Latest news with #Unit4
The South African
3 days ago
- Business
- The South African
Eskom expects to return units to grid as South Africa braves winter cold
Eskom is expected to return at least 2 550MW capacity to the grid by evening peak on Monday as South Africa braces for severe winter conditions throughout the country this week. The power utility said it is making 'steady progress' in tapering down maintenance season with the Energy Availability Factor 'fluctuating between 61% and 64%' last week. 'While system constraints are occasionally experienced, adequate emergency reserves are in place and are being strategically deployed to support demand during the morning and evening peak periods, particularly as the country prepares for a forecasted cold spell in the coming week. 'We plan to return a total of 2550MW of generation capacity to service ahead of the evening peak [today] to further stabilise the grid,' the power utility said. Eskom revealed that Medupi Unit 4 is in the last phases of recovery following damages sustained in 2021. 'Commissioning activities are currently underway and Grid Code compliance testing is expected to resume in the coming week. The unit is anticipated to return to service within June 2025. 'Diesel usage is expected to decline further as more units return from long-term repairs and maintenance activities are reduced, increasing available generation capacity. 'The Winter Outlook… covering the period ending 31 August 2025, remains valid. It indicates that load shedding will not be necessary if unplanned outages stay below 13 000MW. If outages rise to 15 000MW, load shedding would be limited to a maximum of 21 days out of 153 days and restricted to Stage 2,' Eskom said. The power utility has encouraged communities to 'avoid illegal connections and energy theft' even as the winter period rolls in. 'These activities often lead to transformer overloads, equipment failures, and in some cases, explosions and extended outages, prompting the need for load reduction to protect the network. 'To help maintain a stable electricity supply this winter, customers are encouraged to purchase electricity only from Eskom-accredited vendors and take responsibility by regularising their electricity usage. 'Eligible households are encouraged to register for free basic electricity with their local municipalities,' Eskom said. Furthermore, customers are encouraged to use electricity sparingly throughout winter. Use the Eskom Residential Calculator to track and optimise electricity usage. The tool can be accessed HERE Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
Associated Press
05-06-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Finance Systems Slammed by Professional Services Firms for Wasting Time and Money
44 hours per week wasted on financial discrepancies and two days per week on year-end financials LONDON, June 5, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Unit4, a leader in enterprise cloud applications for people-centric organizations, has unveiled part two of its international research study, 'The Back Office in 2025.' Conducted by Vanson Bourne, it highlights major difficulties for professional services firms in managing key financial systems, such as cash flow management, year-end financials and project financials. 100% of senior finance and IT decision makers experience discrepancies in year-end financials, with the majority (77%) saying they occur often. Significant resources are being wasted in investigating errors, consolidating financial information and on manual processes. Data consolidation, back-office integration and automation are seen as key to improving performance. Year-end discrepancies affecting morale There is a clear human cost to financial errors, as 61% say year-end reporting negatively impacts the wellbeing of the finance team, while a further 73% say reducing workload at year-end would help prevent burnout. The top three challenges related to discrepancies are: 'At a time when productivity and efficiency are bywords for every Professional Services firm, these findings reveal concerning shortcomings for organizations that want to be more competitive,' said Bryce Wolf, Strategic Growth Director, Unit4. 'The firms that drive greater consolidation of financial information will be closer to gaining a single source of truth about their business performance. Combined with greater automation to aid faster decision-making, this will be critical to survival and growth in the years ahead.' Project financials are draining resources Project financials, as well as year-end reporting, are adding to the burden. When dealing with year-end preparations, senior finance decision makers are spending two full working days per week consolidating year-end financials, while respondents say they are wasting 25 hours a week investigating project financials and 19 hours per week on correcting or updating issues. The top three challenges for improving project financials are: Slow and risky manual processes are to blame A possible cause for discrepancies and wasted time could be that 84% of finance teams are spending too much time on manual processes that should be automated. In cash flow management the top three processes affected by this are payment reconciliation, approving workflows and data consolidation and integration. It is no surprise, then, that 88% say cashflow management is difficult, blaming inadequate financial reporting tools, complex approval processes and high operating costs. In turn, this is leading to increased processing times, operational costs and risk of errors. Globally respondents see real value in automating financial processes, saying the top three benefits will be: Today, though, only 46% of cash flow management processes are automated. Among the subsectors within Professional Services, Management consulting (49%) comes out top in wanting to increase automation, followed by IT and tech (48%) and Media and publishing (46%). Similarly, 92% of respondents agree that automating processes would speed up consolidation of year-end financials. Generally, there is agreement that consolidating data, greater integration of back-office systems and automating processes should be prioritized to overcome the challenges outlined in the research. Embracing AI and automating manual workflows can provide a single source of truth for financial data - something that is lacking for 73%. Globally, respondents also say that finance systems could be improved with: Respondents believe that adopting these recommendations will help to improve the accuracy of financial decision making, reduce workloads and ultimately free up teams to focus on strategic growth. Further Reading Read the eBook for more detailed information on the Professional Services research. Vanson Bourne Methodology The research covered the US, UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Nordics and DACH regions and took responses from a range sectors, including IT and technology, architecture and engineering, media and publishing and management consultancy. It was conducted between 11th February and 10th March 2025, and the findings were based on a total of 600 senior finance and IT respondents. About Unit4 Unit4's next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions power many of the world's mid-market organizations, bringing together the capabilities of Financials, Procurement, Project Management, HR, and FP&A to share real-time information, and deliver greater insights to help organizations become more effective. By combining our mid-market expertise with a relentless focus on people, we've built flexible solutions to meet customers' unique and changing needs. Unit4 serves more than 5,100 customers globally across a number of sectors including professional services, nonprofit and public sector, with customers including Southampton City Council, Metro Vancouver, Buro Happold, Devoteam, Save the Children International, Global Green Growth Institute and Oxfam America. For further information visit For more information, please visit follow us on, Facebook: Unit4 Business Software, Instagram: @unit4global or visit our YouTube: Unit4 and LinkedIn page Media Contact: Lisa Stassoulli Global Communications Manager, Unit4 Mobile: +44(0)7870 916827 [email protected] View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Unit4
Finextra
06-05-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Unit4 launhces AI agent for self-driving ERP
Unit4, a leader in enterprise cloud applications for people-centric organisations, today launched Advanced Virtual Agent (Ava), a proactive conversational agent that will act as a centralised artificial intelligence (AI) interface, orchestrating and automating ERP workflows. 0 Designed as an intelligent work companion seamlessly integrated with Unit4 ERPx and Microsoft Teams, Ava enables effortless collaboration and provides personalised recommendations as well as instant, contextual assistance. Ava builds on Unit4's decade of innovation in digital assistants and is a key milestone in the company's vision to deliver self-driving ERP. In line with Unit4's pragmatic approach to AI, Ava will reshape workflows into more intelligent, adaptive, and user-centric experiences. It will empower people by enabling them to focus on tasks only humans can do, as well as boosting productivity with less effort. Unlike other agentic AI approaches, Ava acts as the single, central access point to ERPx, providing unified assistance to foster consistency and clarity for users. Ultimately, it supports organisations in maintaining the single source of truth for business-critical information. 'It is clear AI is going to dramatically change how users interact with ERP systems, as it will enable people to focus on more meaningful and rewarding work,' said Claus Jepsen, Chief Technology Officer, Unit4. 'Ava isn't just smart – it's pragmatic, purposeful and deeply attuned to the real challenges people face. That's why we have built Ava as one interface and agent, as this will create an integrated platform making it easier to add functionality and avoid siloed AI Agents.' As Unit4 revealed last year in research commissioned from IDC, AI adoption is rapidly moving through three phases. It is already being used as an agent and Ava fulfils a variety of functions including task management, contextual help and data searches. The second phase in the maturing of AI technology sees it acting as an advisor which Ava does in areas such as anomaly detection in payroll and providing suggestions for invoice approval as well as project creation. Ultimately, Ava will act autonomously as an agent to: • Centralise orchestration by integrating and co-ordinating workflows within ERPx and Microsoft Teams • Deliver intelligent automation where routine tasks are autonomously managed to reduce manual workloads • Enhance augmentation with actionable insights and personalised recommendations to augment specialised tasks • Offer pro-active and predictive capabilities to identify issues, predict needs and dynamically adapt workflows to achieve business objectives efficiently Initially, Unit4 is integrating Ava with Microsoft Teams as it is so widely used by its customers, but the roadmap will see integrations with other collaboration tools added in the future. Ava understands natural language conversations in Microsoft Teams and translates them into specific tasks to be completed in ERP workflows. This is possible, because Ava is built on Unit4's microservices, Cloud native architecture which provides the interoperability and extensibility necessary for Ava to act as an interface to Unit4 ERPx. As a result, Unit4 can build out AI capabilities and connect them into Ava via open APIs giving the agent the ability to adapt quickly as AI functionality evolves. "The journey into the digital world is neither stale nor stagnant—AI has brought a greater urgency to modernise and transform quickly. IDC finds that 47% of organisations are creating an AI-ready workforce that uses AI assistants, advisors, and agents to boost business success. With AI coming to the forefront, organisations must understand where their journey is headed and the various pathways to success," said Mickey North Rizza, group vice president, Enterprise Software at IDC. " The journey is multidimensional, but the promise of a new digitally savvy enterprise is at the heart of modernisation and transformation."
Techday NZ
25-04-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Professional firms face long M&A integrations due to old systems
A new international research study conducted by Vanson Bourne for Unit4 examines the challenges faced by Professional Services firms during mergers and acquisitions, highlighting the impact of outdated finance systems on integration efforts. The first part of the study, entitled "The Back Office in 2025," canvassed senior IT and finance decision makers in the Professional Services sector. According to the findings, although 58% of respondents' organisations have pursued acquisitions in the last five years, 86% expressed frustration that the process of merging businesses has taken longer than anticipated. Growth through mergers and acquisitions (M&A) has become increasingly critical for Professional Services firms as they look for sustainable business models amid ongoing economic uncertainty. The research showed that 81% of organisations surveyed have either been acquired or have acquired another company within the past five years. However, the report notes that M&A activity often does not deliver the expected value, with one in five firms reporting that integration took over a year. The average integration period among all respondents was eight months. Commenting on the findings, Bryce Wolf, Director of Strategic Growth at Unit4, said: "Every professional services firm is laser-focused on growth and extracting value wherever possible, which means M&A is a strategic weapon in building more robust business models. Unfortunately, IT and finance systems are hindering their ability to assimilate acquisitions quickly to realise value. It is essential that Professional Services firms address this limitation by modernising their core back-office systems to remain competitive into the future." Respondents outlined a range of business concerns they encountered during the integration process. The top three issues identified were inconsistencies with financial data, complications associated with personnel changes and redundancies, and misalignment among key stakeholders. The survey also highlighted several technical challenges playing a role in slowing the post-merger integration process. Among these, difficulties in efficiently allocating IT talent and resources ranked highly, alongside incompatible finance systems and a lack of standardised back-office processes. According to those surveyed, these obstacles combined to generate multiple negative impacts for their firms. The most prominent of these consequences included increased cybersecurity risk, potential damage to the firm's brand reputation, slower decision-making, and increased employee turnover. The research findings emphasised that improving core back-office systems could prove valuable, particularly when undergoing M&A. Professionals taking part in the study indicated that demonstrating real-time financial insights, adopting automated processes, and ensuring scalability would not only benefit internal operations but could also make a firm a more attractive proposition for potential buyers. Respondents identified clear priorities for streamlining future M&A activity, naming a focus on clear and transparent communication as a key factor. Other areas of emphasis included the deployment of scalable and flexible cloud-based IT and business solutions, as well as adoption of streamlined financial tools and systems. To progress towards smoother integration, the report points to several key priorities beyond technology upgrades. These include thorough consolidation of financial data to enable more precise reporting, integration of back-office systems as a route to cost and time savings, and further process automation to speed up year-end financial consolidation activities.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Voters hopeful election will rejuvenate Champaign school board
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) — Voting for the Champaign County general election is coming to a close. Some hope the same can be said for division on the Champaign Unit 4 School District Board. 'It feels more like a reality show than it does a productive team,' Champaign voter and teacher Katie Smith said. Champaign Co. coroner clears 400 belongings from shelves following new efforts The board has not been without its fair share of controversy. Three members stepped away last year, and now five seats are up for grabs. 'As a teacher, I think we feel how contentious things are, and I think the community knows it as parents,' Smith said. 'I think people are ready to step up and see changes happen.' 11 candidates are vying for the spots — a turnout that's exciting for some. 'I think it's good, I've definitely seen a lot of elections where there weren't enough candidates and there were vacancies,' voter Todd Hunter said. 'I mean, right now, there are vacancies that they had trouble filling.' Only a few board members have stuck around throughout the turmoil. One of them is secretary Amy Armstrong, who's hopeful for the future as new faces get a seat at the table. 'I'm really looking forward to a fresh start, one where we can begin healing some of the fractures that have gotten in the way of progress,' Armstrong said in a statement to WCIA. The people in charge of that fresh start will be decided at the polls on tuesday. Smith is looking forward to the day the board is taken seriously again. Champaign Co. finds enough election judges 'My hope is that the board isn't a joke we talk about in the staff lunchroom,' Smith said. 'I want the board to be something we feel proud of, that represents us as teachers and not the latest gossip.' A former board member who left in December said he thought the board wasn't successful because of 'unproductive dynamics.' Armstrong hopes past drama won't go past the ballot box. 'Serving on the school board isn't about personal agendas; it's about doing what's best for our students, families, and 2000 dedicated employees,' Armstrong said in her statement. 'I'm hopeful we can move forward together, let go of past divisions, and refocus on what really matters: our students.' Of the 11 people running for a seat, only one is an incumbent. Armstrong's term goes until 2027. A list of polling locations can be found here. They are open 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
