How SAP empowers customers to transform supply chain and procurement capabilities worldwide.
FROM THE EDITOR
Welcome to the December edition of INNOVATION Magazine!
ith the decorations adorning the office and festive playlists in full swing, Christmas is well and truly on its way here at iThink Media.
Let’s collaborate…
As our early Christmas present to you, we’re thrilled to bring you four exclusive interviews and a wealth of industry insights for this month’s instalment of INNOVATION.
Magazine is a specialist technology platform with over 166,700+ readers.
For our cover interview, I welcome the chance to speak to senior executives from SAP in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region to dive into the transformative potential of procurement innovation, data, AI and wielding best-of-breed ecosystems at SAP Ariba. I sit down with three key members of the team supporting these transformational endeavours: Thomas Kaspersen, Chief Revenue Officer, Intelligent Spend & Business Network (EMEA); Vicky Revis, Head of ISBN CoE and Go to Market (EMEA); and Mo Ahmad, Head of Procurement and Ecosystem GTM & Strategy
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.
James Ball, Associate Director at Infosys Portland, joins me to explore the company’s cutting-edge approach to optimising procurement and how Infosys Portland relishes opportunities to solve its clients’ most complex challenges (
I chat with Richard Brown, Head of Sales & Marketing at disruptive SaaS provider Anvil Analytical, about tackling the complex and recurring issues within strategic sourcing and supplier
Ben Conklin, Head of Innovation and New Products at Janes, shines a light on the open-source defence and security intelligence company’s approach to fostering a consistent culture of innovation. Ben divulges how Janes develops new concepts and ideas, sharing examples of innovative initiatives in recent years (
In our tech features this month, we cover the new earning platform for Good Energy’s UK ), medtech trends to keep an eye on in 2025 ( ), how the world’s top economic hubs are embracing digital finance ( ), and AI’s potential to unlock climate solutions (
Last but by no means least, our Startup of the Month is Calvin Risk – the company committed to illuminating AI for businesses to bolster trust and meet compliance (p100
We hope you enjoy our latest edition. As always, if you would like to be considered as an interviewee or if you have a story for us, please do get in touch.
From all of us at iThink Media – we hope you have a relaxing Christmas and wish you all the
Senior executives from SAP Ariba discuss the transformative potential of procurement innovation, data and AI
Good Energy offers edge earning platform customers
James Ball explores Infosys Portland’s cutting-edge to optimising procurement
54 Discover the top medtech trends for 2025
cuttingplatform for
40
Infosys cutting-edge approach procurement
46
Richard Brown on solving complex sourcing and supplier challenges at Anvil Analytical
78
Embracing digital finance at the top financial centres
66
Ben Conklin shares insights into fostering a consistent culture of innovation at Janes
88
How AI can unlock climate solutions, according to S2G Ventures
100
Meet Calvin Risk, our Startup of the Month
Empowerment overall: Promoting procurement transformation with SAP ISBN
ISBN
We welcome senior executives from SAP in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region to dive into the transformative potential of procurement innovation, data, AI and wielding best-of-breed ecosystems at SAP Ariba.
For companies around the world, the procurement and supply chain functions of their business thrum at the core of their operations.
hey are the engines driving growth, profitability and progress towards strategic initiatives such as transformation projects, ESG and much more besides.
With 107,000 employees and 156 countries around the world, SAP’s goal is to be the global leader in enterprise application software, helping companies great and small in all industries to thrive and succeed by redefining their ERP.
Today, we are diving into how SAP is empowering its customers and partners to transform supply chain and procurement capabilities worldwide.
Joining us today are key members of the SAP team supporting this effort: Thomas Kaspersen, Chief Revenue Officer, Intelligent Spend & Business Network (EMEA); Vicky Revis, Head of ISBN CoE and Go to Market (EMEA); and Mo Ahmad, Head of Procurement and Ecosystem GTM & Strategy (EMEA).
We’ll be diving into the key trends for procurement and supply chain
professionals striving to succeed in a dynamic, ever-evolving landscape. We then turn our attention to the opportunities and obstacles they encounter as they embark upon transformation journeys. As we develop our discussion, we explore some of the specific innovations and technologies SAP offers to empower its customers and partners in light of these contextual factors.
Launching our conversation, Thomas Kaspersen paints a picture of the current state of play for procurement professionals today – and emphasises the importance of procurement transformation as an essential priority for the C-suite agenda.
“The procurement function, by default, has changed tremendously in the past twenty years,” begins Thomas. “Back in 2004, we were more concerned about making sure that invoices had the corresponding PO and moving beyond Excel spreadsheets. But if you look at the state of play today, procurement is so much more.
From left to right: Mo Ahmad, Head of Procurement and Ecosystem GTM & Strategy (EMEA), Vicky Revis, Head of ISBN CoE and Go to Market (EMEA) and Thomas Kaspersen, Chief Revenue Officer, Intelligent Spend & Business Network (EMEA)
“I think the Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) function has evolved into a custodian of the brand. If something happens around the business, it is probably correlated back to supplier risk and sourcing activities. So if you look at the CPO community and their function, they have evolved at an unprecedented rate. It’s about looking at the bottom line, the supply landscape, the risks facing the business and how to evolve the company or form a competitive advantage.
“Ultimately, procurement is not a back-office job anymore. In fact, to be quite honest, I think it's probably the heart and core of any organisation because it now encapsulates the entire value chain of a company. But this means procurement professionals have to ask themselves how they control the value chain and also make the right decisions on behalf of the company.”
According to Thomas, SAP Ariba is leaning into this procurement revolution, aligning itself with the rapid pace of change in the industry to empower its customers and partners as it unfolds.
“At the end of the day, at SAP we are the enablers,” explains Thomas. “We know that every company has their own IP, but at SAP, what we are truly proud of is the supply chain and procurement technology that we can give our customers, empowering them to consistently transform and be best in class.
“When it comes to procurement specifically, Gartner says 59% of procurement leaders believe that having up-to-date technology will have a significant impact on procurement performance. So how do we forefront relevant technology for business leaders to take the right decision at the right time for that specific business to be successful?
“At the end of the day, it’s all about people. The more you empower your people within the organisation, the more you foster accountability, which ultimately dictates the success of the business. What we pride ourselves on is keeping that best-of-breed technology at the fingertips of all employees –
with the right guidelines, the right empowerment, the right mandate –for everybody to do their job as they should be doing it, in line with the company’s goals and growth in mind.
“And that’s really what we do at SAP: we are enabling companies to be the best-performing businesses in the world.”
However, as Vicky Revis explains, there are several opportunities and obstacles companies face as they embark upon their supply chain and procurement transformation journey.
“I think with any transformation or digital transformation journey,
whether it's within procurement or the wider supply chain, the opportunities are tremendous,” says Vicky. “With new technology and the rise of AI, the prospects for integrating and creating un-siloed applications alongside unsiloed business processes are huge. In the 2024 PwC Digital Procurement Survey, the expectation is that the digitalisation rate will go from 43% to 69%.
“But there are numerous obstacles that organisations need to navigate in order to get there. These might include guiding people along the transformation journey, anticipating change fatigue, as well as macroeconomic obstacles or other
factors that are outside of their control.
“Thomas likes to use a phrase: ‘We control the controllable.’ At SAP Intelligence Spend and Business Networks (ISBN), we can absolutely help our customers do that. But try doing that as a CPO in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Suez Canal crisis, or escalating inflation: navigating these challenges and hitting the bottom line while doing so is fundamental.
“Technology is table stakes, quite frankly. Organisations need to have automation to drive forward their standard business processes to thrive. But that's not simple in a lot of cases.
“Companies historically took software, then developed and customised that software based on their business practices or needs. At SAP, we now turn this on its head and bring them best-in-class technology. We bring all of the optimisations around what a user journey should look like. Take this in the context of an organisation that has its own business practices, and the source and target applications that you're integrating with, and suddenly you’ve got a conflict of process.
“You've then got a pressing need to change. And one of the things that we can do at SAP, over and above just providing the technology, is bring what it means to adopt technology successfully to our customers, along with the key success tactics and
criteria that enable the successful adoption.”
But as Vicky explains, there can be several detractors hindering successful adoption or transformation – be this geopolitical factors, economics, internal resistance or capacity. Yet, she insists, by starting with the why behind the new approach companies can overcome these obstacles.
“It starts fundamentally with the motivation for change, avoiding tunnel vision on a single solution, specific technology or features and functionality,” says Vicky. “Yes, they’re important. But they must be able to achieve business objectives that have been set out, that’s critical. These business objectives need to be set out before seeking the matching features and functionality which help towards them. So it’s really got to start with the why, and that why has to be present all the way through the journey and beyond.”
According to Vicky, this sustained focus is imperative for companies embarking on a phased approach to SAPempowered projects like procurement transformation, as opposed to the ‘Big Bang’ style methodology for change.
“Can an organisation totally transform with a ‘Big Bang’ approach across the suite of solutions that we provide? If you look at it from a supply chain and procurement landscape, from the upstream to the downstream applications, from the depth of
“At SAP, what we are truly proud of is the supply chain and procurement technology that we can give our customers”
Thomas Kaspersen
categories that we can address, could any organisation take that transformation all at once? I don’t personally think we'd ever be setting up a customer for success if we said that they could do that.
“So for me, it’s about making sure that customers also treat that technology in the right way, with the cloud-first mindset, and conceptualise that SAP technology is the enabler. This really has to be accompanied by a very well-thought-out change programme that is enabled by the right stakeholders. This body of stakeholders goes beyond just the procurement function, it's about bringing in the right people: IT, HR, finance, risk, compliance and more.
“Procurement applications are so fundamental to the operations of the entire business. The elevation of the CPO function, from the historical place of being the creators of purchase orders and making sure invoices were paid on time, into a truly strategic role as part of the C suite today, is only enabled by the table stakes of technology, taken alongside a very clear roadmap of, then, how you’re going to enhance that technology into added value for the business.
“Procurement transformation has to be a journey mapped to business outcomes.”
So how do the comprehensive offerings across the SAP ISBN software suite empower companies
“Procurement transformation has to be a journey mapped to business outcomes”
Vicky Revis
to address these dynamics as they embrace their journey of procurement transformation?
“The ISBN suite is a consolidation of solutions that we have under our portfolio, and SAP, for me, is so well positioned to be able to address organisations’ challenges across industries and geographies as the marketplace leaders,” says Vicky. “So the suite really does look holistically at procurement and supply chain outcomes, across categories and across the point of the process – whether it's strategic sourcing, operational procurement and downstream activities, looking at your supply chain risk that you're exposed to, or a real elevation of the data.
“Fundamentally, it’s data that will drive AI which in turn will then drive the ability to make decisions when you feed in certain scenarios. The criticality of being able to pull together the suite, enriched by our ecosystem application, removes the prospect of having to look at siloed solutions.
“Take Asset Management as an example. Managing assets goes beyond internal processes – the network and your supply chain are critical here. With SAP’s ability to bring together Asset Management, the supplier network and services management, SAP can transform and automate the maintenance schedules for heavy machinery and assets core to operations. These solutions will bring change to processes and people day to day but can be truly
“At SAP Ariba, we are doing a tremendous amount of innovation ourselves on multiple fronts”
Mo Ahmad
transformational to business outcomes and efficiency.
“It is also fundamentally important that we nurture a long-term vision and partnership with our customers. We don’t want to be a supplier to our customers. We are a partner in their business outcomes. So it’s crucial that we understand their goals, drivers and KPIs – so that we can match the solution roadmap with them, building the outcome roadmap across our ISBN software suite.
“We can deliver outcomes. And the outcome is not just a go-live. A go-live is a point on a timeline. We want to support and empower our customers beyond this stage of the journey.
“Our dream is that our customers can stand there with us, shoulder to shoulder, and say, ‘We were resilient in the face of whatever came along next. We were able to drive this much efficiency and automation as a result of the SAP technology that underpinned our transformation and became our enabler.’”
Here, Thomas clarifies how embracing this role as a closely connected enabler for its customers comes with a deeply entrenched sense of responsibility to them. As Thomas explains, this means SAP enshrines innovation in its operations – especially in the procurement industry since the implications are so expansive.
“We have to be very cognisant that we are the market leader by far with over
27% of the market based upon the Nov 2024 IDC report, and this means that we have huge accountability and responsibility for our customers when it comes to innovation,” insists Thomas. “We have 5,000 developers sitting in the background to make sure that innovation is consistently happening. To be quite honest, it’s not about selling more software. Rather, we are focused on ensuring that the software that we provide is adopted efficiently, driving effective outcomes, but that we are also consistently innovating to support our customers since the business landscape is changing so rapidly.
“Within the procurement function especially, we always have to be on the forefront of innovation. Whether that’s on the direct or indirect side of the business, the contingent workforce, or getting buyers and suppliers to work better together. We have roughly 400 billion transactions on our network annually. Now when you think about the social and economic impacts these entail, it starkly highlights the responsibility that we have as a vendor, but more importantly, the impact our customers have on their own ecosystem.
“The potential for us and our customers to leverage technology, drive sustainability and risk, direct compliance, steer legislation – all while remaining competitive – is astronomical. And this is why when people ask me why I like to work with procurement transformation, for me it’s about leaning into these ever-evolving circumstances, finding the winning
“One of the reasons that we’ve partnered with Scoutbee is the way that they leverage data on suppliers”
combination of tech, leadership, strategy, customer feedback and innovation to empower businesses to thrive – but also have tremendous positive impacts on the global communities they serve.”
Mo Ahmad weighs in to elaborate on how SAP Ariba has been embracing data- and AI-led transformation in the procurement sector, alongside innovation of the ISBN stack, to catalyse benefits for clients and partners alike.
“Everybody’s talking about artificial intelligence, but AI means very little without data as the backbone,” says Mo. “SAP is not only focusing on it because it’s a trend that everybody wants to talk about – what we’ve been really focusing on is how we can deliver robust AI, through what we're terming SAP Business AI, for our customers.
“Data is at the forefront of everything. So SAP Ariba has spent the best part of the last couple of years pulling together a procurement data lake, which harnesses 30 years of information.
“Within the ISBN solutions network, we oversee $6.2tn+ of commerce annually, connected to over 729m interactions with our supplier community. That is a massive data store. But it also represents a tremendous opportunity
in the context of AI, because of the sheer volume of insights available to us. Another exciting layer is we can then also augment this information with additional data sources from our ecosystem, to leverage a data pool that is just incredible in scope.
“With the advent of AI, taken in light of the corresponding need for the procurement sector to transform and evolve, there is enormous potential to tap into: from developing projects to provide better visibility into what’s happening within the business to getting in front of risk or promoting ESG strategy.
“But without data, you cannot embark on any of those initiatives and that is what we strive to help our customers with at SAP Ariba.”
Mo reiterates that SAP Ariba’s partner ecosystem is a key part of its efforts to empower customers’ capacity with data- and AI-led procurement transformation. Mo highlights SAP’s partnerships with Scoutbee and Fairmarkit as demonstrative examples here.
“One of the reasons that we’ve partnered with Scoutbee is the way that they leverage data on suppliers,” shares Mo. “For some time, their
Elevate the strategic role of procurement with faster, smarter supplier discovery
Ben Craske: We’ve been hearing a lot about Scoutbee Discovery. Can you tell us more about the solution and how it works?
Paul Hopton: Scoutbee Discovery is an AI-powered SaaS tool designed to be the go-to scouting solution for procurement teams. It provides a comprehensive view of potential suppliers using AI-driven searches, transforming weeks of manual effort into just a few days or even hours.
The platform reduces repetitive tasks and search complexity, delivering quality supplier matches that align with strategic objectives.
Ben: What are the main use cases where Scoutbee Discovery is proving most valuable?
Paul: Procurement teams use Scoutbee Discovery to address key challenges like risk mitigation, driving product innovation and achieving sustainability goals.
Ben: Can you share an example of a major challenge you helped a customer overcome?
Paul: Absolutely. Earlier this year, Siemens Energy had two key challenges: sourcing suppliers for photovoltaic installations on
industrial rooftops and finding hydrogen dryer suppliers in the US – a less familiar market for them.
With Scoutbee Discovery, they quickly identified 80 potential suppliers for photovoltaics, narrowing it down to three highquality candidates. For hydrogen dryers, while no supplier fully met their experience needs, the search provided valuable market insights.
The biggest win for Siemens Energy’s procurement team was that this new way of working with Scoutbee made them a strategic partner for R&D. They also started integrating supplier expertise into R&D processes early on and the role of procurement within the entire organisation was elevated.
Ben: And finally, you’re an SAPendorsed app?
Paul: Yes, Scoutbee Discovery integrates seamlessly with SAP Ariba Sourcing. It extends supplier searches beyond the SAP Business Network, with no IT integration required.
Find out how Scoutbee can elevate your procurement function. Request a demo today.
Paul Hopton CTO, Scoutbee
Ben Craske Senior Editor, iThink Media
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“With somebody like Fairmarkit, they also use data incredibly well. Farimarkit provides excellent service related to strategic versus unmanaged spend”
whole piece has been around helping customers, through data, find suppliers for the creation of a product or the management of a service. They were a natural partner for us to use as an extension of our strategic sourcing capability.
“It takes a long time to source new partners or suppliers. Organisations might have specific compliance, sustainability, quality or certification needs.
“If you’re trying to do that manually, it’s very difficult. But Scoutbee wields data, through the lens of AI, to do the hard work for their customers. And more than this, it’s done in an integrated way – with SAP Ariba.”
“With somebody like Fairmarkit, they also use data incredibly well. Farimarkit provides excellent service related to strategic versus unmanaged spend. For businesses that might not have the capacity to dial in on the latter, Fairmarkit helps them to avoid leaking money – not through bad intentions, but because it can be challenging to wrap your arms around it as a company by yourself.
“Fairmarkit can help their customers pick up that unmanaged spend
and manage it for them through AI, renegotiating some of those expenditures and helping to harmonise that spend to reduce the leakage –impacting their customers’ bottom line in the process. That data then comes back into SAP to be analysed for continuous improvement.”
Procurement is an incredibly complex process, but at SAP Ariba the goal is to take the ideas of interconnection, visibility and collaboration and wield them effectively for the ultimate benefit of its customers and partners. Within this, Mo explains, the concept of the Procurement Triple Crown is a guiding principle.
“A lot of what SAP Ariba has been doing through the creation of our nextgen solutions is taking the latest and greatest procurement technology, and catalysing drastic improvements in user experience,” says Mo. “But to loop back to the conversation of data and AI, the truly powerful innovation lies in creating solutions that balance the technology, UX, data and AI – holistically, as a connected process.
“So for instance, we’ve just launched a powerful spend analysis tool called Spend Control Tower. It integrates various SAP and non-SAP solutions, extracts the data, and then provides users with insights through the use of AI-enhanced insights and benchmarking where we’ve been able to use the procurement data lake I referenced earlier in a very powerful fashion. This is the number one priority for CPOs for 2025 according to Gartner, SpendMatters and CPO reports from the Big Four.
“But the Procurement Triple Crown concept adds a new dynamic by asking how we can take those insights and provide something more: actionable intelligence, which can then be taken into category management in an integrated form that flows from one process to another, avoiding silos, and ultimately offering robust strategy planning potential across the board.
“So that's the Procurement Triple Crown principle: it’s insight, plan, action; or put another way, Spend Control Tower, category management and then sourcing execution.”
“Our partners like Archlet enable that capability through an integrated approach, while also deploying Gen AI”
“SAP Ariba doesn’t want you to leave any spend untouched,” notes Mo. “Allowing you to create your strategic plan and/or actions you’ve executed in category management, and you can then kick off as an activity directly within guided sourcing.
“But the best thing about that is, depending on the type of activity that you want to initiate, you can then use guided sourcing as a hub. So there are lots of things within guided sourcing that you can do: RFx, auctions, reverse auctions, to name but a few. However, there are other types of sourcing that our broader SAP ecosystem helps with alongside this, in an integrated fashion, factoring in other software service providers you might work with too.
“For instance, a customer might work with one of our partners like Archlet, where that customer could have more of a need to do sourcing optimisation, which basically means you have a more detailed set of criteria that you want to use in order to award the business, and you require the flexibility to change, add, and manipulate those rules based upon your business needs, to then run that RFx scenario through the optimisation process, so that what you get out of it is much more catered for what your business is asking for, within that particular category.
“Our partners like Archlet enable that capability through an integrated approach, while also deploying Gen AI so you can go into their tool through guided sourcing, using Gen AI to optimise what you're trying to do, build the rule sets, do all of that there, run that scenario – but then it comes back into SAP Ariba.
“The reason that this interconnectedness is so important, and one of the foundational merits of the Procurement Triple Crown concept, is the data goes back in, centralising it and providing continuous insights.”
With the myriad of software solutions available to customers, Mo admits it can be a daunting prospect for customers to manage the various solutions they have within their business that serve their needs. Functions like facilities, IT software, legal and procurement can often have different tools for different processes and this can be daunting for users trying to work out which system to use and when.
“If you look at the most recent Gartner or Spend Matters reports, there is a lot of talk around intake management and process orchestration, and this has come about through the need to help the user navigate what is often a very complex landscape,” says Mo.
“We also have a brilliant ecosystem of partners offering solutions in this space.
One of the leaders here is ORO Labs”
“Oftentimes, especially at large enterprise customers, they have a sea of different solutions before them.
“Within the procurement function, this can be particularly complicated. How do users know where to go? There’s been some progress, but this area has really begun to heat up, becoming a massive part of the user experience.
“So the concept of intake management automatically takes the user on this journey. At SAP we’ve just started talking about how we’re going to help customers navigate this, which we announced at Spend Connect 2024 in Las Vegas.
“But we also have a brilliant ecosystem of partners offering solutions in this space. One of the leaders here is ORO Labs. They have created an excellent solution that is well thought of in the space, which they’ve been working on for the last couple of years. So it made abundant sense for us to integrate with ORO and have them on the marketplace as an option for our customers, whilst we continue our journey at the same time.”
According to Mo, SAP’s go-to-market strategy, deployed in conjunction with its vast global network of partners, is a crucial element in the success of the procurement transformation and innovation it helps facilitate as a company.
“At SAP Ariba, we are doing a tremendous amount of innovation ourselves on multiple fronts,” says Mo. “But we are also focused on offering the best-of-breed ecosystems, building on our own innovative foundations with other leading solutions elsewhere on the market layered on top. And within procurement, that concept has mushroomed in recent years. Customers, especially mature customers, are now looking at how they can leverage some of the excellent bespoke solutions for niche
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processes which have emerged in recent years.
“From an SAP standpoint within this broader trend, we’ve got three key angles: our own innovation with the investment that Thomas outlined; the business technology platform (BTP) which is our framework to allow external parties, whether that be our system integrator community or best-of-breed partners, to leverage that framework to develop additional capability or process-related functionality that is integrated; and finally the third pillar is the marketplace that we have.
“Our marketplace is an important element, and we’ve had it for a while. But now the difference, in terms of the go-to market strategy, is if you look at each procurement process, whether at a modular level or from a customer’s internal needs perspective, where each component might have its own data provider, we’re bringing intrinsic interconnectedness to the fore.
“We’re working closely with our ecosystem to ensure that our customers understand that data can be integrated into their procurement process. You don’t have to operate in silos: we can help them integrate comprehensively, end to end.”
For further information about the supply chain and procurement transformation available through SAP Ariba, visit sap.com.
ADDED VALUE
Vicky
“We run a series of SAP customer events throughout the year, and those, for me, are the highlights of my year,” shares Vicky. “I love having the opportunity to talk to our customers, see what we are able to proudly showcase, but also witness the exciting developments our customers have to share. The discussions we hold at these events help us with that continuous feedback loop to drive us forward in partnership with our customers.”
Thomas
“For me, our biggest success is, by default, our customers,” says Thomas.
“In October I attended our SAP Spend Connect event in Las Vegas and I was thrilled to join so many of my colleagues from the EMEA region there. It was refreshing and energising to meet our customers, engaging with them about the latest innovations and success stories they had to share. Ultimately, they are our true north star for how we evolve so events like this are incredibly rewarding to attend.”
Mo
“I’ve been working in procurement for 24 years,” shares Mo. “Within that
journey, the stories that make me tick are the ones where I’ve been able to go to customers and partners, and contribute to the broader procurement and supply chain community.
“On that note, I was recently involved in creating a series of video blogs for SAP Ariba, which aim to cover topics such as category management,
supplier diversity, compliance and overcoming industry challenges.”
View the first video with Mo here, and tap into SAP Ariba’s broader procurement resources.
For readers interested in the Procurement Triple Crown concept, Mo also recommends diving into a recent SAP Ariba whitepaper on the topic.
Good Energy automated flexibility pilot will pay heat pump and battery customers
FlexiRewards will allow customers to earn money from their batteries and heat pumps by automatically flexing when they use, store and share energy, easing pressure on the electricity grid during peak periods.
Good Energy, the clean power company, will pay customers to automate of their heat pumps or batteries new cutting-edge platform FlexiRewards.
company, automate flexible use batteries through its FlexiRewards.
ustomers could earn between £5 and £20 a month without needing to take any action –FlexiRewards does the work for them.
Building on the success of Power Pause, Good Energy’s implementation of National Grid’s Demand Flexibility
“FlexiRewards works seamlessly with Good Energy’s installed heat pumps and battery systems”
Service (DFS), FlexiRewards will take ‘demand side response’ a step further by automating customers’ flexibility. Unlike DFS, FlexiRewards does not require customers to respond to alerts to manually adjust their energy usage as adjustments are automated.
Launched as a pilot which will run for 12 months, the platform is available only to a select number of Good Energy customers who have had heat pumps or batteries installed by the company, but do not need to be supplied electricity by Good Energy. It not only offers direct financial rewards to participating households, it also supports a more efficient and resilient
“With FlexiRewards, we’re offering a way for our customers to save and earn money with little to no effort, while supporting a cleaner, more resilient energy system”
James Rees, Director of Product and Propositions at Good Energy
national electricity grid – benefiting all electricity consumers across the UK.
FlexiRewards works seamlessly with Good Energy’s installed heat pumps and battery systems to monitor and automatically adjust how each device uses or shares electricity during
peak periods, requiring no active management by the customer. By doing so, it helps reduce strain on the electricity grid when demand is at its highest.
As the FlexiRewards platform communicates with the customer’s
devices, it can automatically shift power usage or battery charging to less demanding periods, optimising both the customer’s energy efficiency and the grid’s performance.
“Our goal has always been to allow people to take control of their energy in a way that’s both beneficial to them and sustainable for the planet,” says James Rees, Director of Product and Propositions at Good Energy. “With FlexiRewards, we’re offering a way for our customers to save and earn money with little to no effort, while supporting a cleaner, more resilient energy system. We hope it will provide new insights into a smart energy future where everyone can play a role in grid efficiency – and get rewarded for it.”
Research the University of Southampton has conducted with Good Energy heat pump customers has indicated that heat pumps can be paused for up to two-hour periods with limited impact on home heat and customer comfort.
Source: Good Energy
Leading procurement functions into the future while delivering value today
James Ball, Associate Director at Infosys Portland, explores the company’s cutting-edge approach to optimising procurement.
ver the past 25 years, Infosys Portland has helped clients deliver positive bottom-line impact on a global scale by leveraging procurement and supply chain processes, people and technology. The company’s expertise in the procurement world has allowed it to implement advanced strategies and technologies into its clients’ businesses, helping them solve their most complex problems.
Joining us today is James Ball, Associate Director at Infosys Portland. To begin, James dives into the company’s goals when working with a client.
“Our mission is to help our clients realise the positive impacts and sustainable values that an enhanced procurement and supply chain process can bring to their organisation,” begins James.
Here, James elaborates on the four main pillars Infosys Portland wields to enable transformative change for its clients.
Strategy and advice
“We combine deep domain expertise with leading global practice and analytical rigour to help businesses of all sizes solve their most urgent and complex problems.”
Delivery and implementation
“We provide impetus, resource and expertise to execute strategies quickly and efficiently, which helps our clients realise benefits quickly.”
Ongoing support
“We provide additional capacity and capability to help our clients manage their day-to-day operations to deliver further efficiencies.”
Enabling technology
“We assess, optimise, and implement our clients’ procurement technology landscape – supported by our global digital leading owners Infosys - to ensure that clients are well-placed to operate and grow in an everchanging world.”
“A client may be lacking in capabilities to achieve a goal, but we have the resources to rapidly and effectively deliver on new strategies, so they can realise the benefits quicker,” explains James. “As a consultancy, this is a key approach for us and our clients, and
it’s not just about isolated project work, but ensuring we have the capacity to help embed and sustain these new innovations into our client’s day-to-day operations.
“For instance, in our technology practice, we assess, we optimise and we implement enhanced procurement technology landscapes for our clients. At Infosys Portland, we’re fortunate to sit within the Infosys family more broadly, who are a global leader in digital services and we can call upon those experiences and resources.”
But in order to make real value-adding change for its clients, Infosys Portland is taking a new strategic approach to procurement.
“Next Generation Procurement is a concept Infosys Portland has been talking about for a couple of years now and becomes even more relevant with every day,” says James. “It’s focused on a procurement function having a strong bias towards enhanced value delivery, aligning the procurement team and creating a sharp understanding of their organisation’s unique strategy and goals.
“We would expect Next Generation Procurement operations to be automated and optimised so that the key resources are redeployed to deliver greater value to the business. You need the right capabilities, which we typically boil down to five key attributes – procurement strategy linked directly to business goals, delivering clearly defined value, strategic relationships
built across the organisation, implementing highly capable and adaptive processes and technology that is fit for purpose yet scalable.”
Following the Next Generation Procurement approach, Infosys Portland has developed the Diamond Ring NextGeneration Procurement Framework, a new methodology for its clients.
“Procurement structures and activities within an organisation often fall into a pyramid shape,” explains James. “The top layer of the pyramid covers strategic decision making, the middle section covers valueadd topics like supplier relationship management (SRM) contact and risk management and environmental, social and governance (ESG) activities, and the biggest section is typically the bottom section of the pyramid, with the majority of time spent managing day-to-day operations and reporting.
“What we want to do is invert that pyramid into a new diamond structure. That means optimising and streamlining operations so that the procurement team can focus more resources and energy on delivering tangible value. Our procurement operating model framework encompasses all parts of the procurement lifecycle, enabling the organisation to focus on the core processes that will deliver that value. It doesn’t matter whether
we’re working with a global leading organisation or a smaller regional client – we use this framework every single day, maintaining a consistent approach to our advisory services when assessing the current state of a procurement function and charting the future course.”
A huge part of this optimisation, James explains, is the implementation of new technologies.
“Technology has to be embraced by a procurement team in everything they do,” says James. “At Infosys Portland, we spend a lot of our time helping clients understand the strategic and optimisation possibilities for their procurement technology stack, so that they can achieve the best return on their technology investments.
“For example, from a procurement lens, we help organisations find new ways to get more out of their Enterprise Resource Platform (ERP). There are ways to costeffectively optimise and enhance these platforms and processes to make it as easy as possible for employees to raise orders while remaining compliant with procurement policies and processes. This has a positive knock-on effect across the Source to Pay (S2P) lifecycle
for creating visibility of spend that supports good business decisions while ensuring organisational cultural alignment.
“AI has also been a significant recent revolution for streamlining existing processes and adding further value. We have a huge investment in AI, supported by an in-house team called Infosys Topaz, the first AI ISO services accredited division of its kind. At the moment, we’re talking to a lot of clients about the benefits of introducing Automation (RPA - Robotic process automation), AI and GenAI (LLMLarge Language Models) into core and daily procurement activities, including contract management, analytics, risk management and sustainability.
“AI has the possibility to redefine a procurement team without needing significantly more resources, but it’s important to make sure you have the right infrastructure in place for it. What we have to remember about technology is that it’s an enabler. It’s getting better every day and can support creation of real value, but you have to always consider the culture of your organisation and the need for adoption training to keep the human-centric approach.
“A Next Generation Procurement team will be right sized, more agile, utilising technology and data, and outsourced services, to deliver strategic insights and value to their organisation – unlocking increased growth and profitability.”
Learn more about Infosys Portland here.
added value
A global impact
“In October 2024, I spent two weeks in India,” says James. “Infosys has six large campuses across India, and the two I visited are based in Bangalore and Mysore. It was my first time travelling to India, so that was definitely an eye opener in terms of how busy India is. But it was also an eye-opener in terms of the scale of the services to India and its global clients that Infosys provide. There’s something in the region of twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand people training at an Infosys campus at any one time – honing leading digital and business skills from coding to AI. It was incredible to see what Infosys is not only doing for global clients, but what it’s doing for education and the economy across India.”
New perspectives
“I have a fifteen-year-old son who’s just starting his GCSEs in business and economics,” says James. “It’s fascinating seeing him come home after school questioning what he’s learning and discovering how the world works. Seeing this from the eyes of a fifteen-year-old is really refreshing, and can make me see things in a different light.”
Staying healthy
“I’m a big squash player and follower,” says James. “I’ve been playing squash for about 20 years
getting to a reasonably high standard. It’s a personal ambition of mine to keep doing this for as long as I can, hopefully well into my 50’s and 60’s, because I want to stay as fit and mobile as I can, for as long as possible. Plus, I need the competitive side of sport as I can’t stand the gym or just running without a ball to chase!”
James recommends
“I’m currently reading Novak Djokovic’s autobiography Serve to Win,” says James. “I wanted to read it because I think he is very misunderstood. He’s been hugely successful but not always regarded as fondly as others, but as I’m reading it, I’ve learned a lot about the obstacles he faced during his upbringing, and the resilience he’s shown to get to the top and stay there. He is a real inspiration in terms of the work he’s put in to be as successful as he is today.”
Connect with James
Wielding the latest procurement technology at Anvil Analytical
Exclusive Q&A with Richard Brown, Head of Sales & Marketing at disruptive SaaS provider Anvil Analytical, on tackling the complex and recurring issues within strategic sourcing and supplier management.
nvil Analytical is a Software as a Service provider headquartered in London, UK. The company’s solutions are used by businesses large and small across all sectors and geographies to improve third-party spend management and to measure and mitigate their carbon footprint.
From its inception in 2021 Anvil has grown quickly, taking on new clients from California to Australia, and in 2024, it redoubled development efforts around the practical use of AI to maintain its position on the cutting edge of procurement technology.
Here to tell us more about the growth and success of Anvil Analytical is Richard Brown, Head of Sales & Marketing, in this exclusive Q&A.
What has the journey to date been like at Anvil Analytical?
Born out of a world of procurement consulting, Anvil’s technology has been widely used by practitioners prior to the company’s inception in 2021. Before spinning out of its sister company, the Anvil team were part of a fellow group company and procurement services firm, 4C Associates, where the tools were initially developed to ensure the consultants quickly gained visibility of a client’s spend and could as efficiently as possible drive the greatest bottomline impact.
Over the years, clients began to notice the technology being used by the consultancy teams and were keen to retain it on a licensed basis beyond the initial engagement. It became instantly clear to the group leadership that
this technology suite had great value beyond purely an in-house set of tools.
Fast forward to the current day and Anvil has progressed to being one of the procurement community’s favourite analytic tools with first-place user ratings on well-known sites such as Gartner.
The organisation’s set of offerings has also expanded dramatically to include five brand new products including the likes of Carbon Management, Risk Management and Market & Inflation Analytics. These product lineup enhancements have arisen from Anvil’s ability to both develop quickly and maximise the aspirations of a vibrant, client-led development community hungry for ever-greater innovation to drive value internally.
How has the rise of AI influenced Anvil Analytical’s offering?
During Anvil’s short history to date, we’ve seen AI burst onto the scene and become mainstream within the procurement community. However, in a procurement innovation world all too often dominated by box-ticking rhetoric, Anvil was keen from the offset to innovate AI solutions which were true to the tool’s humble beginnings: practical, easy to use and precise.
With this being the case, the development team were tasked to take a look at where AI could make the greatest practical impact on our tools and more importantly, the experience of its users. Three key areas were selected as initial areas of focus, spanning firstly large language model applications into the world of optical
character recognition (OCR), driving the tool’s capability to work through thousands of contracts, policies and supplier websites, addressing key needs within the worlds of risk management, contract management and invoice processing.
Secondly, data cleansing and categorisation are fundamental to the success of every Anvil Analytical deployment. Ultimately, the better quality of data fed into the solution, the better outcomes that follow. It’s then the very engine of the Anvil operation which the team have targeted with our second AI-driven development. Our technology utilises a range of strategies to categorise the spend initially, where we use machine learning which has evolved more recently to include large language model classifications as well. Within the world of directs, we’ve started to introduce neural networks to search for patterns in the data. In simple terms, these technologies help us land implementations faster and at a higher rate of accuracy.
Last, but certainly not least, for many months Anvil has been developing a supplier discovery tool. For sourcing teams, so often the holy grail of an initial sourcing process is driven by the volume of quality suppliers which can be entered into the mix. Thus, a solution which can utilise an AIpowered search into the world of available suppliers subdivided by geography and category/chosen taxonomy is a real game-changer. Wind forward to the current day and
“Anvil was keen from the offset to innovate AI solutions which were true to the tool’s humble beginnings: practical, easy to use and precise”
Richard Brown, Head of Sales & Marketing
the Anvil solution is now in the very final development stages, something which both the organisation and our clients are incredibly excited about.
Where else does the company support users beyond spend analytics?
Away from the world of more recent developments, perhaps one of Anvil’s most important innovations in its history to date has been our Carbon Management product.
It’s no secret that understanding scope 3 carbon emissions for many organisations is an unmitigated nightmare. For those newer to the subject, scope 3 emissions are most heavily made up of carbon emissions resulting from an organisation’s purchases and the emissions generated as result of manufacturing the products or delivering the services purchased. Traditional methods of
understanding this figure would involve organisations reaching out via large-scale questionnaires to its supply base, to gather information directly from them. Due to a number of reasons, however, this approach is rarely effective with so few companies able to accurately report on their own in-house emissions.
Anvil’s Carbon Management product then is placed as a ‘silver bullet’ allowing organisations to report on their scope 3 emissions enabled via a series of configurable dashboards and an accompanying Anvil-built Project Management tool to help manage carbon reduction initiatives. Anvil’s process of measuring emissions follows the Green House Gas (GHG) global protocol methodology and combines a range of both carbon and financial data to present the most accurate approximations available. As a starting point, Anvil will gather data from a client’s ERP (invoicing) system to piece together invoice line item spend against each service and product. This then kicks off a spend approximation piece of work, which
is then later enhanced by a range of additional methods including the use of quantity-based data.
The tool brings many benefits but beyond those brought about as result of the newfound visibility, perhaps the most useful attribute of the service has been Anvil’s ability to help clients proactively drive carbon out of their supply chain by providing insights into different strategies/approaches and the net impact of them when fully implemented. Examples of this in recent times have been the move of a UK-based client to a purely electric vehicle fleet for deliveries. Visibility into the net carbon impact allowed the organisation to properly evaluate the holistic impact of the initiative.
What roles do market data and commodity insights play in the business model?
Whilst not exclusively the case, a large portion of Anvil’s product offerings are powered by a client’s invoicing data.
In practical and efficient terms, this means that once Anvil’s team of data experts have successfully cleansed and categorised the data, a series of products can be quickly implemented. These efficiencies are both reflected in the pricing model and also the number of modules/solutions which Anvil’s average client buys into – with this number now approaching three products on average.
This shift in ‘average basket size’ is reflective of a market keen for both best-of-breed tools and a toolkit which is easily accessible and follows the same design language. Anvil has capitalised on this by expanding its analytical suite whilst at the same time, maintaining relationships with other key providers within the space for clients wanting to have an integrated Source to Contract system, for example including modules such as Contract Management and even eSourcing.
Away from the world of Carbon Management and a simple 1:1 engagement, Anvil has been working across the world of Private Equity to develop their ‘cube of cubes’ solution. This has enabled large portfolio organisations to look across their world of spend to drive spend-based efficiencies across all portfolio companies tackling complex challenges such as cash delivery and financial savings. As part of this work, Anvil partner directly with a number of global procurement services organisations to provide a holistic service to their Private Equity clients.
Where can readers find further information?
If you’d like to learn more about Anvil’s product range or even watch a series of short product demonstrations, the best place to visit is www.anvilanalytical.com.
The team can additionally be reached via the Anvil Analytical LinkedIn page.
ADDED VALUE
Events
Richard highlights how Anvil Analytical is attending more industry events to network and engage with procurement professionals.
“Members of the Anvil team can increasingly be found at procurement conferences across Europe and North America,” says Richard. “The team have just returned from their first sponsorship and speaking slot at the Amsterdam based DPW event and can next be found at PSI London in March 2025.”
Connect with Richard
SUTTON
"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
Explore five key tech trends the healthcare industry needs to take advantage of in the year ahead.
n order to provide high-quality care, it’s critical for professionals in the healthcare industry to stay on top of the latest advancements and innovations in tech.
With 2025 fast approaching, these are the five key medtech trends to watch out for over the next year.
AI TO PLAY AN EVEN BIGGER ROLE IN HEALTHCARE
In 2024, we saw AI transforming businesses across industries –from finance to farming – and the healthcare industry is no different. The role of AI in healthcare is set to increase throughout 2025, particularly in diagnostics and patient care. According to RBC Capital Markets, healthcare data accounts for 30% of the world’s data volume. AI’s ability to rapidly process this data can support healthcare providers by offering faster diagnoses, reducing human error and enabling earlier intervention for diseases like cancer, heart conditions and neurological disorders.
TURN OVER FOR NUMBER 2
DATA IS MAKING IT EASIER FOR DOCTORS TO THINK PROACTIVELY
With new systems in place, datadriven healthcare is set to become more refined in 2025, significantly improving hospital operations – from reducing wait times to streamlining resource allocation. By taking advantage of this data, medical professionals will be able to more easily utilise predictive analytics. With this proactive approach, doctors can identify potential health issues before they become severe, making healthcare less reactive and reducing the need for costly treatments. 2
TURN OVER FOR NUMBER 3
MEDICAL WEARABLES ARE BECOMING MORE ADVANCED
Devices like fitness trackers are revolutionising patient monitoring by collecting real-time health metrics and activity levels. These devices are likely to become even more sophisticated over the course of the next year, giving medical professionals even deeper insights into their patients’ health.
This technology offers valuable data for making informed decisions about patient care. The ability to track health trends over time allows for better management of chronic conditions and more personalised treatment plans, ultimately improving patient outcomes.
TURN OVER FOR NUMBER 4
BLOOD TESTING WILL BE MORE EFFICIENT
Blood testing has always been a crucial part of diagnostic medicine, but it can often be a time-intensive task. However, recent innovations in blood testing – such as microfluidic technologies, that can perform multiple tests on a single drop of blood – are changing that. 2025 will bring faster and more accurate tests from minimal blood samples, making processes simpler and less invasive for patients.
TURN OVER FOR NUMBER 5
PERSONALISED MEDICINE COULD TRANSFORM TREATMENT
Personalised medicine is a transformative approach that involves tailoring medical treatments to patients based on their genetic makeup, environment and lifestyle. Taking this approach offers patients a more holistic view of their care and helps doctors better understand how a specific patient may metabolise a medication, minimising the risk of side effects.
We’re likely to see more widespread use of advancements like CRISPR in 2025, which provide tools to edit genes directly and stand at the forefront of the personalised medicine trend. Looking to the year ahead, tools like this could provide solutions to previously untreatable conditions by removing the mutations responsible for genetic diseases.
Source: AMN Healthcare
Ben Conklin, Head of Innovation and New Products at Janes, on the opensource defence and security intelligence company’s approach to fostering a consistent culture of innovation.
Janes has been on a transformational journey to deliver the most complete military dataset in the world.
Leveraging advanced technology and decades of experience, 20 years ago the company moved entirely online, and five years ago an acquisition by Montagu Private Equity allowed the company to transition from a content-centric to data-centric business focus.
Today, Janes has the most complete foundational military data sets, providing accurate and current data for any military environment or system to the world’s leading intelligence, military and defence industry analysts.
Joining us from Janes is Ben Conklin, Head of Innovation and New Products, to explore the company’s approach to developing new ideas and concepts.
To begin, Ben highlights the types of innovation initiatives Janes has undertaken in recent years.
“When it comes to innovation, there are many different kinds of goals,” says Ben. “I think that we have, as a company, done a great job of transformative innovation. We’ve been working on a lot
of big projects over the last few years, which has involved significant work on our internal tooling.
“What we’re trying to do now is increase the focus on breakthrough and incremental innovation because we want to do more than these big projects – we’re trying new things, encouraging experimentation and learning as we go. A big focus of mine is trying to create more opportunities for new ideas.”
To facilitate this, Janes has taken on an open innovation mindset, as it believes the best ideas come from collaboration.
“From my perspective, the key to this was opening up innovation internally first,” says Ben. “Our goal started with the creation of an idea marketplace within the company, where employees can submit their ideas. These ideas get commented on, voted on and interacted with, and then we run idea showcases for the top ideas. They are then worked on to become proof of
transformational complete
concepts, where they are then market tested and have the potential to go out into production.
“We’ve now opened up this process to some of our partners as well, but we really wanted to start internally because we have some incredible
people within our organisation. Many of our analysts are former military members, so it’s very natural that our own people will understand the needs of our customers very well – they’re deeply knowledgeable in that area, so they’re able to come up with great ideas that can solve our customers’
problems and may be attractive to the marketplace.”
For Ben, it’s instrumental that innovative practice is a constant activity within the company – and not just a one-off flashpoint.
“For me, it’s key for innovation not to be an event, but rather a continuous process,” says Ben. “Using events to drive innovation is fantastic, but it needs to be something that continues beyond that. A lot of people are used to having that one-time flash in the pan that everyone gets excited about, but then nothing actually comes of it.
“What we’re trying to do is have ideas coming in all the time. Our showcases are quarterly, and we have new products going to market continuously. Innovation is just a process, just like any other business procedure. It has to run all the time for the company to succeed.”
According to Ben, having this consistent innovation approach in place can facilitate the development of ideas in the long term, which helps them become viable.
“There’s a lot of reasons why an idea might go from unfeasible to feasible –the timing may be better, the idea may be more developed or the technology may have evolved. Even if you’re told ‘No’ with your idea, you can still move forward with it, and in the long term,
it could be hugely successful. That’s why having the infrastructure in place to allow for continuous innovation is key.”
So, how does Janes select new innovations to develop? As Ben explains, it’s rooted in company-wide collaboration.
“Our process of selecting our top ideas involves a council of people across every department spanning the company,” says Ben. “The teams with ideas that are considered to have the most potential in the market are then given a short period of time to develop a proof of concept – a working example of the idea that helps us validate its feasibility. This
can then be market tested and, if successful, the main product can be built.
“The expectation is that not every idea will become a proof of concept, and not every proof of concept will become a product. There are multiple points where we can turn something down, and then use that as a learning opportunity to understand what we can do differently next time.
“We have quite a few exciting things in our pipeline, specifically oriented around advanced technologies to deliver our products in more interesting ways, as well as new products focused on the needs of our customers.
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“One of the key areas we’re working on is generative AI (GenAI) and large language models (LLMs). If you think about Janes as a company, we have a vast wealth of in-depth information, but you have to be an expert in military intelligence to use or understand it. By leveraging AI, we can remove some of that barrier and make the information more accessible.
“We’re also doing a lot of work increasing the volume and variety of data that we can collect. We’re working with imagery and social media to take a closer look at the indications and warnings (I&W) to predict the next conflicts and crises. This is all about trying to understand the factors behind conflict, and then watching for these things happening in the world so we know where to apply certain resources.
“For us at Janes and our customers, we care a lot about national security. What we’re looking at is trying to understand the complexity of national security issues around the world –things like military deployments, troop movements and major unrest. Through our innovation projects, we’re able to have a more specific approach to I&W and improve our understanding of key data sets.
“Looking at our innovation projects more generally, the areas that I see as having explosive growth all involve partners. We have great ideas coming from within the company, but we often rely on our key partners to scale these ideas quickly and make them happen. We need expertise and we need
“Esri was our first partnership that allowed us to deliver our data in new ways – they bring our data to life for geospatial workflows”
capabilities. Almost everything we’re doing in terms of innovation has some sort of partnership angle or leverages a new capability offered by a vendor.”
Partner relationships are a new area for Janes, but they are already playing a key role in its operations.
“Partnerships are a relatively new thing for us,” says Ben. “When we were working exclusively as a publisher, we didn’t need partnerships. As soon as we entered the data space, however, we needed partnerships for a wide variety of reasons.
“Right out the gate, we needed partners who could take our data and bring it to life, so a lot of the partners we work with are advanced software companies that take data and bring it into military systems.
“Esri was our first partnership that allowed us to deliver our data in new ways – they bring our data to life for geospatial workflows. This
“Ursa Space has incredible capabilities in working with remote sense data and very advanced kinds of imagery”
partnership was critical for supporting the Afghanistan evacuation as well as many organisations responding the Ukraine conflict.
“The other area that I think is really impactful is building partnerships with companies that have specialised expertise and capabilities that complement our own – such as our partnership with Ursa Space.
“Ursa Space has incredible capabilities in working with remote sense data
and very advanced kinds of imagery. One example of this is their work with synthetic-aperture radar (SAR), which is a very new and rapidly growing source of satellite imagery. It has incredible collection capabilities, letting you see through clouds and in the dark.
“What Ursa Space has been able to do for us is take their capability to detect changes over time and then marry it with our intelligence to understand the exact type of equipment in an area, the base it's operating at and the
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capabilities that equipment would have, which is something we could never have done on our own.”
Collaboration is key for Janes, and the company is always looking for new ways to involve its employees in the development of new ideas.
“One thing we do differently that I’ve never seen before is our implementation of ‘Innovation Advocates,’” says Ben. “Within the company, we have people volunteer to help people bring their ideas to life, who we call Innovation Advocates. They’re not there to promote their own ideas, but to help others figure out how to make their ideas a reality.
“Nobody knows everything, so these advocates are here to help them with the ideation process, supporting them, connecting them with people and introducing them to new technological capabilities.
“When we opened up the application to let people be advocates, we were overwhelmed by applications, which was amazing. I was wondering if anyone was even going to want to do this extra work, but it turns out that people would love to, because they want to be a part of new and exciting things. If you just let people participate, they’ll do it.”
Learn more about Janes here.
ADDED VALUE
Geospatial
intelligence
“When I left high school, I joined the US Marine Corps,” says Ben. “I was lucky to be put into a new job field, which is now known as the Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) field, while it was still being defined. This is something that took me from being a high school kid with nothing going for me to a professional with a successful career.
“Ever since then, I’ve been extremely passionate about geospatial intelligence. It’s what I’ve spent almost my entire career on, and I’m now volunteering with the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF). USGIF is an educational nonprofit that is working to promote the geospatial intelligence tradecraft and develop a stronger GEOINT community across the country.
“We’re continuously working to evolve, and at USGIF we’re always looking for people to participate in our tradecraft committee. We have monthly meetings and it’s very easy to get involved. USGIF also has a conference called GEOINT that Janes exhibits at and participates in.”
Connect with Ben
TOP 25 FINANCIAL CENTRES
DIGITAL FINANCE
Financial centres are racing to support digital assets and most geographies have drafted, approved and implemented pro-innovation regulations.
LEADING BLOCKCHAIN VENTURE FUND BLOCKCHAIN COINVESTORS HAS RECENTLY UNVEILED ITS BI-ANNUAL DIGITAL ASSET REGULATION REPORT, WHICH TRACKS THE STATE OF DIGITAL ASSET REGULATOR PROGRESS AMONG THE WORLD’S TOP 25 FINANCIAL CENTRES.
ey financial centres are now focused on upgrading to digital finance –with most of the leading financial centres passing pro-innovation regulations for digital monies, commodities and assets.
“Following a host of crypto spot-ETF approvals earlier this year, the world got a taste of the massive demand for digital assets,” says Christopher Nelson, Head of Digital Asset Research at Blockchain Coinvestors. “This is putting the onus squarely on regulators and politicians to meet
“BLOCKCHAIN
REGULATION IS MATURING
QUICKLY IN EUROPE, ASIA AND
THE MIDDLE EAST”
the demands of a growing digital native electorate – who expect the financial ecosystem to be digital and who now comprise around 50% of global voters.”
Blockchain regulation is maturing quickly in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Europe’s comprehensive Markets in CryptoAssets Regulation (MiCAR) framework will be fully live in
December 2024, with France and Spain on the path of joining, while the UK and Switzerland are working on additional stablecoin regulations.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority regulatory regime is in full effect, South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) has issued preliminary guidelines for won-pegged stablecoins and
the UAE has created a framework for decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs).
While stablecoins are top of mind for regulators worldwide, countries in emerging markets continue to embrace stablecoins to expand US dollar access and combat currency
“WE KNOW THAT THE MAJORITY OF US ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES ARE NOW LISTENING TO THEIR CONSTITUENCIES WHO WANT PRO-INNOVATION LEGISLATION”
Matthew Le Merle, Managing Partner of Blockchain Coinvestors
instability. BRICS nations began discussing non-US pegged stablecoins as a tool for dedollarisation.
However, US regulators have approved a family of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot-ETFs this year, as well as taking the first steps in repealing capital requirements and introducing early stablecoin frameworks.
“We know that the majority of US elected representatives are now listening to their constituencies who want pro-innovation legislation,” says Matthew Le Merle, Managing Partner of
Blockchain Coinvestors. “More than 70% of Americans are unhappy with traditional finance and more than 50% of them are digital natives who favour crypto – they are the future, and they expect their elected representatives to represent them.”
Pressure will mount on newly elected US leadership to get up to speed with more advanced global jurisdictions, and digital asset regulation will continue to be a non-partisan issue as innovation and jobs head offshore.
Source: Blockchain Coinvestors
The AI opportunity: How the agricultural industry can utilise Artificial Intelligence
S2G Ventures’ report highlights AI's potential for unlocking climate solutions.
the Intelligence
Multi-stage investment firm
S2G Ventures (S2G) recently released its report The AI Opportunity:
Unlocking Climate Solutions and Productivity in a Volatile World.
The report highlights the potential of AI in driving both financial and environmental benefits, and its ability to bring solutions to market faster.
With the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions increasing, S2G has outlined the ways AI can be used as a tool to transition to a more resilient and sustainable future. Its ability to enhance business models and accelerate solutions to market is emerging as a powerful enabler of progress in climate action and human health.
“AI offers immense potential, but we believe its implementation must be strategic and context-specific”
Vikram Sharma, Operating Partner at S2G
Focusing on mitigating the most severe impacts of climate change and adapting to the changes that are already unfolding is crucial –and AI could hold the potential to revolutionise the way we approach this.
“AI offers immense potential, but we believe its implementation must
be strategic and context-specific,” says Vikram Sharma, Operating Partner at S2G. “I believe successful deployment requires tailored solutions that address the unique needs of each sector, supported by robust infrastructure and timely, high-quality data. Our systemsbased approach facilitates the opportunity to apply learnings
“Agriculture is a showcase application for the good that AI can do”
Eric Taipale, Chief Technology Officer at Sentera
across our sectors, considering insights from one industry to enhance AI applications in another.”
AI is currently supporting sustainable food and agriculture practices by providing precise information about soil health, water usage, crop needs and more. By analysing data from sensors and satellite imagery, AI can help farmers drive optimisation such as enhanced irrigation schedules, reduced water waste and soil fertility improvement. In addition, AIenabled predictive models can also forecast weather patterns and pest outbreaks – allowing farmers to take proactive models to protect their crops and ensure stable yields.
S2G subsidiary Sentera is currently working on leveraging AI to create a scalable solution that helps farmers turn vast datasets into accurate and timely insights for improved crop management and resource efficiency. The company’s platform uses advanced machine learning algorithms to automate the processing of diverse data sources – including drone imagery, satellite data and IoT technology.
Through its proprietary analytics engine FieldAgent, Sentera is
able to deliver powerful analytics, such as stand counts, weed pressure mapping, plant health observations and crop status. With AI at its core, Sentera empowers real-time data analysis and delivers intelligent crop insights that help farmers take action in the right field at the right time.
This advanced approach enables farmers to swiftly identify patterns, predict crop outcomes and detect anomalies such as pest infestations. In doing so, it not only
accelerates data processing but also ensures scalability, helping the agricultural industry adapt to the volatility of climate change.
“Agriculture is a showcase application for the good that AI can do,” says Eric Taipale, Chief Technology Officer at Sentera. “The space has all the right ingredients –large, diverse datasets, a complex, interdependent matrix of decision points and a need for rapid datato-action – that are all deployed in a real physical environment
that features the inherent uncontrollability and imperfect predictability of weather and climate effects.
“AI acts as the active agent for an agronomist or a grower that can plan and replan, continuously, if necessary, to help achieve success in such a dynamic and challenging environment, and do it at a tempo and scale that would otherwise be impossible.”
Source: S2G Ventures
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Illuminating AI for businesses to bolster trust and meet compliance. automated testing and quantitative risk assessment. The investment round was led by Join Capital and seed + speed Ventures, bringing total funding to more than $5m since the company's inception in 2022.
s artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly proliferates across enterprises, rushed mediocre implementations create a series of operational risks: bias, opaque decision-making processes and unpredictable real-world behaviour.
Calvin Risk, a Swiss startup born out of ETH Zurich, has raised $4m in seed funding to help companies deploy AI safely and manage these risks through
AI models often function as “black boxes,” making it difficult to understand how decisions are made or whether underlying biases are influencing outcomes. For companies, this opacity can lead to unintended consequences that threaten both their operations and reputations –especially as generative AI systems like ChatGPT increasingly power customer interactions.
To make the stakes higher, the upcoming EU AI Act introduces strict requirements for AI systems, mandating that companies assess
“Through our governance and risk management platform, we provide businesses with deep insights into their AI inventory”
Julian Riebartsch, CEO and Founder of Calvin Risk
Calvin Risk is bridging that gap with a platform that uses adaptive assessments and continuous monitoring to provide a real-time overview of a company's entire AI portfolio, predicting potential risks (qualitatively and quantitatively) and their associated value-at-risk.
Learn more at calvin-risk.com. and document the risks of their AI models with severe penalties for non-compliance. Despite this, many organisations still rely on post-incident analysis or lack structured frameworks to address the safety of their AI.
“With AI systems becoming central to operations, proper corporate governance must now include explicit AI risk management at the Board level,” commented Julian Riebartsch, CEO and Founder of Calvin Risk. “Through our governance and risk management platform, we provide businesses with deep insights into their AI inventory, enabling them to analyse technical, ethical, and regulatory risks qualitatively and quantitatively.”
Founded in 2022 as a spin-off from ETH Zurich, one of Europe’s leading AI research institutions, Calvin Risk combines deep academic expertise with practical industry experience. The company’s product provides a modular framework for proactive AI governance with two core capabilities: governance digitisation for internal directives and risk evaluations, and automated AI testing between development and deployment.
Unlike traditional platforms focused solely on documentation or postdeployment fixes, Calvin Risk offers real-time insights through preventive, pre-deployment assessments, setting a new standard for responsible AI adoption. Its executive-friendly interface translates complex technical evaluations into clear, actionable insights, crucial for customer-facing AI, where transparency and reliability are paramount.
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