Accenture, Celonis partner in process mining technology

Speedier assessments

Celonis makes the task of discovering a customer's process improvement opportunities faster and more accurate, said Phillip Hazen, senior managing director of intelligent platform services at Accenture. Traditionally, consulting firms surveyed department heads or hosted a process reengineering workshop to map out a client's processes, look for inefficiencies and prepare for additional steps such as robotic process automation. That approach was time-consuming and dependent on institutional memory.

Phillip Hazen

"Surveys and discussions can get some information, but not to the depth of how a business process is running in a plant [or] a business unit," Hazen said.

Process mining, however, extracts information from a system's event logs to visualize an organization's business process, including the nuances of process variations, according to Celonis. The technology provides a "data-driven way to get to performance improvements," Hazen added.

Embedding technology

Accenture now includes Celonis in its MyConcerto and SynOps offerings. With MyConcerto, Accenture provides tools and industry-specific offerings for digital transformation. SynOps is an automation platform for running front-office and back-office operations such as finance, procurement and human capital management. Other consultancies also provide operations platforms.

Hazen said he envisions equipping Accenture's business areas -- strategy and consulting, technology and operations -- with Celonis technology.

MNJ launches digital transformation division

MNJ Technologies, an IT solutions provider in Buffalo Grove, Ill., launched a digital transformation division, which will include its managed services businesses.

Most midmarket companies are starving for talent and time.

The division, dubbed Ignyte, will focus on areas such as cloud, security, unified communications and SD-WAN. The division will pursue opportunities among medium-sized businesses in industry sectors including financial services, manufacturing, retail, and the state, local and education market.

Ignyte marks the latest business model transformation at MNJ, which was founded 20 years ago as a VAR. The company began its push into services in 2017 and has since developed specific offerings such as an SD-WAN demo lab.

MNJ rolled out its digital transformation unit to meet the needs of customers grappling with issues such as cloud cost optimization and outmoded communications systems, said Ben Niernberg, COO at MNJ. "Most midmarket companies are starving for talent and time," he said.

Ben Niernberg

Typically, a business moving from a legacy private branch exchange to unified communications as a service could expect to spend 12 months creating a shortlist of options, selecting vendors, conducting a proof of concept and deploying UCaaS, Niernberg said. But Ignyte's ability to source and aggregate a range of vendor offerings can reduce a yearlong project to three or four months from initial market scoping to implementation, he noted.

Ignyte's UCaaS partners include RingCentral and Nextiva.

The Ignyte launch required an investment in people as well as technology. The digital transformation sales cycle and customer conversations compelled the division to hire specialized salespeople, presales and delivery engineers, and marketing and product teams, Niernberg said.

Partner program launches and updates

• Aryaka, a San Mateo, Calif., company that offers managed SD-WAN and Secure Access Service Edge, unveiled a unified partner program to house its worldwide channel effort. The company's Accelerate Global Partner Program lets channel partners use Aryaka's AppAssure application visibility and control product to comanage their clients' networks. The program also offers account-based sales and marketing programs and will include an updated certification program later this year.
• Puppet, an infrastructure automation tool provider based in Portland, Ore., plans to roll out a partner portal, comarketing technology and a learning management system. The company's partner kickoff is scheduled for the first half of 2022. Puppet works with about 200 channel partners worldwide.
• Prosimo, a cloud network software provider in Santa Clara, Calif., launched a partner program for VARs, MSPs and global systems integrators. The three-tier Prosimo Next Partner Program includes deal registration; education, training and certifications; marketing resources and campaigns; and a partner portal. The company appointed Timo Prietto as head of strategic partners and channels. He was formerly channel leader at Aviatrix.
• StorCentric, a data management vendor based in Sunnyvale, Calif., added a certification program to its channel initiative. The Nexsan Partner Certification Program covers products including Nexsan Unbreakable Backup and Unity Software version 7.0, a block, file and object storage offering.

Partner roster updates

• CyCognito, a cybersecurity firm in Palo Alto, Calif., has added more than 50 channel companies to its partner program over the last 12 months. The company, which specializes in external attack surface management and protection, said it has collaborated with channel partners on security projects for Colgate-Palmolive and grocery retailer Tesco among other companies.
• Veristor Systems, a business technology solutions provider in Atlanta, has joined storage vendor Commvault's partner program as a Metallic Managed Service Provider. Metallic, a Commvault venture, provides SaaS backup and recovery offerings.
• ProLion, a ransomware and data protection vendor headquartered in Austria, has inked a distribution agreement with Arrow Electronics. The pact covers the U.S. market. ProLion's flagship CryptoSpike offering is geared to NetApp OnTap storage environments.
• Infosys, a global systems integrator and consulting firm, has entered a strategic collaboration relationship with Safe Security, a cyber risk quantification company in Palo Alto, Calif.
• Glasswall, a cybersecurity company based in London, has signed a distribution agreement with Nihon Cyber Defence, a Japanese cybersecurity firm. Nihon Cyber Defence will offer Glasswall's content disarm and reconstruction technology to public and private sector organizations in Japan.

Other news

• Pythian, a cloud services company based in Ottawa, launched its Google Workspace Security Assessments offering. The service includes remediation and recommendations as well as implementation of Google Workspace configuration and security settings.
• Pax8, a cloud distributor with headquarters in Denver, has received Microsoft's Indirect Provider Plus authorization. An indirect provider is a distributor that delivers Microsoft cloud offerings and related support to resellers.
• ConnectWise, an MSP software provider based in Tampa, Fla., debuted an online venue that lets its partners communicate with company executives, product experts and industry peers. The ConnectWise Virtual Community spans Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America.
• Barracuda Networks, a cloud security company in Campbell, Calif., has integrated Barracuda Email Protection with Skout Managed XDR. The company said the linkage lets MSPs provide email security capabilities within the Skout Managed XDR platform.
• MSP360, a backup and IT management vendor in Pittsburgh, released MSP360 Managed Backup 5.7, which supports Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval. AWS rolled out the Instant Retrieval storage class late last year at re:Invent 2021.

Executive appointments

• Elizabeth McIlhany has joined Pax8 as senior vice president of product. McIlhany was previously president of product management at Dreamstage.
• Upstack, an online platform that sells cloud services through sales agents, has appointed Samantha Jacks as vice president of commissions operations. She joins Upstack from technology services broker Intelisys.