Ingka Investments, owner and operator of 389 Ikea stores and e-commerce across 32 countries, has invested close to £12 million in London-based tech startup what3words.

What3words technology divides the world into a grid of 3-metre squares, with each square being assigned a unique combination of 3 words that can be used to pinpoint the area to a high degree of accuracy. This has a number of use cases, including helping emergency services locate 999 callers in locations that are difficult to describe, such as a remote hillside.

Ingka said that the technology would prove useful with efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and reduce the number of vehicles on the roads by ensuring more first-time deliveries are successful.

“As we look to a future of drone deliveries and autonomous vehicles, the system, also designed for voice entry, will provide the accuracy needed,” it added.

The investment is set to launch the startup into new international markets while continuing to develop partners within the e-commerce and logistics sector.

Krister Mattsson, managing director of Ingka Investments, said: “We are delighted with this new investment in what3words as they are an innovative company and we are confident of their continued growth. With an increasing demand for home deliveries, scalable and sustainable solutions are becoming increasingly important.

“We see value in helping to support the build-up of a universal addressing system that can lead to better customer experience, while the precise locations will allow for a reduction in overall miles travelled, reducing the carbon footprint of home deliveries.”

The Ingka Group has already made a number of investments to help support the core Ikea retail business, including in areas such as digitalisation, customer fulfilment, fintech, and sustainability.

“What3word’s ambition is to become a global standard for communicating location,” said Chris Sheldrick, CEO and co-founder of what3words. “We envisage a world where on every platform, in every checkout field, you can give your what3words address, with retailers able to deliver to that precise 3-metre square. The investment from Ingka Investments will help us unlock new markets while accelerating our position as a ‘must-have’ in the logistics industry.”

In November 2019, Capita integrated the what3words app into its “Vision” control systems to help emergency services locate 999 callers in difficult to pinpoint areas.

Ingka Investments, owner and operator of 389 Ikea stores and e-commerce across 32 countries, has invested close to £12 million in London-based tech startup what3words.

What3words technology divides the world into a grid of 3-metre squares, with each square being assigned a unique combination of 3 words that can be used to pinpoint the area to a high degree of accuracy. This has a number of use cases, including helping emergency services locate 999 callers in locations that are difficult to describe, such as a remote hillside.

Ingka said that the technology would prove useful with efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and reduce the number of vehicles on the roads by ensuring more first-time deliveries are successful.

“As we look to a future of drone deliveries and autonomous vehicles, the system, also designed for voice entry, will provide the accuracy needed,” it added.

The investment is set to launch the startup into new international markets while continuing to develop partners within the e-commerce and logistics sector.

Krister Mattsson, managing director of Ingka Investments, said: “We are delighted with this new investment in what3words as they are an innovative company and we are confident of their continued growth. With an increasing demand for home deliveries, scalable and sustainable solutions are becoming increasingly important.

“We see value in helping to support the build-up of a universal addressing system that can lead to better customer experience, while the precise locations will allow for a reduction in overall miles travelled, reducing the carbon footprint of home deliveries.”

The Ingka Group has already made a number of investments to help support the core Ikea retail business, including in areas such as digitalisation, customer fulfilment, fintech, and sustainability.

“What3word’s ambition is to become a global standard for communicating location,” said Chris Sheldrick, CEO and co-founder of what3words. “We envisage a world where on every platform, in every checkout field, you can give your what3words address, with retailers able to deliver to that precise 3-metre square. The investment from Ingka Investments will help us unlock new markets while accelerating our position as a ‘must-have’ in the logistics industry.”

In November 2019, Capita integrated the what3words app into its “Vision” control systems to help emergency services locate 999 callers in difficult to pinpoint areas.

ServiceNow is set to acquire India-based startup Intellibot, a one-stop robotic process automation (RPA) platform that helps enterprises undergo digital transformation. 

The addition of Intellibot will help the company to extend its core workflow capabilities by helping customers automate repetitive tasks for intelligent, end-to-end automation, said Karel van der Poel, senior vice president of NowX products at ServiceNow.

“ServiceNow intends to build Intellibot’s capabilities natively into the Now Platform® so customers can more easily integrate with both modern and legacy systems. This will help them drive productivity and strengthen existing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) efforts,” wrote van der Poel.

Furthermore, Intellibot’s RPA capabilities complement ServiceNow’s existing automation functionality, including Virtual Agent chatbots, Natural Language Understanding and more.

This means the cloud computing company will have a complete, end-to-end automation portfolio that can help customers identify opportunities for automation and execute them all on one platform.

Moreover, the new RPA capabilities mean that companies can undergo rapid automation without changing background processes or jettisoning all their legacy IT systems.

“For example, instead of having to look up a customer billing record in an old legacy custom app, cross-reference the customer order number in a heavily customized enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, and then find the original service contract in a 20-year-old client-server application, ServiceNow customers will be able to do it all in one customer workflow experience,” underlined van der Poel.

He added: “The acquisition of Intellibot will deepen our investment in powerful automation capabilities that boost productivity and allow users to focus on more complex and strategic work.”

With these RPA tools on the Now Platform, ServiceNow hopes to move closer to automating business processes front start to finish through a combination of technologies.

Van der Poel says the pandemic has highlighted the need for orchestrated, intelligent, end-to-end automation and this is what ServiceNow is delivering on. The acquisition is expected to be completed in Q2 2021 and the companies did not reveal the purchase price.

Many companies are looking to automate workflows across their organisation, including Accenture who invested £2.3 billion last September into a cloud migration support group to help clients accelerate their digital transformation.

Furthermore, Microsoft Teams added Zapier, an automation app, to its platform to allow users to connect their apps and create automated workflows, reduce busywork and improve productivity.

ServiceNow is set to acquire India-based startup Intellibot, a one-stop robotic process automation (RPA) platform that helps enterprises undergo digital transformation. 

The addition of Intellibot will help the company to extend its core workflow capabilities by helping customers automate repetitive tasks for intelligent, end-to-end automation, said Karel van der Poel, senior vice president of NowX products at ServiceNow.

“ServiceNow intends to build Intellibot’s capabilities natively into the Now Platform® so customers can more easily integrate with both modern and legacy systems. This will help them drive productivity and strengthen existing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) efforts,” wrote van der Poel.

Furthermore, Intellibot’s RPA capabilities complement ServiceNow’s existing automation functionality, including Virtual Agent chatbots, Natural Language Understanding and more.

This means the cloud computing company will have a complete, end-to-end automation portfolio that can help customers identify opportunities for automation and execute them all on one platform.

Moreover, the new RPA capabilities mean that companies can undergo rapid automation without changing background processes or jettisoning all their legacy IT systems.

“For example, instead of having to look up a customer billing record in an old legacy custom app, cross-reference the customer order number in a heavily customized enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, and then find the original service contract in a 20-year-old client-server application, ServiceNow customers will be able to do it all in one customer workflow experience,” underlined van der Poel.

He added: “The acquisition of Intellibot will deepen our investment in powerful automation capabilities that boost productivity and allow users to focus on more complex and strategic work.”

With these RPA tools on the Now Platform, ServiceNow hopes to move closer to automating business processes front start to finish through a combination of technologies.

Van der Poel says the pandemic has highlighted the need for orchestrated, intelligent, end-to-end automation and this is what ServiceNow is delivering on. The acquisition is expected to be completed in Q2 2021 and the companies did not reveal the purchase price.

Many companies are looking to automate workflows across their organisation, including Accenture who invested £2.3 billion last September into a cloud migration support group to help clients accelerate their digital transformation.

Furthermore, Microsoft Teams added Zapier, an automation app, to its platform to allow users to connect their apps and create automated workflows, reduce busywork and improve productivity.

Health secretary Matt Hancock has outlined his vision for the digital future of the NHS that operates across a “consistent data platform”.

Speaking at the Digital Health Rewired virtual festival, Hancock announced he wants to explore whether a data platform can be created that separates the data layer from the application layer.

​

This would mean “providers can offer the application software, but the data will be stored separately and securely in the cloud and then we have a consistent data platform across the NHS”.

He said it should be made easier to write applications or create services that interact with data from different NHS organisations.

Hancock also said that Shared Care Records will be put in place by September this year, where every local system will have at least a basic version implemented.

“This will mean patients only need to give their details once, and they’ll be captured in a local record that can be safely seen by those who are caring for them,” he said.

There was also an emphasis on the need to “connect the system so data flows appropriately and freely, and we get the intrinsic benefits that high quality data and interoperability can provide.”

He admitted that bringing together the data that usually would have only existed in silos was fundamental to the NHS’s COVID response. He also recognised the need to fill gaps in interoperability where they exist, “ especially the link to social care and responsibilities of the NHS.”

He said that in many ways every day of the last year has “been a session of digital transformation because of this shared experience of fighting the virus, and the vital role technology has played in response.”

The secretary did admit that half of the clinicians questioned in a BMA survey said they had been hampered by issues like internet speed and infrastructure when trying to access online services, and he underlined the need to “get the infrastructure in place.”

It was also revealed that thirty more NHS trusts will be joining the Digital Aspirant programme, which will help boost their digital infrastructure through funding.

“Seven trusts will get up to £6 million over the next 3 years, and the rest will get seed funding to start creating their plans,” he outlined.

Earlier this week it emerged that the digital transformation of the NHS needed “further work” and that the technological innovations implemented during the pandemic need to be improved before being “locked-in.” 

In November last year, the health department was blasted for its track record of failed NHS digital projects, with a parliamentary committee warning that there was a need for it to “move on” from its decades-long legacy of “failed attempts” at digital transformation.

​

Health secretary Matt Hancock has outlined his vision for the digital future of the NHS that operates across a “consistent data platform”.

Speaking at the Digital Health Rewired virtual festival, Hancock announced he wants to explore whether a data platform can be created that separates the data layer from the application layer.

​

This would mean “providers can offer the application software, but the data will be stored separately and securely in the cloud and then we have a consistent data platform across the NHS”.

He said it should be made easier to write applications or create services that interact with data from different NHS organisations.

Hancock also said that Shared Care Records will be put in place by September this year, where every local system will have at least a basic version implemented.

“This will mean patients only need to give their details once, and they’ll be captured in a local record that can be safely seen by those who are caring for them,” he said.

There was also an emphasis on the need to “connect the system so data flows appropriately and freely, and we get the intrinsic benefits that high quality data and interoperability can provide.”

He admitted that bringing together the data that usually would have only existed in silos was fundamental to the NHS’s COVID response. He also recognised the need to fill gaps in interoperability where they exist, “ especially the link to social care and responsibilities of the NHS.”

He said that in many ways every day of the last year has “been a session of digital transformation because of this shared experience of fighting the virus, and the vital role technology has played in response.”

The secretary did admit that half of the clinicians questioned in a BMA survey said they had been hampered by issues like internet speed and infrastructure when trying to access online services, and he underlined the need to “get the infrastructure in place.”

It was also revealed that thirty more NHS trusts will be joining the Digital Aspirant programme, which will help boost their digital infrastructure through funding.

“Seven trusts will get up to £6 million over the next 3 years, and the rest will get seed funding to start creating their plans,” he outlined.

Earlier this week it emerged that the digital transformation of the NHS needed “further work” and that the technological innovations implemented during the pandemic need to be improved before being “locked-in.” 

In November last year, the health department was blasted for its track record of failed NHS digital projects, with a parliamentary committee warning that there was a need for it to “move on” from its decades-long legacy of “failed attempts” at digital transformation.

​

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has awarded a strategic IT infrastructure contract to services provider Capgemini, with the aim of improving the user experience of its internal platforms.

The contract is said to be worth £600 million and will run for five years, with the option to extend for an additional two years if needed.

The MPS is looking to improve its IT infrastructure services within the Pegasus Programme, a digital policing programme to procure new key IT suppliers for the police.

Capgemini will be working on moving the MPS away from its multi-supplier “Towers” model, essentially separated categories of services that led to unnecessary fragmentation.

The bulk of the contract work will involve amalgamating services such as the service desk, network services, end user services, cyber security services, and others under a single umbrella.

“We are delighted to have been chosen as the strategic infrastructure services provider for MPS, one of the world’s leading police forces and one of the largest public sector organisations in the UK,” said Nive Bhagat, CEO of Cloud Infrastructure Services at Capgemini.

Capgemini has a history of providing services to the police, including helping it to transform its budget control back in 2008. The contract was signed with the London’s Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime who have used Capgemini in the past in projects involving email services or agile scrum teams.

Angus McCallum, chief digital and technology officer at the Metropolitan Police, said: “Capgemini will help us continue to develop the next stage in our journey towards Met’s digital policing vision.

“Capgemini was chosen as our infrastructure partner based on the strong capabilities demonstrated throughout the bid process. We look forward to working closely with Capgemini in the delivery of critical infrastructure services over the coming years.”

Last year, Capgemini signed a three-year partnership with Barts Health NHS Trust to modernise its ICT estate.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has awarded a strategic IT infrastructure contract to services provider Capgemini, with the aim of improving the user experience of its internal platforms.

The contract is said to be worth £600 million and will run for five years, with the option to extend for an additional two years if needed.

The MPS is looking to improve its IT infrastructure services within the Pegasus Programme, a digital policing programme to procure new key IT suppliers for the police.

Capgemini will be working on moving the MPS away from its multi-supplier “Towers” model, essentially separated categories of services that led to unnecessary fragmentation.

The bulk of the contract work will involve amalgamating services such as the service desk, network services, end user services, cyber security services, and others under a single umbrella.

“We are delighted to have been chosen as the strategic infrastructure services provider for MPS, one of the world’s leading police forces and one of the largest public sector organisations in the UK,” said Nive Bhagat, CEO of Cloud Infrastructure Services at Capgemini.

Capgemini has a history of providing services to the police, including helping it to transform its budget control back in 2008. The contract was signed with the London’s Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime who have used Capgemini in the past in projects involving email services or agile scrum teams.

Angus McCallum, chief digital and technology officer at the Metropolitan Police, said: “Capgemini will help us continue to develop the next stage in our journey towards Met’s digital policing vision.

“Capgemini was chosen as our infrastructure partner based on the strong capabilities demonstrated throughout the bid process. We look forward to working closely with Capgemini in the delivery of critical infrastructure services over the coming years.”

Last year, Capgemini signed a three-year partnership with Barts Health NHS Trust to modernise its ICT estate.

Google has announced a number of new features for Chrome OS to mark the operating system’s 10th birthday, including some new ones for enterprise users. 

Starting today, businesses can download the Chrome OS Readiness Tool to help them identify which Windows devices in their organisation are ready to switch fully to Chrome OS and which need support from VDI or Parallels Desktop.

This is a free, completely private and customisable tool that allows enterprises to see if apps are compatible or whether they are cloud-ready or not.

Organisations can also now configure over 500 policies in the Google Admin console. New policies have been added over the past year including those affecting new security, updates, accessibility, network file sharing and more. Importantly, all policies default to a Google recommended setting ensuring that users only have to set up the ones they need.

Moreover, to help enterprises configure their policies at scale, Chrome is launching the Chrome Policy API. This allows user and printer settings to be managed via an API and enables users to configure settings through a script or command line. Chrome is looking to expand this in the future so it also applies to apps, extensions and device settings too.

These new additions come on top of other features announced including the Phone Hub, where users can respond to their phone messages, check its battery life and even locate it from their Chromebook.

In the coming months, the company plans to release “Nearby share”, a feature that allows users to securely share files between a Chromebook and other Chrome OS or Android devices without needing to share contact details.

These new features come after Google announced in December it was teaming up with other tech giants such as Intel and Dell to form the Modern Computing Alliance. The group hopes to foster greater collaboration and integration between their different systems.

Google has announced a number of new features for Chrome OS to mark the operating system’s 10th birthday, including some new ones for enterprise users. 

Starting today, businesses can download the Chrome OS Readiness Tool to help them identify which Windows devices in their organisation are ready to switch fully to Chrome OS and which need support from VDI or Parallels Desktop.

This is a free, completely private and customisable tool that allows enterprises to see if apps are compatible or whether they are cloud-ready or not.

Organisations can also now configure over 500 policies in the Google Admin console. New policies have been added over the past year including those affecting new security, updates, accessibility, network file sharing and more. Importantly, all policies default to a Google recommended setting ensuring that users only have to set up the ones they need.

Moreover, to help enterprises configure their policies at scale, Chrome is launching the Chrome Policy API. This allows user and printer settings to be managed via an API and enables users to configure settings through a script or command line. Chrome is looking to expand this in the future so it also applies to apps, extensions and device settings too.

These new additions come on top of other features announced including the Phone Hub, where users can respond to their phone messages, check its battery life and even locate it from their Chromebook.

In the coming months, the company plans to release “Nearby share”, a feature that allows users to securely share files between a Chromebook and other Chrome OS or Android devices without needing to share contact details.

These new features come after Google announced in December it was teaming up with other tech giants such as Intel and Dell to form the Modern Computing Alliance. The group hopes to foster greater collaboration and integration between their different systems.