On 12 January 2021, the enterprise performance management solutions provider for Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) revealed that the company had received an injection of US$100 million from venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners alongside existing investors Iris Capital, eCAPITAL, and Wecken & Cie.
Mark Velthuis, president for Asia-Pacific and Japan at Jedox, says EPM tools have the potential to support business leaders' as they navigate the uncertainties that come with doing business in the new normal.

On 12 January 2021, the enterprise performance management solutions provider for Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) revealed that the company had received an injection of US$100 million from venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners alongside existing investors Iris Capital, eCAPITAL, and Wecken & Cie.
Mark Velthuis, president for Asia-Pacific and Japan at Jedox, acknowledges that EPM has been around for decades but also clarifies that today's environment makes traditional EPM tools incapable of supporting the businesses' needs in the new normal.

On 12 January 2021, the enterprise performance management solutions provider for Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) revealed that the company had received an injection of US$100 million from venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners alongside existing investors Iris Capital, eCAPITAL, and Wecken & Cie.
Mark Velthuis, president for Asia-Pacific and Japan at Jedox, says the investment is a validation of Jedox's technology and strategy and serves to assure APAC customers of Jedox's commitment to the region.

On 12 January 2021, the enterprise performance management solutions provider for Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) revealed that the company had received an injection of US$100 million from venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners alongside existing investors Iris Capital, eCAPITAL, and Wecken & Cie.
Mark Velthuis, president for Asia-Pacific and Japan at Jedox, for APAC this would mean bringing in new talent – a further maturing of the organisation, provide localised customer care and making sure Jedox is responsive to customer needs.

Invoice factoring or the practice of selling receivable-invoices to a third-party at a discount in exchange for getting the cash now is a legitimate option for businesses that know they cannot rely on banks or governments to keep them afloat.

Why should a chief financial officer be interested in invoice factoring is the subject of PodChat for FutureCFO’s dialogue with Morgan Terigi, co-founder and CEO, Incomlend, an invoice exchange platform for connecting businesses and private funders on a global level.

IDC acknowledges that in some sectors of the global server market, there is a noticeable shift from buying infrastructure for own use as opposed to paying for computing resources from the data centre and cloud service providers. 

"We certainly see areas of reduced spending, but this was offset by investments made by large cloud builders and enterprises targeting solutions that support shifting infrastructure needs caused by the global pandemic. Investments in Asia/Pacific were also particularly strong, growing 31% year over year," said Paul Maguranis, senior research analyst, Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies at IDC. 

Rajnish Arora, Vice President, Enterprise Computing, IDC Asia/Pacific, talks at length on key trends impacting servers on-prem, and on its various incarnations in the cloud including private, public, hybrid and multi-cloud.

Today, CTOs are the drivers of a company’s transformation strategy. They create new business models and digitise products—and they look after human resources and budget.
As we begin the new year framed with the continuing disruptions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, we revisit the CTO role from the perspective of a practitioner and ask what have we learned in 2020 and what can executives in similar roles expect in 2021?
Mr Vicky Abhishek, a group chief technology officer for a global brand’s operation in the Asia Pacific region, shares his experiences, opinion and aspirations for 2021.

Business agility is the capability of a company to rapidly change or adapt in response to changes in the market. The concept is centred around handling operations and resources in a flexible, responsive manner to drive maximum business value. 
One of the least understood, least discussed tools for enabling this agility is an event-driven architecture (EDA). It has appeared in a few other names in the past including message-driven architecture (MDA) and flows from service-oriented architectures (SOA). 
Sumeet Puri, chief technology solutions officer at Solace, describes how EDA is enabling the digital aspirations of organisations and offers learnings and shared experiences on what works and what doesn't when it comes to EDA-powered digital transformation.

According to a Gartner report, consumer spending on wearable technology will double by 2021. 
So what lies ahead for wearable technologies? What are the near-term and mid-term opportunities in hearables? 
Kow Ping, executive director and co-founder at Well Being Digital, a Hong Kong tech company focused squarely on the hearables marketplace shares his views on bearable trends in 2020 and beyond.

1.                   Let’s start off with a 30-second elevator pitch of who is Well Being Digital?

2.                   In your view, how has COVID-19 impacted the wearable industry?

3.                   Specific to hearable technology, what are the current innovations around it?

4.                   Are there any industrial or commercial (not to be confused with consumer) use cases for hearables today?

5.                   Beyond these (#2/#3) applications/use cases, what can we look forward to in terms of ideas being considered in R&D labs?

6.                   As a business, what remains a major challenge for hearable tech companies to get traction across a broader marketplace?

7.                   What are your expectations for the hearable marketplace in 2021 and beyond?

Following the release of a survey on the virtual banking scene in Hong Kong, Walter Chan, Managing Director and Head of User Research of Field Resources Consultant (Hong Kong) Limited, shares the results of the survey and his opinion on the prospects for the burgeoning industry in the city.

He covers the following questions:

1. Hong Kong has an extensive and established network of retail, commercial and private banking institutions, why is there interest among consumers for virtual banks?
2. Some incumbent banks have lowered their fees to compete with virtual banks. Do you see this as impact the success of virtual banks?
3. Some of the virtual banks are joint ventures between incumbent banks and other organisations. Does this approach make sense for traditional banks?
4. Hong Kong has a very established and conservative regulator. Do you see the regulator’s slow approach to innovation as hindering the ability of virtual banks to deliver innovative new services?
5. Expectations for virtual banking in 2021?