Digital Innovation Magazine - March 2024

DIGITAL MAGAZINE

MARCH 2024

PIONEERING SUSTAINABLE PROCUREMENT AND SOURCING AT ZURICH INSURANCE

LATEST IDENTITY SOLUTIONS

INSIGHTS FROM NEXI GROUP

HOVANCIK ANDY

On how JAGGAER empowers businesses to grow and succeed using its software solutions and technology

Do you work with a disruptive and innovative company that’s going places?

We want to hear from you.

Tell us all about the startup or SME by emailing enquiries@ithink.media and we’ll consider them for inclusion in an exciting project we have lined up in 2024.

Subscribe and keep your eyes peeled. More to come soon…

FROM THE EDITOR

The eagle-eyed among you might notice some changes to our magazine this month…

As of today, we are buzzing to announce a new chapter for the publication. First, we have changed our name to Innovation. Second, we revamped our branding and design to match. Lastly, we are expanding from European to global coverage.

A new name. A new look. A new scope. The same innovative thought leadership you've come to expect.

So with all that said – welcome to the March 2024 edition of Innovation!

In our cover interview, I speak with Andy Hovancik, CEO of JAGGAER, about the company’s smart digital procurement and supply chain solutions which enable businesses to digitise, transform and thrive. We also explore JAGGAER’s approach to ESG, which Andy explains is more than just a corporate strategy, before learning about the company’s partnership ecosystem (p6).

I sit down with Ambre Exposito, Chief Operations Officer & Chief Resilience Innovation Officer of Selectra, to discuss the company’s ambition to become the leading platform to compare and subscribe for home contracts. Ambre shares her insights into Selectra’s strategy and technology, which help customers navigate a crowded marketplace across several verticals (p38).

Jaime Paiva, Head of Procurement and Vendor Management EMEA, and Chris Minter, Sustainable Sourcing Lead of Zurich Insurance Group join me to describe the tech and strategy behind the company’s sustainable approach to procurement. Jaime and Chris offer rich insights into Zurich Insurance Group’s purpose to ‘create a brighter future together’ (p54).

I chat with Roland Eichenauer, VP of BD, Sales & Marketing at Nets eID Solutions at Nets about the Nexi Group’s leading-edge identity and payment solutions. Roland elaborates on the Group’s technology behind its services and mission to provide the simplest, fastest and safest eID solutions to users (p90).

We share two global tech features this month on the implications of artificial intelligence in education (p28) and a new payroll solution for the unbanked in Africa (p78).

Our Startup of the Month is LavenirAI – the company looking to disrupt conventional training systems by deploying AI-powered avatars (p100).

Before you dive into this month’s magazine, we are launching an exciting project to celebrate startups and SMEs in 2024. If you work at or with a company that’s going to disrupt its industry with new technology or innovation – we want to hear from you! Contact us at enquiries@ithink.media.

Please enjoy our latest edition. If you would like to be considered as an interviewee or you have a story for us, please get in touch.

6

28

Dive into the latest report on AI in education by Imagine Learning

Jaime Paiva and Chris of Zurich Insurance Group creating a more sustainable future in service-driven industries

Andy Hovancik, CEO of JAGGER on the company’s digital procurement and supply chain solutions

54

Chris Minter Group on sustainable service-driven

38

Ambre Exposito explores Selectra’s goals to become the leading platform for comparing and subscribing to home contracts

100

Meet LavenirAI, our startup of the month

90

Roland Eichenauer of Nexi Group explains the company’s digital identity solutions and the technology behind its services

78

How CloudPay is deploying its payroll solution across Africa

Andy Hovancik, CEO of JAGGAER – a world leader in autonomous commerce – on how it empowers businesses to grow and succeed through smart procurement and supply chain technologies.

BACK IN 1995, FOUR FRIENDS

PRODUCT CATALOGUES ONLINE FORESAW THE TREMENDOUS

TECHNOLOGY IN THE PROCUREMENT

THEY FORMED JAGGAER

from this revolutionary idea and today, almost thirty years later, the company still carries the flame of innovation as an enterprise software company every single day.

Today we are joined by Andy Hovancik, CEO of JAGGAER to explore the company’s digital procurement and supply chain solutions enabling businesses to digitise, transform and thrive. We dive into JAGGAER's mission to provide its customers with the latest, smartest tech solutions to grow and succeed. We also discuss the company’s perspective on ESG as more than just a corporate strategy and explore the organisation’s approach to its partnership ecosystem.

“At the highest level, we work with companies to enable their own digitisation and transformation initiatives,” begins Andy. “Very specifically, we automate sourceto-pay processes, covering endto-end workflows, for an efficient

procurement process supported by supplier collaboration, to the benefit of buyers and their suppliers. We work with our customers to think about their processes and systems. Our solutions span both direct materials procurement and indirect procurement.”

Andy joined JAGGAER as CEO in June 2023 as a seasoned executive with proven success leading international, rapid-growth SaaS solutions providers across the manufacturing, financial and services sectors. He arrived at the company to lead JAGGAER into the next phase of its global growth, further developing its leading position in the market and continuing to deliver exceptional customer success. With his arrival, Andy brought a new vision to JAGGAER.

“Simply put, our goal is to build a global company,” says Andy. “We are operating in most parts of the world today in our core market, which is the comprehensive source-to-pay and supply chain management space, and we want to be able to serve our

DECIDED TO UPLOAD ONLINE BECAUSE THEY POTENTIAL OF PROCUREMENT INDUSTRY.

customers wherever they operate and wherever they are in their digitisation journey. We're focused on expanding geographically so we can be there on the ground with local expertise and experience for our customers.”

As it enters this new phase, JAGGAER prides itself on continuing to offer exceptional service and true supply chain resilience for its customers by incorporating the latest and greatest technology into its products and solutions, explains Andy.

“In addition to providing software solutions, we’re leveraging decades of industry experience,” says Andy. “From the nascent software JAGGAER provided in its early years, to the leading-edge automated solutions we provide today, we’ve developed a tremendous amount of expertise on these workflows, systems and processes. So for us, it is about how we apply our extensive knowledge and expertise in the function and use of our software that allows companies to achieve true supply chain resilience, which we've seen over the last several years is a remarkably important objective for every company.

“The supply chain challenges of recent years have shown that companies like JAGGAER have never been more relevant.”

Andy emphasises how wielding smart technology at JAGGAER plays a fundamental role in transforming procurement and the broader supply

“WE HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO OUR CUSTOMERS TO ASSURE THEM THAT WE ARE TAKING AND INTEGRATING THESE TECHNOLOGIES INTO OUR PLATFORM AND THEIR BUSINESSES”

Andy Hovancik, CEO

chain resilience strategies for its customers.

“For many of our customers, they're going to lean on their software vendors, suppliers and partners to incorporate these smart technologies into their software solutions as part of the greater ecosystem that supports their company, to create more productivity, more efficiency and more visibility,” says Andy. “So as a result, we have an obligation to our customers to assure them that we are taking and integrating these technologies into our platform and their businesses.

“It aligns perfectly with what we've been saying for years on the topic of autonomous business-to-business commerce. For years we have been incorporating these smart technologies to make our software more intelligent. By doing so, we help

INTERVIEW WITH OSCAR LUIS REGO, THE GLOBAL OFFICER AT TK ELEVATOR AND RALF DILLMANN, PARTNER PROCUREMENT CONSULTING LEAD AT BEARINGPOINT.

TK Elevator, a global leader in vertical transportation and urban mobility, has committed to transforming its procurement strategy amidst rapid industry growth, stringent cost-efficiency measures and increasing sustainability demands. This transformation focuses on digitisation, fostering sustainable practices and enhancing resilience.

Ralf: Oscar, given the current global challenges and the need to steer our procurement team successfully into the digital age, your role as Global CPO appears multifaceted. How did you approach the procurement transformation?

Oscar: Over the past three years, we’ve pursued a dual-track strategy. While we’ve continued to prioritise our operational imperatives around supply chain security and production delivery, we’ve also seized the opportunity to make our procurement more digital, resilient, agile and sustainable.

Ralf: That makes perfect sense. So, were the risk and resilience, and sustainability workstreams embedded into the digital procurement transformation as a comprehensive program? What were the measurable primary goals of the procurement transformation, and what challenges did you and your team face over the past three years?

Oscar: Before I delve into that, I’d like to express my gratitude once again to you and your team, Ralf, for the continuous support in aligning with these significant strategic KPIs. These include the Digital

Adoption Rate, measurement of supplier and supply chain risks and the progression of our supplier base in meeting TK Elevator’s ESG requirements.

Ralf: Behind these metrics and KPIs lie a plethora of data points. Could you briefly explain how TK Elevator’s global procurement proceeded?

Oscar: Certainly. As a first step, we opted for the comprehensive JaggaerOne procurement platform to seamlessly capture all procurement processes through a cloud solution and integrate it into our heterogeneous ERP landscape. The joint definition of a global core model for SRM and Source-to-Contract laid the groundwork to subsequently develop Procure-to-Pay for both direct and indirect operational procurement. The integration of quality processes such as APQP/PPAP was crucial to meeting our high-quality standards.

Ralf: Thank you for those insights, Oscar. Could you also briefly share what progress TK Elevator has made to date?

Oscar: We’ve achieved significant enhancements in strategic and operational procurement processes in our core countries. Following the successful rollout in China, we’re now in the process of expanding this comprehensive solution to North and South America, covering the majority of our global procurement volume. Additionally, last year, we successfully implemented supplier risk analysis and sought the necessary ESG requirements from our suppliers to better manage our supplier relationships with

GLOBAL CHIEF PROCUREMENT

PARTNER AND GLOBAL BEARINGPOINT.

sustainability considerations. In addition, TK Elevator continues to receive top sustainability ratings by CDP, EcoVadis and Sustainalytics. The company was included in the prestigious ‘A’ list by CDP for the fourth time in a row, recognising its leadership role in corporate transparency and performance on climate change. We also re-confirmed the Gold Medal in EcoVadis’ sustainability rating, now ranking in the top 2% of all assessed companies. These top ratings honour TK Elevator’s continuous efforts to combat climate change and drive sustainable action.

Ralf: Those are impressive successes, Oscar! What are your priorities for the next phase of your work?

Oscar: Now that we have the majority of procurement data within an integrated system, we can assess and plan the next steps more precisely. A central focus lies on leveraging AI, for instance, to analyse technical material specifications and further optimise our tactical procurement strategies.

Ralf: Finally, one last question: What advice would you offer to a global procurement leader embarking on a similar transformation journey?

Oscar: My advice would be not to embark on this journey alone. A successful transformation requires close collaboration from the entire team and leveraging established partnerships with companies like BearingPoint and Jaggaer to benefit from their experiences and efficiently implement the transformation project.

Oscar Luis Rego

Ralf Dillmann

our clients achieve their goals of productivity and efficiency so they can focus on more pressing strategic objectives, needs and programmes inside their companies.

“It starts with asking questions. How do we eliminate manual effort? How do we then go beyond that to provide real insights to our customers? Where can we offer more predictive, powerful analytics to make better decisions about their supply chain?

“Given everything that's going on in the world geopolitically, economically and environmentally – alongside the daily business challenges facing companies – what we're doing is taking these smart technologies and integrating them into our platform to mitigate supply chain risks, to meet compliance regulations, to enhance processes and then ultimately transform the enterprise commerce part of the businesses we serve.

“For instance, we have a product called Contracts AI, built specifically to apply artificial intelligence to managing and administering contracts. It is an example of how we incorporate smart technologies into our software platforms to create significant efficiency gains,

SUCCESSFUL DIGITAL PROCUREMENT TRANSFORMATIONS ARE SUPPORTED BY CHANGE MEASURES AND INTEGRATION ACCELERATORS!

Digital Procurement Transformation projects are being heavily invested in by clients all around the globe to give them transparency over their supplier base, facilitate easier interaction with their suppliers and streamline the procurement process. Given the importance of making such a transformation, it’s no wonder that each client is looking to do the implementation in the shortest time possible at low risk. This is where the importance of having established toolkits that help speed up and streamline the project comes into play. Each implementation comes with its unique challenges but at their core, the projects and clients come with the same needs.

This is why BearingPoint has developed its own implementation and integration toolkit to streamline the implementation project by also reducing risk and delivering the highest customer impact by providing actionable steps and materials to facilitate successful execution. Due to our vast experience with solution implementations between JAGGAER & BearingPoint our integration toolkit could be leveraged with various ERP-Systems. In addition, the business transformation toolkit includes accelerators for master data migration and harmonisation, process design and process standardisation, change management and training needs.

BearingPoint is an independent, partner-led management and technology consultancy with European roots and global reach. We support the world’s leading companies and organisations in over 75 countries. As a leading provider of sourcing and procurement advisory services, we specialise in:

• Sustainable Procurement: Tailored strategies integrate environmental, social and economic factors to drive positive impact and cost efficiencies.

• Digital Transformation: Cutting-edge technologies streamline processes, enhance visibility and enable data-driven decision-making for procurement optimisation.

• Supplier Risk Management: Robust frameworks identify, assess and mitigate risks across the supply chain, ensuring resilience and continuity of operations.

• Artificial Spend Intelligence: AI-driven solutions provide actionable insights to optimise spend, detect anomalies and drive cost savings.

For more details, please contact us under…

Monica-Renate Schmitzer Daniel Nonnweiler

foster better compliance and better manage contracts in the process.”

Building on the notion of delivering value to its clients, Andy insists this sentiment stretches to its ESG policies and services. According to Andy, ESG is more than just a corporate strategy and JAGGAER enshrines it as an organisational imperative to empower social and environmental stewardship.

“At JAGGAER, we sit right in the middle of this topic since we work so closely with supply chain people,” says Andy. “From helping them set objectives to meeting these goals, we are intrinsically involved in our clients’ supply chains and the associated ESG priorities as both an enabler and exemplar.

“Consider the global push for decarbonisation, particularly in

“WE WORK CLOSELY WITH BEARINGPOINT, WHICH IS A GROWING GLOBAL INTEGRATOR OF OUR SYSTEMS AND PROVIDES NUMEROUS OTHER VALUE-ADDED SERVICES TO OUR CUSTOMERS”

“CONSIDER THE GLOBAL PUSH FOR DECARBONISATION, PARTICULARLY IN EUROPE. WE HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY. THE WAY WE'RE APPROACHING IT IS WE'RE FINDING TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS WHO ARE DEVELOPING THESE TYPES OF PLATFORMS AND TOOLS”

Europe. We have a role to play. The way we're approaching it is we're finding technology partners who are developing these types of platforms and tools. For example, we forged a technology partnership with carbmee, a trusted solution provider for carbon management in October 2023, where we extended our platform to fully integrate their Environmental Intelligence System carbmee EIS™ for carbon management.

“Carbmee provides comprehensive carbon transparency for companies with international supply chains. This empowers them with the ability to pinpoint carbon hotspots and collaborate with suppliers to minimise emissions. With an emphasis on Scope 3 emissions, carbmee EIS™ takes all indirect emissions into consideration – materials production, manufacturing processes, distribution and other activities across the supply chain.

This provides complete transparency into an organisation’s total carbon footprint. Now our software extends all the way through the supply chain, to deliver on carbon reduction commitments, to stay compliant and ultimately to accelerate the net zero journey.

“This is how we are taking bestin-class solutions around ESG and building them into our core platform, but also extending them in such a way that we can have a comprehensive

solution for customers who are on the same journey.

“But our commitment goes beyond this, and we've committed to specific benchmarks as an organisation ourselves. We've gone through the process of having these evaluated by the Science Based Target initiative and we have a plan for net zero in 2040. So not only are we helping our customers embrace their ESG journey, we are joining them with our own commitments and policies as well.”

“ANEON, WHICH IS ONE OF OUR STRONGEST PARTNERS IN EUROPE, DOES A LOT OF WORK ACROSS THE WORLD FOR US. THEY OFFER PARTICULAR EXPERTISE IN MANUFACTURING AND DIRECT MATERIALS PROCUREMENT”

On the topic of strategic partnerships as a means of driving technological innovation and striving towards ESG goals, Andy highlights the crucial importance of JAGGAER’s approach to collaboration and its partner ecosystem.

“It's incredibly important for us to build these collaborative alliances on a worldwide basis to build a global ecosystem of partnerships,”

says Andy. “We seek to work with companies where both parties are creating new value together.

“For instance, we work closely with BearingPoint, which is a growing global integrator of our systems and provides numerous other valueadded services to our customers.

“Aneon, which is one of our strongest partners in Europe, does a lot of work across the world for

WE MAKE PROCUREMENT FIT FOR THE FUTURE.

aneon solution GmbH is an internationally operating management consultancy specialised on end-to-end procurement suite implementations. As part of the h&z group, the subsidiary is specialised in the implementation of procurement & supply chain suites. aneon offers an in-depth purchasing expertise and accompanies its customers through the entire implementation process:

Program and Project management

Our experts advise and accompany projects during the whole process of transformation and together we develop the best individual solution for you.

Purchasing expertise and consulting

We help to optimise your processes and together we develop the best individual solution for you.

Data management & integration services

We advise you on the digitalisation and make your procurement auditand future-proof.

Change, communication & training

We know how you successfully communicate change in increase acceptance in your company.

Empowering Successful Transformations

As a Jaggaer Certified Partner, Groves & Company brings over 25 years of unrivaled expertise to drive impactful change. We are trusted catalysts for digital transformation, empowering visionary leaders across diverse sectors to harness the full potential of digital solutions.

From innovative manufacturers and leading universities to dynamic healthcare and retail brands, Groves & Company empowers organisations to realise their missions and make a lasting difference. Our commitment goes beyond technology; it’s about activating positive change and shaping a brighter future for all.

Join us in unleashing the power within. Together, we redefine what’s possible and create a world of endless opportunities.

Solutions to Empower Your Success:

• Source-to-Pay Assessment & Strategy

• Solution Design, Configuration and Integration

• Implementation & Change Management

• System and Process Optimisation

• Continuous Improvement & Support

grovesandcompany.com

us. They offer particular expertise in manufacturing and direct materials procurement.

“Groves & Company operate here in the US and is one of our Certified Implementation Partners, bringing deep industry expertise to the table. They have been around this space and partnering with us for a long time.

“We recognise that there's only so much that we can do. We're a software provider, we have deep industry expertise and we are

for the good of our customers and we have highly complementary capabilities.

“Obviously, we're a software company, we provide services on our own software as well. But when you expand that to big global programmes, this is where our partners make a huge difference for the customer and ultimately their success.

“With our partnership strategy, we're looking for true collaboration. It's not just a transactional relationship.

“GROVES & COMPANY OPERATE HERE IN THE US AND IS ONE OF OUR CERTIFIED IMPLEMENTATION PARTNERS, BRINGING DEEP INDUSTRY EXPERTISE TO THE TABLE”

confident in what we offer our customers. But partnerships with companies like Aneon, Groves & Company and BearingPoint allow us to expand beyond those services that we can provide, from the core implementation to other related services like consulting, programme management, change management and adoption strategies which are so important.

“I don't think you can do it alone and do it right. So we go to market together. We create value together

It's about working together to pursue joint strategies in the market, developing capabilities that are complementary or augment each other, so that we deliver more value to the customer. When I think about our partnership strategy, I'm looking for businesses that add value and help us achieve our ultimate goal, which is to ensure our customers are successful. I invite prospective partners to tell me about their capabilities that can complement our own, and then demonstrate

that it can be a collaborative winwin relationship over a long period of time. If that happens, then we have a winner – we can go to market on that.”

Drawing our conversation to close, Andy wraps up the discussion on offering exceptional customer service, technology-driven solutions, striving for sustainability and wielding a robust partnership strategy to

ultimately benefit clients by sharing his insights into a yearly point of pride for JAGGAER: the company’s annual meeting with its clients.

“We held our annual meeting, REV, with our customers most recently in Barcelona for 2023, and we had people from all over the world attend. I'm relatively new at the company, and I was taken

aback by the incredible level of engagement. There's a lot going on in the enterprise software space and for our customers, who are being asked to do more than ever before, the future is exciting and yet at the same time, it's a bit daunting, because of the full transformation that has to occur. But in my time at JAGGAER, REV was a particular highlight and I

celebrate how we came together with our clients to meet them and get to know them even more – it’s an amazing privilege.”

For further information about Jaggaer, visit jaggaer.com.

Turn over for 'ADDED VALUE' with Andy.

RECOMMENDED READING

“I recently went back and reread a book I had read decades ago and I've always espoused it as one of those primary and important readings that everyone should encounter,” says Andy. “It's called Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Without spoiling the book, it explores our search for purpose as human beings – and the truth is we all need a purpose. It’s fascinating how Frankl builds the case for that argument.

“You can take insights from the book and apply it to your company. We talk about purpose-driven organisations, and I absolutely believe that, firstly, we should all have our own personal purpose and, secondly every business should as well. I believe this book is one way to think about why purpose is important and how we can arrive at our personal purpose, but then take that into our organisations.”

LOOKING AHEAD

Andy was thrilled to attend JAGGAER’s annual meeting REV2023 in Barcelona last year, where he had the chance to engage with the company’s clients and partners. He cannot wait to attend REV2024 later this year in autumn and meet with them again when the event heads to the US.

“REV2023 was a wonderful event and really showed the power of the ecosystem,” says Andy. “I’m looking forward to our next REV for the partner participation and customer engagement as an energising experience.”

The new report from Imagine US educators to receive

Imagine Learning reveals calls for receive AI training.

CURRENTLY, ONLY TWO STATES IN THE US HAVE FORMED A COMPREHENSIVE AI POLICY TO PROVIDE GUIDANCE FOR SCHOOL DISTRICTS, MEANING THAT MANY SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS ARE HAVING TO IMPLEMENT AI GUIDELINES INDEPENDENTLY – DESPITE NOT HAVING THE RELEVANT TRAINING.

earning solutions company Imagine Learning recently released the findings from its newest report, “The 2024 Administrator AI Report: Perceptions, Practices, and Potential in Education,” exploring the role AI is playing in education and identifying administrators’ perceptions of current benefits and risks of GenAI to K–12 students, administrators and teachers.

The survey collated responses from 163 K-12 education administrators working in districts across the US. Imagine

Learning conducted the survey from October 31 to November 9, 2023, through an online quantitative survey that was approximately 10 minutes in length. 71% of respondents were district administrators, while 29% were school administrators.

One of the more notable findings of the report was that one-third of administrators expressed a desire for education companies to publish and use a code of ethics when developing generative AI, while 36% plan to implement guiding frameworks for adoption and use within their schools.

These findings suggest the need for a call-to-action to increase technology use and services, as well as training and official guidance for safe AI implementation in schools, with education solution providers at the forefront of this push alongside schools. However, some respondents expressed concerns about the use of AI in schools, with over half of the administrators surveyed (53%) believing that AI will exacerbate academic dishonesty, and 44% worried that it will diminish students’ critical thinking abilities. Despite this, the majority of administrators (64%) believe that AI will positively impact K-12 education in their district over the next five years through the development of a comprehensive GenAI strategy.

“THE MAJORITY OF ADMINISTRATORS (64%) BELIEVE THAT AI WILL POSITIVELY IMPACT K-12 EDUCATION IN THEIR DISTRICT OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS”

OTHER FINDINGS INCLUDED:

• AI’s net positive outlook in education: 64% of administrators believe generative AI will positively impact education, with only a minimal number (5%) planning to ban it.

• Positive student engagement with Generative AI: The majority of students using GenAI use it ethically

to improve knowledge, with research (70%), writing refinement (65%) and creating study aids (55%) as top uses.

• Easing the burden on teachers with personalised learning and efficiency: Over one-third of administrators recognise GenAI's role in creating personalised learning materials and saving time – a significant priority in K-12 education.

• Supporting teachers and curriculum development: 50% see generative AI aiding in lesson planning, with notable contributions to idea generation and individualising lesson materials that help teachers complete repetitive tasks, easing teacher burnout.

Looking forward, the report found that districts plan to address

GenAI through policy (47% of respondents) and training (40%). Only 10% of those surveyed reported their district has no actionable considerations regarding GenAI.

“Districts are willing to integrate AI into their classrooms, but currently lack the proper resources, governance and training needed to do so successfully,” says Sari

“OUR SURVEY REVEALS A CRITICAL OPPORTUNITY FOR SHAPING AI'S ROLE IN EDUCATION”

Factor, Chief Strategy Officer of Imagine Learning. “Our survey reveals a critical opportunity for shaping AI's role in education. It's a collective call to action, urging us to work alongside policymakers and education organisations to craft guidelines that ensure AI's integration is as responsible as it is transformative.”

“This survey isn't just about understanding AI's role in education – it’s a roadmap for responsible implementation," says Kinsey Rawe, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Courseware & Instructional Services of Imagine Learning. “By understanding firsthand how AI tools enhance teaching and learning, we're poised to guide the development of policies that are both innovative and attuned to the real needs of educators and students in a digital-first learning environment.”

Read the full report here >

Providing a one-stop shop for home contracts

Ambre Exposito, Chief Operations Officer & Chief Resilience Innovation Officer of Selectra on the technology and strategy behind the company’s comparison service spanning several verticals.

started as two friends and today the company around the world.

electra provides a comprehensive home contracts comparison service for its B2C customers, from energy and telecom packages to insurance, finance and subscription services – alongside a growing B2B provision.

Prioritising personalised and effective advice, Selectra takes tremendous pride in helping people navigate the crowded marketplace for household contracts, informing its customers of the latest offerings and, importantly, saving them money in the process.

Ambre Exposito, Chief Operations Officer & Chief Resilience Innovation Officer of Selectra joins us to discuss the company’s ambition to become the leading platform to compare and subscribe for home contracts.

Selectra’s business model is free to end customers and commercialisation arises from service providers paying commissions on successful transactions, explains Ambre.

“Our customer needs are incredibly diverse across all our verticals and our goal is to provide the best advice we can and orientate them to the best offers,” says Ambre. “Predominantly, we serve B2C customers, but we also have a B2B department. Our value chain has two major strengths differentiating us from competitors and our success arises from the simplicity of our value chain.

“First, we attract a large volume of inbound lead generation through our SEO and SEA strategies which has allowed us to grow year on year. Our second strength is our service and it has two sub-layers: we take our informative role incredibly seriously and we strive to save money for the customers we serve. When people come to us with queries or problems it is our priority to ease pain points and resolve issues effectively, while lowering their costs in the process.

“A lot of people are still really afraid of changing suppliers or not being

with the historical suppliers, so what we try to do is inform customers of the realities of the markets.”

Ambre and her team focus on taking the sales dynamic of Selectra and innovating operations, not in terms of the lead generation side but instead exploring how to monetise the capacity of lead generation.

“To do this we keep our mission in mind,” says Ambre. “As mentioned, this is to inform the customer, solve their pain points and save money. Another aspect is to support the transition to a more sustainable future by finding providers who offer renewable energy, for instance.

“Underlying our mission and sustainability priority is a trustful connection with our customers. Sometimes there might be vendors who offer excellent commission potential, but we always ensure that they are competitive for our customers and meet our values before we then consider the economic implications of their arrangement with us.”

As Chief Operating Officer, Ambre oversees the sales operations and business development dynamic of the company with more than 350 colleagues in her team divided across the company’s main verticals. Ambre oversees the structure and strategy behind the sales of these teams to help them work effectively and efficiently.

In tandem, Ambre is the Chief Resilience Officer of Selectra. This side of her role arose from a discussion with Xavier Pinon, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Selectra, related to the rapid growth of Selectra in recent years and the employee demographic. As a relatively new company with strong year-on-year growth and a young, talented and internationally-minded employee base, Ambre identified a limiter on the development and growth at Selectra. Colleagues were enthusiastic and had excellent ideas, but they lacked the mechanisms or structures to introduce these fresh perspectives in a context of rapid growth. So Ambre successfully suggested building an

innovation department to develop an innovation strategy.

“In September 2022, I launched the innovation department business unit within the company,” says Ambre. “It started with a simple employee feedback mechanism and has grown organically from there. With these ideas and feedback in mind, we developed an innovation strategy for Selectra and decided to onboard two promising projects which we believe will change the future of the company.

“We are currently in an exploration mode where we test hypotheses for success with considered metrics,

“Underlying our mission and sustainability priority is a trustful connection with our customers”

Ambre Exposito, Chief Operations Officer & Chief Resilience Innovation Officer

before transitioning into an exploitation mode where we then deploy the new projects.”

The first innovation project at Selectra is exploring a shift in the company’s current business model. Lead generation is fundamental to Selectra’s commercial success but with constant new developments in fields like SEO or artificial intelligence and related customer drivers, the company must be agile and proactive on this frontier.

“If leads don’t arrive, we don’t survive,” summarises Ambre. “We cannot entirely depend on our SEO ranking since the algorithms could change drastically in the coming years and have a huge impact on sales.”

Ambre highlights the example of the recent energy crisis which meant the cost of acquisition per customer and the spiralling costs of the products

themselves meant the sales for this vertical plummeted.

In light of this, the innovation department at Selectra pivoted towards exploring and developing cross-selling functionality in the sales teams. The energy team turned its attention to other related products such as additional sales, so even if the sales of energy products were low the incoming revenue increased elsewhere.

The second innovation project at Selectra related to inbound calls, explains Ambre.

“Like many companies, we have struggled with being understaffed even in the sales teams,” says Ambre. “This dynamic combined with the huge volume of inbound calls we receive from customers or potential customers meant we were missing sales opportunities.

“But in the past two years, we have made a concerted effort to redefine our inbound calls strategy so we now address nearly all of our inbound calls.

“The transformation of our inbound call strategy did not stop at significantly lowering the rate of missed calls, it extended and developed beyond this to include increasing the retention rate and customer loyalty levels.

“We have developed several initiatives based on customer interviews, so

our strategies are deeply rooted in a customer-centric approach. By doing so we are developing our brand even further, to become the go-to company for all things related to household contracts and subscriptions – not just today, but with an eye on tomorrow as well.”

Beyond these two projects, Ambre stresses the increasing role of artificial intelligence within the innovation department at Selectra.

“Predominantly, we love doing things by ourselves,” says Ambre. “We are not the type of company that will externalise our evolution. But if we see new technologies or ways of operating outside Selectra, we ask ourselves how we can do it better in a relevant way for our brand and mission. Sometimes this entails partnering with companies to work together on these dynamics but build them in a way that is specific to us –for instance with AI.”

Selectra is developing an AI-driven solution called Coach which is focused on the compliance side of the business.

“It’s a great tool to assist our compliance department so they operate comprehensively and extensively,” says Ambre. “AI is hugely important as it assists us with ensuring perfect compliance but also in related areas like training, improving customer relationships and even seemingly small but incredibly

“At Selectra, the integration of more AI models is streamlining our processes and creating new opportunities”

important details like the tone of our phone calls.”

Here Ambre introduces her colleague Alexandre Bouju, Tech Lead for CRM and Telephony of Selectra, to elaborate on the use of AI at the company.

“At Selectra, the integration of more AI models is streamlining our processes and creating new opportunities,” says Alexandre. “Many processes have

been redefined and expanded to explore new possibilities.

“A significant breakthrough for us is gaining access to high-quality transcriptions of our calls. Large Language models (LLMs) then assist us in leveraging this new content to implement various validations for quality purposes.

“Our quality department agents now work more efficiently, allowing them

Alexandre Bouju, Tech Lead for CRM and Telephony

“I have been at Selectra for eight years and Zoho has been a fundamental partner during my time here and will be into the future”

to focus on what they enjoy most in their roles: providing advice and making a real impact on the quality of our work.

“Additionally, we utilise trained models to predict the volume of calls we'll receive throughout the day, enhancing our team planning strategies.

“Furthermore, we are actively developing a virtual agent whose role will be to welcome our customers and inquire about the reason for their call. The intention behind the

call is promptly transcribed and categorised, ensuring that the call is directed to the appropriate department. This not only enhances customer satisfaction but also improves our conversion rate.

“In conclusion, the repercussions of the revolution in the field of AI have a direct impact on our processes, their cost and their scope of action.”

On the topic of partnerships, Ambre highlights the crucial importance of Selectra’s Customer Relationship

When value is hard to find, Zoho makes it easy

want

Management (CRM) platform, provided by Zoho.

“I have been at Selectra for eight years and Zoho has been a fundamental partner during my time here and will be into the future,” says Ambre.

“Zoho’s platform is crucial to our operations as a central database but also a facilitator for our agents – it is a wonderful source of information and opportunities which helps us thrive.

“We are a relatively young company as are Zoho, which works very well for us. We like to work with people who are also in the development phase since we can collaborate organically on new features and they

can adjust to our business needs. We love that flexibility from Zoho. But more than this, with well-established companies that have grown beyond the development phase you can be trapped by their provisions and also the elevated costs that come with them. With Zoho, we have a valued partner that we know we can grow with, securing tremendous value at an affordable price. Partnering with Zoho has been a super smart choice and we have a special relationship with them.”

At Selectra, partnerships have been important to the company’s internal operations and technology, but also in relation to the providers its customers ultimately choose. Here Ambre introduces her colleague

“In France, the energy market has suffered various successive crises forcing us to reinvent ourselves and our approach to provider partnerships,” says Camille. “For instance, the global COVID-19 pandemic froze all French moves for several months and then, more recently, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine caused great instabilities in the energy supply markets. This had the direct impact of suspending the acquisition of new customers for most eligible energy suppliers in France.

“Selectra was able to overcome these difficulties thanks to an increasingly

Camille Servanton, Commercial and Business Director of Selectra to explain more.

Camille Servanton, Commercial and Business Director

“We offer our customers a more complete and therefore more relevant contract subscription service with extensive coverage in the contracts market which directly benefits from our robust partnership strategy”

efficient SEO (natural referencing) acquisition and the fact we have always had a strategy of working closely with all our energy suppliers and other contract providers – which has left doors open for us, unlike many of our competitors.

“We offer our customers a more complete and therefore more relevant contract subscription service with extensive coverage in the contracts market which directly benefits from our robust partnership strategy.”

Wrapping up our conversation, Ambre reflects on her journey with Selectra where she started as a Junior Manager, rising to the positions of Chief Operations Officer and Chief Resilience Officer today. In those nine years, scaling the company has required energy and intention, alongside a developing leadership style that has grown with the company, explains Ambre.

“From a human side of the business, it can be challenging to scale through

different growth phases,” says Ambre. “People, skills, tools, data and structure are essential to any company. But when you scale, you must adapt these dynamics to prepare you for the next stage because you are heading into the unknown. These moments offer huge opportunities for people to adapt and grow when they transition through these phases, and it is about recognising their strengths during the changes. It can be challenging from a human perspective, but with the right management and leadership style from the top of the company at Selectra, we have been able to make our people feel part of the story and trajectory of the company by wielding sympathy, empathy and clear communication about where we are going and why.

“It has been a beautiful journey to see Selectra evolve in terms of expanding into new verticals and global geographies, developing our customer service provision but especially in terms of the people we have here – it has been incredibly rewarding.”

For more information about Selectra, visit selectra.com.

ADDED VALUE

Teamwork and collaboration

Ambre emphasises that the growth, transformation, innovation and success at Selectra would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of all the teams across the company. One of her major sources of pride during her time at Selectra has been the high retention rates for hiring at the company.

“Underpinning the scalability and growth of Selectra has been the people, but also the unifying mindset and values we enshrine in how we operate – humility, excellence and kindness permeate how we work every day,” says Ambre. “It’s great to work in such an environment where ideas and contributions are welcomed with open arms. We learn from each other and by building together, we move forward together.”

Wanderlust

For Ambre, travelling has been an incredibly insightful and educational experience. She celebrates how Selectra has supported her travels with flexibility and trust.

“Travel is like oxygen for my brain,” says Ambre. “Whether you think about how it refines your empathetic social skills and cultural awareness, helps you build bridges and make connections or even serves as a space to foster creative thinking and find fresh new ideas, I deeply value the opportunity to travel and explore.

“Travel is my hobby, but it is so much more than this, and I recommend people embrace it for the self-knowledge and growth it provides.”

"The team were professional and diligent throughout"

Leigh Feaviour, CTIO for BT’s Supply Chain

"Absolute pleasure working with the Digital Innovation team"

Mun Valiji, Chief Information Security Officer at Sainsbury’s

"A highly professional approach"

Andy Brierley, Vice President, Cloud Application Modernisation at IBM

"Digital innovation Magazine is a very flexible and professional team"

Kim Larsen CTIO, T-Mobile Netherlands

Global insurance insights: Embedding sustainability and innovation into procurement

Jaime Paiva, Head of Procurement and Vendor Management EMEA, and Chris Minter, Sustainable Sourcing Lead of Zurich Insurance Group on striving for sustainability in a service-driven industry.

Leading multi-line insurer Zurich Insurance Group (Zurich) serves people and businesses in more than

200 countries and territories.

ounded 150 years ago, Zurich is transforming insurance. The Group has about 60,000 employees and is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. In addition to providing insurance protection, Zurich is increasingly offering prevention services such as those that promote wellbeing and enhance climate resilience.

Reflecting its purpose to ‘create a brighter future together,’ Zurich aspires to be one of the most responsible and impactful businesses in the world. It is targeting net-zero emissions by 2050 and has the highest ESG rating from MSCI.

In 2020, Zurich launched the Zurich Forest project to support reforestation and biodiversity restoration in Brazil.

One of the ways Zurich strives for sustainability as a company is through its procurement strategy. Here to tell us more about Zurich’s approach are Jaime Paiva, Head of Procurement and Vendor Management EMEA and Chris Minter, Sustainable Sourcing Lead.

Jaime has been with Zurich for 12 years and heads up the procurement department in the EMEA region. Chris works in the same team as Jaime, focusing

specifically on sustainability within a supply chain context.

So how is Zurich pioneering sustainable procurement and sourcing in its operations?

“As a large global company, we have an obligation to act responsibly and actively manage the ESG risks that we have in our supply chain,” begins Chris. “But we also aim to go beyond that and create positive environmental and social impacts, acting as a force for good in our operations. Our organisation has the ambition to be one of the world's most responsible, impactful businesses. The only way we can realistically achieve this ambition is if every function within our organisation implements or integrates sustainability considerations into the way that they run their relevant functions or business units, and that extends to our supply chain.”

While Zurich faces fewer risks in its supply chain than say manufacturing or production companies where there might be more environmental, legal or human rights factors, Chris emphasises that issues can still arise and it’s important to have measures in place because of this.

“Working with Prewave enables about what's happening with we have many suppliers around helps us monitor them in a keeping us on the front foot

Here, Zurich deploys technological innovation to support its supply chain strategy.

“We want to be proactive with managing these risks and this is where Prewave comes in, by providing us with their AI risk intelligence platform,” says Chris. “Prewave helps Zurich to proactively monitor its supply chain using an AI algorithm. This profiles

enables us to keep informed with our suppliers because around Zurich and Prewave a resource-effective way, foot if there are issues arising”

news sites, NGO reports and social media looking for potential events that are either being reported or are being suggested could happen in the future – bringing those to our attention.

“So for example, if a supplier is identified by a government entity for human rights issues in a factory or if a trade union reports issues with

their workers in a particular place, we would be proactively notified about it on an almost real-time basis.

“Working with Prewave enables us to keep informed about what's happening with our suppliers because we have many suppliers around Zurich and Prewave helps us monitor them in a resource-effective way, keeping us on the front foot if there are issues arising.

“With their platform operating in the background, digesting content in multiple languages across the internet but localising this for the user’s native language, we have confidence that if there's something that we should know about, that we do. This enables us to take proactive steps with the supplier, so we can tackle and mitigate risks accordingly.”

From a user perspective, Jaime lauds the Prewave platform, emphasising its intuitive user experience.

“I have a list of companies that we work with, that I asked Prewave to put on their radar and notify me about,” shares

Jaime. “If issues or notifications arrive, their technology has a way of removing the noise. All the hits that they get

Chris Minter, Sustainable Sourcing Lead

and report back to us are relevant and helpful. Otherwise, my inbox would be bombarded. To me, this is what differentiates them from competitors or similar solution providers.”

Chris explains how embedding Zurich’s core values throughout the entire sourcing lifecycle is the foundation for how the procurement function operates at the company.

“Our Supplier Code of Conduct contains a set of expectations that we set for our suppliers globally. Those expectations are based upon practices at Zurich that we've implemented in our own operations or align with the ambitions that we've set”

Chris Minter, Sustainable Sourcing Lead

“The primary way we do this is through our Supplier Code of Conduct,” says Chris. “It contains a set of expectations that we set for our suppliers globally. Those expectations are based upon practices at Zurich that we've implemented in our own operations or align with the ambitions that we've set. We're establishing expectations for our suppliers based upon things that we believe in and look to our suppliers through the lens of the standards that we set for ourselves.

“We provide online training for our suppliers through our website with videos explaining our Supplier Code of Conduct, and we also offer self-assessments to determine whether they meet these standards. For suppliers that don't meet our expectations, we provide additional free resources, training and tools to help them meet these standards.

“For example, we offer free access to the Normative Business Carbon Calculator via our website and a blueprint that guides companies on how they can reduce their carbon footprint. We also provide a template human rights statement for companies to adopt if they lack a clear human rights standard that meets our position. Our approach is to use

our influence to nudge suppliers towards driving up standards and taking responsibility for their own sustainability.”

Building on Chris’s description of Zurich’s Supplier Code of Conduct, Jaime adds that sustainable sourcing and supply chain strategies at Zurich are being deployed to meet broader business goals.

“We have moved on from the beginning where the principle was ‘do no harm,’ to where we are today, which is aiming at proactively doing good,” says Jaime. “We must set the bar high because by aiming high we inspire and encourage our supply chain to join us on the journey towards making positive impacts. The journey is far from complete, but we are making strides towards it every single day.”

At Zurich, sustainability is more than an environmental responsibility, it extends to social impact as well. Zurich embraces

its global leadership position to help develop commercial relationships between corporate organisations and social enterprises to generate positive social impacts.

The World Economic Forum defines social enterprises as “profitgenerating organisations that apply commercial strategies and innovative approaches to social challenges. Social entrepreneurs centre their business models on achieving social and environmental goals, emphasizing impact over profit maximisation.”

“Our social procurement initiative is one of the pillars of our sustainable sourcing programme,” says Jaime. “Addressing the ‘S’ in the ESG puzzle started in 2016 in the UK. That year we joined the Social Enterprise UK (SEUK) as one of the five founding members of their Buy Social Corporate Challenge, which continues to exist today. In the challenge’s year seven impact report, we were one of the 30 companies joining the challenge ourselves. In the first seven years since the Buy

“Zurich embraces its global leadership position to help develop commercial relationships between corporate organisations and social enterprises to generate positive social impacts”

Social Corporate Challenge began, we had collectively spent over £300m with social enterprises.

“In 2019, we decided to expand the experience based on the results from the UK to other countries, together with three or four other companies that were part of the Buy Social Corporate Challenge. We asked the SEUK team to coordinate the efforts across other countries in Europe, namely Ireland, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, expanding our internal social procurement initiative. Since then we have rolled out the agenda in Brazil and Spain.

“The expansion led SEUK to launch a new venture named Telos, which aims to support large corporates to identify and source from social enterprises across EMEA through the Buy Social Europe programme.

“This, for example, has been an ongoing, innovative activity differentiating the procurement function in Zurich from other companies. We have been not only focusing on expanding the work

with social enterprises, be it as a direct or Tier 2 supplier, but also on building capabilities internally.

“For instance last year, we rolled out a dedicated training programme internally, which was developed for Zurich by a company called the Yunus Social Business based in Germany. Together we coordinated a virtual cohort with people from different parts of the globe, not only for the procurement side of Zurich but also people from other functions

Chris emphasises that Zurich’s journey of working with more social enterprises and refining its internal approach to them started in areas of low strategic importance and has since grown from there.

“We started off with stationery: pens, pencils, paper and post-it notes,” explains Chris. “A great social enterprise we partnered with in the beginning was WildHearts Group. In the UK, we selected WildHearts as a competitive stationery provider

“From an anecdotal perspective, we have seen that working with social enterprises and generating positive social impact more broadly resonates deeply with our colleagues”

Jaime Paiva, Head of Procurement and Vendor Management, EMEA

of the business. The intention was to deploy a training programme called Social Procurement Ambassadors. We wanted to have more people across the business knowledgeable about the impact that we can drive through procurement, predominantly, but also with our supplier base. The training means our Social Procurement Ambassadors can create or acquire relevant knowledge in their regions, with access to tools to develop local strategies because this endeavour needs to be localised to a certain extent as well.”

operationally and commercially, following a competitive tender process. WildHearts divert all of its profits to fund social impact projects such as microfinancing in Africa, particularly among women running businesses in local communities at the grassroots level.

“Zurich’s social enterprise work started by replacing a stationery supplier and it's grown from there. We were able to use WildHearts as a test business case to demonstrate that there's no

Jaime Paiva, Head of Procurement and Vendor Management, EMEA

sacrifice on cost or quality and the process offers the added benefit of generating positive social impact as well.

“The data and insights from SEUK are clear: social enterprises generally have a very diverse ownership. Their stats demonstrate that typically, the diversity of social enterprises is much greater than regular businesses. As such Zurich’s work with social enterprises not only helps generate positive environmental and social impacts, but it also helps promote diversity in the business community as well,” summarises Chris.

Jaime highlights how the collaboration with WildHearts demonstrates how a

seemingly tactical or non-strategic project can evolve into a businesswide precedent, but also enrich the company culture in the process.

“From an anecdotal perspective, we have seen that working with social enterprises and generating positive social impact more broadly resonates deeply with our colleagues,” says Jaime. “The level of engagement that we have seen in our procurement team has expanded to the whole organisation. When we clearly show our people how their work can create a social impact beyond their targets or roles, we cultivate a human connection which elevates the whole endeavour.”

Since Zurich began its work with social enterprises in 2016 and published its Supplier Code of Conduct in 2021, in the past three years the company now proudly spends the majority of its managed procurement spend with suppliers that meet or exceed the key expectations of its Supplier Code of Conduct.

“Publishing our Supplier Code of Conduct was a major global milestone for us,” says Chris.

ILUNION is a unique model. A business and social model, the origin of which is to be found in the ONCE Social Group. It is an organisation that grows its over 20 lines of business each day while generating quality employment for people with a disability.

“Since we published it, we've been able to demonstrate via supplier self-assessments that our procurement spending is mostly with suppliers that meet or exceed those standards, and I believe that is down to various proactive steps that we've taken. For example, we've examples where suppliers with higher sustainability attributes have been prioritised in our sourcing decisions, and we've also been proactive in providing tools and resources to our suppliers

Zurich Social

New Social Enterprise UK venture supporting big businesses to buy from social enterprises across EMEA region through the Buy Social Europe programme.

Yunus Social Business social innovation organisation supports companies positive social impact their operations. We create your impact your procurement social procurement, programs that will business and society.

so they can elevate their position themselves.

“Arising from this momentum, we've set targets to complement our own net-zero strategy as a company. We've set targets for the percentage of our managed procurement spend that is with suppliers that have set science-based emission reduction goals and have their own net-zero targets in place. The reason we've taken that decision is because climate change is a prominent topic

for our organisation and the future of the insurance sector. So it's only right that we use what influence we have to drive change amongst our suppliers. We're taking proactive steps to meet those targets with the resources that we're providing, integrating these decisions into our sourcing processes end to end.

“In 2023, we were recognised by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). They run a global questionnaire where companies are invited to

Social Enterprises

Business is a leading organisation that companies to integrate impact through We can help you impact strategy, train procurement managers on procurement, and develop will benefit your society.

Agfoodtech of the circular green microeconomy of the regenerative agriculture chain. We transform the Future of Green Cities. Nonlinear chain and sustainable lifestyle platform, implementing the Eco Village concept in cities with technology and data.

WildHearts Office is a world-leading social enterprise, supplying print and office supplies. We use all profits to deliver social and environmental impact projects locally and globally. To date, we have transformed over 2 million lives.

“As an organisation, we're incredibly proud to talk about our work and the external recognition we have received”

provide information about how they integrate climate change into their respective businesses. It’s a transparent survey process which we participate in voluntarily. Because of the approach that we've taken with supplier engagement, having targets, being proactive on sustainability and providing resources and tools to minimise their impact, we earned CDP Supply Chain Leadership status. That put us in the top 8% of companies globally for our supply chain engagement strategies and we are one of only six insurance companies to secure this status.

“In 2023 we were also acknowledged with platinum status from the Catalyst Business Commitment for our social procurement efforts, which recognises that we've taken significant steps to promote opportunities for social enterprises in many different countries, not just the UK where it's maybe most

well-known, but in other markets as well.”

Jaime reiterates that the platinum status recognition from Catalyst Business Commitment is not an award, Zurich had to document and prove their credentials to secure the certification for this prominent acknowledgement.

“As an insurance company, if you look at the ESG risks that our supply chain presents, compared to other companies and sectors it's rather low,” says Chris. “But we haven't let that stop us and we've taken real proactive steps to address these topics. As an organisation, we're incredibly proud to talk about our work and the external recognition we have received.”

For more information about Zurich, visit zurich.com.

Turn over for 'ADDED VALUE' with Jaime and Chris.

Added Value

Jaime

Connect with Jaime

Zurich attends conferences and events throughout any given year, but Jaime has observed a positive shift in the topics of conversation in recent years.

“If we go back five years ago, you wouldn't see a lot of slots allocated to sustainability or social impact at all,” says Jaime. “This has changed completely. If you go to any of the big events you will see that most of the agenda now has been around ESG, social impact and so on. I think that evidences how important the topic has become, and I'm very proud to say that we have identified the need to cover this in our function before it became a hype topic, perhaps.”

Jaime also celebrates the work he is able to do with a movement called the Sustainable Procurement Pledge (SPP).

“The SPP was created four years ago to create a grassroots movement for procurement professionals, but led by procurement professionals as well. It's not a service, it's not a consultancy. Instead, its goal is to equip procurement professionals, especially the younger generation, with tools, knowledge and strategies to strive towards the vision of the whole movement: the goal is for all supply chains across the world to have embedded sustainable procurement practices by 2030.

“My involvement with this movement is on a pro bono basis. SPP is organised by chapters that can cover a region, topic or industry. I co-chair one of the chapters on supplier diversity, where social procurement is a major element.

“On March 21, 2024, SPP is arranging a 24-hour event for World Sustainable Procurement Day (WSPD), which happens every year on the Spring Equinox. It’s free to register for the event, and the day unfolds across global time zones for the whole day.”

Chris

Connect with Chris

As an organisation, Zurich aims to help our customers and other stakeholders understand and protect themselves from risk and publishes various thought leadership on key topics including sustainability.

Chris recommends readers explore these free resources, some of which he highlights below:

The Global Risks Report 202419th Edition

Positive impacts with social procurement

Supplier Code of Conduct

Mobile banking has been an equaliser in Africa – but are there more ways to improve financial freedom?

There are around 370 million unbanked people in Africa, but 763 million registered mobile phones.

dopting innovative payroll processes like on-demand pay, which utilises digital wallets and enables workers to access their accrued earnings through mobile devices, could potentially free millions of people from financial hardship.

According to payroll specialist CloudPay, Africa is a global leader in mobile money. Due to low rates of urbanisation, many people in Africa have experienced difficulty accessing financial

services. Online banking has been a game-changer for many people across the continent, with sub-Saharan Africa being the world’s largest growing mobile phone market. Kenya and Ghana are behind only China for the highest mobile payment usage rates in the world, and the continent as a whole accounts for 70% of the global $1.26tn market.

This is one of the reasons CloudPay has chosen to focus on deploying its payroll solution across Africa.

“CloudPay hopes to disrupt the current systems in place and help support millions of unbanked citizens”

CloudPay NOW allows employees to access the wages they have already earned as and when they need them, using digital payment technology to reduce payment timelines from a few days to seconds. By introducing this model to Africa, the company hopes to disrupt the current systems in place and help support millions of unbanked citizens.

However, some experts have concerns about the on-demand pay model, suggesting it can exacerbate poor financial habits. To combat these apprehensions, CloudPay offers financial wellness tools – designed to improve financial education and planning. Combining these provisions with the ondemand pay model, the company suggests, gives employees significantly more financial freedom than traditional payroll models.

Overall, on-demand pay has the potential to reduce predatory lending, provide a safety net in the event of

“Overall, on-demand pay has the potential to reduce predatory lending, provide a safety net in the event of an unexpected payment and give employees more control over their finances”

an unexpected payment and give employees more control over their finances. Having this option can also give employers a competitive edge when it comes to employee satisfaction.

“Africa already leads the way when it comes to mobile money,

however, millions of people often have to wait for extended periods to receive their pay meaning they are essentially restricted by their employers when it comes to everyday needs like food, healthcare and education,” says Ferdinand Dragtstra, Strategy Director

“In 2022, there were 45 billion transactions made in Africa, for a total value of $832 billion, and mobile money bulk disbursements, including salary payments, grew by 23% to over $80 billion”

of New Markets at CloudPay.

“If more businesses and public bodies look to adopt innovative payment models that are mobileenabled, it could empower people across the continent and provide them with more financial freedom, inclusion and flexibility. This is particularly

vital for more vulnerable groups, especially women. In rural areas, formal financial services only reach around 10% of communities. It’s common knowledge that if females had access to the same resources as men in Africa, up to 150 million people would be lifted out of hunger.

“We are already seeing growing demand for these solutions and increasing momentum of adoption.

In 2022, there were 45 billion transactions made in Africa, for a total value of $832 billion, and mobile money bulk disbursements, including salary payments, grew by 23% to over $80 billion. Mobile

technology could provide the platform for change however that’s only one half of the puzzle. To truly free workers, employers must financially empower them by granting access to pay when it’s needed.”

Learn more here.

Source: CloudPay

Let’s collaborate…

Innovation Magazine is a specialist technology platform with over 166,700+ readers.

Our community consists of C, V and D level executives from a wide range of industries. A unique blend of thought leadership interviews and features that cover digital transformation, cloud & cyber, enterprise IT, artificial intelligence, machine learning and sustainability.

Digital Magazine

Website

Newsletters

Demand Generation

Whitepapers & Research Reports

Webinars - Hosting & Promotion

Team up with Innovation Magazine and build media programs that deliver.

Find out more

Pioneering Remote Identification for a Secure Future

Roland Eichenauer, VP of BD, Sales & Marketing at Nets eID Solutions, offered by Nets DanID which is part of Europe’s largest pay tech company Nexi Group, discusses transforming the security industry with their leading-edge identity and payment solutions.

merging from a consolidation of Nexi, Nets and Sia, the Nexi Group is one of the biggest PayTech players in Europe.

Nets DanID (Nets) strives to provide the simplest, fastest and safest eID solutions with proximity, scale and capabilities. The company has developed one of Europe’s first eIDAS-compliant national eID schemes in Denmark, called “MitID,” managing about 9 million digital identities and reaching a market adoption of 99%, bridging the public and private sectors with 67 banks and more than

2,000 providers together on one platform.

Roland Eichenauer, VP of BD, Sales & Marketing at Nets eID Solutions joins us to explore the company’s innovative approach to identity solutions and the technology behind its services.

“Nets comprises 3 main business units: payment card issuing processing, multi-channel merchant payment and acquiring services, and digital banking networking services. We are a strategic combination of three European leaders shaping the

future of digitalisation and e-security, operating in 25 countries with 9,000 employees,” begins Roland. “We originate from the Nordics, a region made up of some of the most advanced digital societies in the world, making us frontrunners within the electronic identification (eID) and digital payment solutions industries.

“Nets services a major ecosystem of over 160 million cardholders, over 2.5 million merchants across all European countries and aims to embed secure digital identity functions right into its payment and cardholder processing services to dramatically increase security, reduce fraud and provide innovative new value-adding services.

“In Denmark, Nets eID – offered by Nets DanID which is part of Nexi Group –developed, launched and operates the country’s first eID solution in collaboration between the nation’s banks and public administration. It is free of charge for Danish citizens and it represents the secure access to all digital services in Denmark, including both the private and public sectors.

“Our solution offers multi-modal and multi-country identity verification and authentication services, eID and credential management and electronic signing service, which are compliant with EU eIDAS and PSD2 regulation and country-specific AML requirements. Users can use mobile apps or various hard-tokens to authenticate and protect their privacy and identity.

“My role at Nets, is to lead the strategic direction for eID solutions, focusing on both the public and private sector, particularly in banking and financial

services. My responsibilities include identifying new opportunities and strategic alliances. I’m also in charge of guiding the sales and marketing team to enhance brand awareness and align marketing strategy with sales and business objectives –especially in positioning Nets in the EU and also looking at expanding into the global market. Within this, my role involves spearheading market entry strategy and understanding diverse local regulations so we can work with international strategic alliances to seek to effectively position and adapt our eID solutions in various markets.”

“My key objective is to seamlessly embed digital identity services into all business critical and personal digital transaction services, whether this is in public services or a broad range of private services, like financial and banking, insurance, health, education, R&D, cloud and digital content, just to name some categories. Embracing digital identity services within the digital society and ecosystem will deliver the highest level of trust, security and privacy.

Elaborating on Net’s go-to-market strategy for digital identity solutions, Roland emphasises the importance of ensuring that their industry expertise is accessible, flexible, stateof-the-art, secure and relevant.

“Nets digital identity solution, including our state-of-the-art eID platform, offers comprehensive services such as multi-modal/multicountry identity verification, multimethod authentication and digital signing,” says Roland. “Based on over

20 years of experience in developing and operating digital identity solutions in the Nordics, we have packaged our knowledge into modules that can be easily adopted by potential customers throughout Europe and beyond.

“Our strategy is to offer a whitelabel eID solution for banks and public sector organisations, focusing on seamless integration and user experience. Our eID solution is already successfully deployed in Denmark, and it is designed for scalability and internationalisation.

“We have built our eID solution in a very modular way. The whole solution which is based on open source software has been built with an “APIfirst” mindset in order to ease any implementations.

“Drawing on our two-decade expertise in digital identity, we aim to bolster the digital transformation efforts of

member states and sectors by offering our well-established eID solutions. We're dedicated to delivering secure, compliant and user-centric services that meet the evolving needs of public and private entities across Europe.

“Our strategy for entering the market targets both the public and private sectors, with a special focus on the banking industry due to its significant size and potential for customer acquisition. Additionally, our solutions are designed to assist in complying with current and forthcoming regulations, such as PSD2, eIDAS 2.0 and the anticipated PSD3. This approach not only capitalises on our expertise in digital identity but also aligns with the evolving regulatory landscape, ensuring our services remain indispensable for meeting the complex requirements of these directives.

“In summary, we have built the newest generation of eID solutions, which

is flexible, modular and covers all aspects of what is expected of such solutions. We support strong customer authentication (SCA), secure remote identity verification, various authentication methods for digital inclusion, qualified and enhanced electronic signatures. We meet strict compliance and regulatory needs, such as GDPR for data protection, eIDAS for electronic transactions within the EU, and PSD2 for secure payment services. Additionally, our solutions are designed to support the three levels of assurance – low, substantial, and high – as defined by eIDAS, thereby catering to the diverse needs of our clients across both the public and private sectors.

“The platform enables digital identity creation and verification of customers and end users, providing secure logins and single sign-on to (your own or 3rd party) digital services. It is a solid foundation for delivering first-class customer experience and enhancing operational efficiency.

“Our digital identity solutions also make transactions faster, easier and more secure for banks, public organisations and clients in other industries too.”

To provide the security and speed required for digital payment and identity solutions, Nets wields the latest technology and innovations related to bio identity and biometric features.

“We are pioneering innovation in bio identity and biometrics,” says Roland. “Our platform has a built-in ID Reader, which offers fast and secure digital

identity verification, fully digitalising the process and eliminating the need for physical meetings or video technology.

“The Nets ID Reader can analyse and verify more than 200 different international ID documents, facilitating global onboarding and identity verification – even if the country lacks an existing eID solution. We are revolutionising remote identification, moving beyond traditional optical character recognition and individual identification technologies, whilst ensuring the highest level of security – including eIDAS and ISO/IEC 30107 standards.

“The Nets ID Reader incorporates a configurable Face Match Level (FML) to adjust the level of assurance for identity verification processes, including managing the False Acceptance Rate (FAR). The system allows setting a specific FAR threshold, with the document mentioning

configurations like FML 6, which corresponds to a 1:100,000 FAR with less than 1% False Rejection Rate (FRR), meeting the eIDAS High Level of Assurance criteria. The maximum configuration level mentioned is FML 8, equating to a 1:1,000,000 FAR with less than 1% FRR.

“Our approach not only offers superior convenience for end users but also offers robust protection from fraud. We also provide a software development kit for building native solutions and integrating them into existing apps. One of our key USPs is interoperability, since our solution can sit alongside and enhance existing solutions.”

Having positioned itself at the forefront of the eID market, Nets embraces the responsibility and opportunity of being a trailblazing digital identity and payments business, according to Roland.

“Our approach not only offers superior convenience for end users but also offers robust protection from fraud”

Roland Eichenauer, VP of BD, Sales & Marketing, Digital Identity & eID Solutions

“At Nets, we are actively involved in the EU Digital Identity Wallet Pilot as one of the Large Scale Pilots, positioning ourselves as a key player in this new ecosystem,” says Roland. “We are also actively participating in influential consortiums – the EUDI Wallet Consortium (EWC) and the NOBID Consortium – demonstrating our capabilities and commitment to shaping the future of digital identity in Europe.

“We are leveraging our participation in this landscape, partly to enhance our offering, but also to evolve and adapt to the digital identity landscape. Within this, we are focusing on ensuring that our solutions meet the highest standards of assurance required by the EU, making us a highly credible and influential provider of digital identity solutions.

“A key focus for us has been aligning with eIDAS 2.0 standards and providing

EU citizens with a secure digital identity for cross-border use.

“Since we are providing the critical national eID infrastructure for the Danish government, we are involved in the development of PIDs (personal identification datasets) issuance for the coming EU Wallet.”

Looking ahead to the future, Roland explains that new and evolving legislation, regulations and policies are a vehicle for Nets to expand into more countries, reach new markets and continue to develop its highly innovative solutions.

“If we consider eIDAS 1.0 alongside the resilience recovery funds from the EU to build national eID solutions, we can still see that there are several member states who do not have a notified eID solution in place,” explains Roland. “Member States can request financing for setting up or improving the necessary infrastructure from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), indicating that the funds support both eIDAS 1.0 and the advancement to eIDAS 2.0. Expansion into these countries is one of our ambitions. We believe that with the right local partner, we could really be a contributor to their digital transformation journey. But as more and more member states deploy the EU Digital Identity Wallet, we need to adapt or improve the existing eID solutions concurrently. In the digital identity space, there are still many physical ID readers or other technologies with low levels of assurance which need to be addressed. Instead, everybody needs to have a mobile version with the highest level of assurance.

“As new identity security regulations come into play and banks or financial institutions release new products to market, the consistent underlying prerequisite is a strong digital identity and verification system. At Nets, we embrace these demands from the market and strive to make the transactions as fast, easy and secure as possible for our users.”

Drawing our conversation to a close, Roland emphasises that digital identity has been overlooked or underprioritised by many industries and this situation needs to change – for the benefit of end users but also financial institutions, public bodies and private sector businesses as well.

“Digital identity is a critical driver for digital transformation, as evidenced by the experiences of Nordic countries, which are often at the forefront of digital innovation,” says Roland. “The implementation of digital identity systems in these countries has

demonstrated significant benefits in terms of efficiency, security and user convenience.

“In a digital economy, identity verification is a fundamental process that impacts a broad range of sectors, from banking and healthcare to public services. Having a secure and reliable digital identity framework like eIDAS 2.0 is crucial for the following reasons:

• It's not only about improving user experience but also about the broader implications for security, governance and economic development. For businesses and financial institutions, digital identity systems can reduce the risk of identity theft and streamline customer onboarding. For public bodies, they can enhance the delivery of services and improve governance.

• The transition to a digital-first approach, as seen in the Nordics, is a testament to the power of digital

identity in driving transformation. By adopting similar frameworks, other EU member states can capitalise on these benefits, making services more seamless and secure for all stakeholders involved. The support of initiatives like the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility for such digital transformations indicates a recognition of these benefits at the highest levels of governance.

“Digital identity has not been a key focus for a lot of industries,” insists Roland. “Many companies write off digital identity because they only consider it in the context of the use case for making money. Failure to do so can result in losing out financially due to fraud cases, phishing attempts or poor user experience during client onboarding processes, for instance. Digital identity, in some ways, has evolved into a currency in its own right due to its economic implications.

“By building a user-centric, secure and unified digital identity, harmonising the public and private sectors, our model could be a societal game changer. Digital identity is essential for faster, secure transactions and diverse payment scenarios. It streamlines citizen-government interactions, reducing fraud and paperwork. In banking, it ensures compliance, aids in fraud prevention, and enhances personalised financial services. Overall, digital identity drives innovation and efficiency in both sectors.”

To learn more, visit www.nets.eu.

Turn over for 'ADDED VALUE' with Roland.

Connect with Roland

Recommended resources

Roland spends much of his time commuting listening to audiobooks and podcasts. He highly recommends the Identity Unlocked podcast hosted by Vittorio Bertocci as a particularly insightful resource for anyone interested in the digital identity industry. Roland also recommends watching David Birch’s TED Talk on digital identity.

“These resources help deepen the audience understanding of the complexity and potential of digital identities,” says Roland. “The discussions are particularly relevant, given the rapid digital transformation we are experiencing as a society.”

Professional network

Roland is part of several expert groups which he finds professionally rewarding and insightful. In particular, Roland highlights being part of the digital identity expert group coordinated by the Mobey Forum.

“The Mobey Forum is a global nonprofit industry association, empowering banks and other financial institutions to shape the future of digital financial services,” says Roland.

Event schedule

Nets actively seeks opportunities to engage with industry representatives and share its expertise at global events, explains Roland.

If you’d like to connect with Nets, they will be attending the events below in the coming months of 2024. MoneyLIVE

Disrupting conventional training systems with AI-powered avatars

esearch suggests there is a lack of effective negotiation training within procurement.

According to a global study, nearly half of procurement and purchasing buyers report that they have not received any training at all. Out of those who have received training, only 19% of them consider their training to be ‘extremely effective.’

As the first of its kind, LavenirAI is looking to change this system.

Developed by procurement innovator Clive R. Heal and training expert Bill Michels, the company offers a solution in the form of AI-powered avatars, revolutionising the way professionals can train and develop their negotiation skills.

The conversational AI can simulate realistic negotiations (with each avatar having its own personality), present personalised feedback and offer coaching, allowing users to improve their negotiation tactics and gain valuable experience in navigating the entire process. This eliminates

the need for complicated training programs or courses, providing an invaluable tool for professionals looking to excel in negotiation strategies, supplier relationships and cost optimisation.

What makes LavenirAI unique is its dedication to enhancing human skills. As AI increasingly finds its way into every industry and process, the company hopes to use the technology as an amplifier to human capabilities – rather than a replacement.

“Better negotiators deliver more value,” says Clive R. Heal, Founder and CEO of LavenirAI. “Negotiation is a core procurement competency, yet the traditional method of procurement negotiation training (occasional one-day workshops) has not changed in over 25 years. It’s like giving someone a one-day classroom driving lesson, a couple of 20 minute in-car practice sessions, then letting them loose onto the highway to drive alone.

“LavenirAI is the world's first interactive learning technology, providing quantitative feedback and personalised coaching. It is the future for all procurement training”

Clive R. Heal, Founder and CEO of LavenirAI

“LavenirAI has been developed to create true-to-life experiences, where trainees learn from digital mentors (avatars), practice negotiating against sales avatars and then get coaching feedback from the mentor.

“We offer interactive learning, available anytime and anywhere. Trainees practise a myriad of business situations, suitable for negotiators of all skill levels (from beginner to experienced) and meet sales avatars with different

personas. The forthcoming virtual reality version, with photo-realistic avatars, creates a unique safe environment for learning, practice and feedback. LavenirAI is the world's first interactive learning technology, providing quantitative feedback and personalised coaching. It is the future for all procurement training.”

You can learn more about LavenirAI here.

EXCLUSIVE INSIDER INSIGHTS FROM SENIOR EXECUTIVES

THE LATEST INDUSTRY NEWS AND TRENDS ACCESS TO WORLD-LEADING EVENTS