration of legacy workloads to the cloud. Publicis Sapient will create new use cases that help enterprises leverage their data with generative AI tools to create and scale personalized digital assets that support end-customer conversion, acquisition, and retention. Additionally, the effort will help enterprises optimize and automate the software development lifecycle (SDLC) to support more efficient software development and faster speed to market. Joint customers will also benefit from access to Publicis Sapient's comprehensive ecosystem of tools, including Bodhi, an enterprise-ready AI/ML platform built on AWS, which helps customers deploy and scale generative AI use cases. Bodhi leverages Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock to offer customers vast model selection and enterprise-grade capabilities, as well as safeguards, data protections, and responsible AI principles to give customers confidence, flexibility, and control when building and deploying production-ready use cases. Additionally, customers can leverage Publicis Sapient's Slingshot, an AI-powered platform built off Bodhi that helps accelerate legacy modernization and the SDLC. "Publicis Sapient has been a proud partner of AWS for many years, and we're excited to deepen our commitment by combining the world's most broadly adopted cloud with our extensive experience in driving digital business transformation. Our collaboration puts the power of AWS's advanced generative AI services at the fingertips of our shared C-suite customers globally, from CEOs, CIOs and CMOs, to deliver transformative value with AWS security, reliability, and scalability. Together, we will create solutions that transform how businesses operate IT and deliver innovative products, services, and experiences,' said Nigel Vaz, CEO of Publicis Sapient. "In today's business landscape, personalization at scale is key. Our collaboration with Publicis Sapient merges AWS's advanced AI services and industry-leading security with their digital transformation prowess. Together, we're accelerating cloud adoption and deploying production-ready AI solutions. By combining our enterprise-grade capabilities with Publicis Sapient's SPEED methodology, we're helping businesses across industries harness data to forge deeper customer connections and drive significant business outcomes," said Matt Garman, CEO of AWS. Publicis Sapient Creates AWS Business Unit As part of the collaboration, Publicis Sapient launched an AWS business unit, investing in teams and capabilities in business development, sales, marketing, and operations, as well as business analysts, and data and AI scientists. The two companies will also invest in developing scalable, up-to-date capabilities, including: Transformational journeys for customers: Publicis Sapient and AWS will combine resources and expertise to help customers accelerate their cloud adoption and migration, including through new solutions available in AWS Marketplace. A roadmap of future technologies: Publicis Sapient and AWS will build and bring to market new generative AI solutions to meet industry-specific use cases for digital business transformation, AI for marketing, and more. Talent growth and development: Publicis Sapient is also investing in additional training and certifications to upskill its workforce to become experts in AWS technology, including its leading AI and ML services. This collaboration builds on the work that the two companies have already been engaged in to help enterprises across industries realize greater business impact for their end-customers. For example: Publicis Sapient engaged with one of the world's largest automakers to build a digital showroom that consolidates its online car shopping data from 190 markets and 105 countries into a single platform that turns data into actionable insights. Built on AWS using Publicis Sapient's SPEED capabilities and leveraging AWS's AI and ML services, the digital showroom analyzes online car shopping data to help the automaker prioritize offers and incentives to customers with the highest likely return on investment. The platform helped the automaker increase test drives by over 900% and improved conversion rates. One of the leading global pharmaceutical companies utilized Publicis Sapient's AskBodhi running on AWS to deploy a scalable generative AI solution for personalized marketing content generation. The solution automated the creation of localized marketing collateral, including images for banner ads and translations, and dramatically reduced time to market. The company estimates the solution reduced project content creation costs by 35%-45%. A leading wealth management firm worked with Publicis Sapient to build a contextual search experience within its existing platform that ingests real-time financial data from a variety of sources and improves the user experience for its advisors to provide guidance to their clients. Initially built on-premises, Publicis Sapient migrated the solution to AWS to allow the firm to scale the platform and enroll more than 20,000 advisors and meet security requirements. The new experience reduced search response time by 80%, and more than 90% of advisors rated the contextual search as their favorite feature. "The AWS and Publicis Sapient collaboration showcases the power of generative AI in driving IT modernization and delivering personalized customer experiences at scale. As Saudi Arabia's national carrier, Saudia is dedicated to harnessing its data to create exceptional guest experiences, while ensuring the highest standards of security. The combination of AWS's cutting-edge generative AI services, featuring robust data safeguards, and Publicis Sapient's expertise, empowers us to innovate rapidly and contribute meaningfully to Saudi Arabia's ambitious tourism objectives, a cornerstone of Vision 2030,' stated AbdulgaderAttiah, Chief Data and Technology Officer of Saudia Group. 'Publicis Sapient, who was a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Professional Services 2024 Vendor Assessment, is positioned as a forward-thinking partner of AWS, offering industry-specific expertise and solutions for complex IT challenges, such as mainframe modernization. And its capabilities are further enhanced by offerings available in AWS Marketplace. It's great to see Publicis Sapient and AWS collaborating to drive greater value to enterprises' digital business transformation initiatives powered by AI," said Gard Little, Research VP with IDC's Global Services Markets and Trends research team. Customers can access AskBodhi, Wealth Management Accelerator (WMX), and AI-powered Application and Mainframe Modernization – Sapient Slingshot in AWS Marketplace, a digital catalog – with thousands of software listings from independent software vendors – that makes it easy to find, test, buy, and deploy software that runs on AWS. To learn more about how Publicis Sapient and AWS work together, visit About Publicis Sapient Publicis Sapient is a digital business transformation company. We partner with global organizations to help them create and sustain competitive advantage in a world that is increasingly digital. We operate through our expert SPEED capabilities: Strategy, Product, Experience, Engineering, and Data and AI, which combined with our culture of curiosity and deep industry knowledge, enables us to deliver meaningful impact to our clients' businesses through reimagining the products and experiences their customers truly value. Our agile, data-driven approach equips our clients' businesses for change, making digital the core of how they think and what they do. Publicis Sapient is the digital business transformation hub of Publicis Groupe with 20,000 people and over 50 offices worldwide. For more information, visit
