Everphone is the leading PaaS (Phone-as-a-Service) startup from Berlin known for supplying, repairing, replacing, and recycling mobile devices for a lower monthly subscription for enterprise-grade customers. According to its most recent announcement, it would cease all operations in the United States, with Miami serving as the new US headquarters location. However, the company went forward with selecting Miami –one of the fastest growing technology hubs globally, for its closeness to top-growth, talented organizations and investors.

The entry of Everphone into the technology market of the United States of America is followed by a whopping $200 million investment in their growth financing. It was announced in December 2021 and is regarded as the moment of opportunity. The growth of hybrid work has made it quite challenging to manage employees’ mobile devices centrally. Moreover, the concept of the ‘great resignation’ has led companies to prioritize the overall employee experience. Concerns related to sustainability have made organizations seek out innovative ways to reduce their respective carbon footprint.

The Purpose of Ever phone Making the US Launch

Jan Dzulko, Founder and CEO at Everphone, said in a statement that the company is committed to serving the environmentally-conscious and efficiency-centric organizations looking forward to creating top-class employee experiences. This is what makes Everphone confident that the technology market in the United States of America will quickly adopt the respective Paas or Phone-as-a-Service model of the company.

Jan added that when the company successfully wins over the vast market, it will make efforts towards better running businesses while significantly reducing the overall carbon footprint and highly improved customer experiences. Therefore, it can be said that Everphone aims to leverage digitization to ensure customizable and straightforward results.

Featuring the reduced monthly per-user or subscription fee, everphone helps in sourcing, configuring, and deploying tablets, laptops, or smartphones. It is also helpful towards pre-installing apps, mobile device management, and top-end mobile security. With everphone, it is also possible for organizations to manage replacements and repairs while sustainably and securely recycling devices when they might no longer be needed.

The Ever-growing Business of everphone

Across the globe, Everphone boasts over 200 employees. The company can support over 1000 customers with the help of 125,000 devices. In the United States alone, the company is already serving multiple clients. The company’s clientele features TIER –the leading mobility service provider, and Starship –the famous delivery service company. In addition to this, Everphone also targets both large-scale enterprises like Henkel and EY and rapidly-growing startups.

The operations of Everphone in the United States are run and managed by Tillmann Schwabe, the company’s General Manager. Schwabe had recently joined Everphone from CompuGroup Medical. Here, his responsibility was to develop and implement sales strategies by serving the role of the Vice President (VP) of Sales. Before that, Schwabe had spent several years in different executive positions in leading firms like IONOS. His most recent position had been the Head of International Direct Sales. In the given role, Schwabe had successfully built a global sales team of more than 300 personnel. Schwabe had started his career in 2000 when he served as the Co-CEO and founder of an online retail store for selling nutritional supplements.

Expanding everphone

Schwabe recently added that it is about fulfilling the needs of the changing workforce or keeping up with the latest technology trends and achieving sustainability objectives. Moreover, to be compliant and secure, Everphone has been positioned perfectly towards helping companies in the United States optimize the utilization of laptops, mobile devices, and tablets. According to him, the company is excited about expanding to the United States in Miami. This is because Miami serves to be a diverse city surrounded by top-end technology talent, rising businesses, and high-end, smart investors.

Kevin Ryan, CEO and Founder at AlleyCorp, added that factors like the ESG mandates, the pandemic, and the overall need to keep up with the latest technological trends had initiated a chain reaction. This has compelled companies all around to think in-depth about the technology footprint. In this case, Everphone is at the forefront of the given evolution.

As AlleyCorp turns out to be a long-time investor in everphone, the company is excited that everphone rapidly aims at building and strengthening its team and presence in the United States of America. There is no denying the immense potential in the country and even abroad. It stands especially true concerning circular and shared economy models for transforming how we continue working and living. The company feels glad to be a part of the story of Everphone and looks forward to the overall expansion and the impact.

About everphone

everphone serves to be the one-stop solution for enterprise-grade smartphones. Since its inception in 2016, the startup has continued providing an innovative concept for procuring, managing, and integrating mobile devices like tablets and smartphones in the corporate context. The PaaS or Phone-as-a-service model of the company offers its employees the free opportunity of corporate phones. Through its dedicated services, the company ensures flexible changes and upgrades of devices while including the rapid replacement of services and MDM (Mobile Device Management) that is GDPR-compliant in case of any defect.

The portfolio features devices from leading tech giants including Apple, Nokia, Samsung, Google, and so more. Beginning December 2020, Everphone started serving as the official B2B partner of the device-as-a-service strategy of Samsung Electronics in Germany. Everphone was introduced by Jan Dzulko –the former Managing Board member at CHECK24. Along with several SMEs and startups, customers of Everphone also include global players like TIER Mobility, Ernst & Young, and Henkel.

Blue Apron is set to debut the concept of a co-branded card in collaboration with Aspiration. Through this co-branding, the company aims at offering access to lucrative rewards for its users. Through the same, the brand will be helping users to fight the ongoing climate change.

The card is given the name ‘Blue Apron Aspiration Zero Card’ and the brand will be rewarding the respective card members upon qualifying purchases that are executed on the mobile app and at the website of BlueApron.com. In addition to the existing set of rewards, these benefits will be made available to Aspiration Zero Card members.

The products put forth by Aspiration are aimed at incorporating the fight against climate change into the day-to-day lives of individuals, making  the entire process highly engaging, automated, and straightforward.

Blue Apron Aspiration Zero Card

When customers use the all-new Blue Apron Aspiration Zero Card, they will be able to recognize the best methods for offsetting the respective carbon footprints on the planet. This is because Aspiration aims at planting a tree for every purchase that has been qualified, and users of the card can look forward to planting trees with the help of roundup purchases corresponding to the nearest dollar.

Dani Simpson, Chief Marketing Officer at Aspiration, explains that as the company celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2022, it wishes to come across its best and the most loyal customer base, including customers loyal to the company since the shipping of the first-ever box. Therefore, familiar individuals using the Blue Apron Aspiration Zero Card on qualified purchases will have access to cashback benefits and the opportunity to create a significant difference in the world through their efforts.

Andrei Cherny, CEO at Aspiration, further explained that the goal of the collaboration was not just to reward the customers financially, but to help customers have an effortless and positive impact on the entire environment.

Blue Apron and Its Partnership with Alexa

Blue Apron has also unveiled an all-new feature for its users to ensure partnership with Alexa. The partnership between Alexa and the end-users will allow them to find easier ways to execute experiments with cooking, learn about new recipes, and much more. To top it off, users can also request Alexa to find recipes for the individual subscriptions by Blue Apron.

As Blue Apron partners its features and capabilities with Alexa, Simpson added that the company is looking forward to addressing the diverse cooking interests of the end customers and their desires for unique, delicious flavors.

In the past year, Blue Apron had a struggling period. This is because customers used to venture outside quite often during the COVID-era.

Collaboration of Blue Apron with Aspiration

Andrei Cherny, Chief Executive Officer at Aspiration, explained that it would serve as the first-of-its-kind partnership in the industry of meal kits and the collaboration highlights the partnership between Aspiration and Blue Apron. He adds that the company is delighted to partner with Blue Apron and help the consumers financially.

It will also enable them to minimize their carbon footprint on the planet. Along with offering access to credit card processing services, Aspiration is committed to promoting Blue Apron as one of its esteemed partners. When the given offering is launched, it will become part of the all-new loyalty program of Blue Apron and will continue offering its customers new and exciting partnerships.

Blue Apron remains in discussion with more partners to provide the customers with additional benefits and the company expects to launch its other new programs by 2022.

About Aspiration

Aspiration Partners Inc. is a leading platform for helping businesses and people deliver automated and sustainable impact into professional hands. In addition, the company aims at integrating the same into the day-to-day lives of the end consumers. Aspiration Partners Inc. is a certified B Corporation.

About Blue Apron

The vision at Blue Apron is to ensure better living through better food. The company came into existence in 2012 and is a famous brand offering access to chef-made, fresh recipes for empowering home-based cooks or enthusiasts to embrace the overall culinary curiosity. It also enables its users to challenge their respective abilities to observe what difference the overall cooking quality of food items can bring about in their day-to-day lives.

Blue Apron has a mission to ignite discovery, joy, and ample connection through cooking. As such, the company is committed to focusing on bringing about amazing recipes to the customers. The brand is also dedicated to minimizing the overall carbon footprint, promoting inclusion, diversity, and minimizing food waste.

Noname Security –a pioneering API-based security company, has recently announced that it has managed to secure around $135 million in the Series C funding with a valuation of $1 Billion. Lightspeed and Georgian accelerated the round of funding. The funding also witnessed impactful participation from all existing investors –featuring Next47, Cyber stars, The Syndicate Group, Forgepoint, and Insight Partners.

The all-new investment will be funding the overall global expansion of the R&D teams and go-to-market of Noname Security. The company has raised as much as $220 million in financing to date. Therefore, Noname Security has become one of the rapidly growing and expanding cybersecurity companies in the modern era. It also serves as the first-ever API company to achieve unicorn status.

Achievements of Noname Security

Since its launch, in 12 months, Noname Security has been successful in achieving the following milestones:

• Improved counts amongst the consumers
• Two of the five largest pharmaceutical companies in the world
• One of the three largest telecom agencies in the world
• One of the world’s largest retailers
• Grown the workforce to over 200 employees worldwide
• Actively working with 20 percent of the Fortune 500
• Launched the UPP (Unnamed Partner Program) –having over 70 VARs (Value Added Resellers), system integrators, technology partners, channel partners, MSSPs (Managed Security Service Providers), and distributors.

The overall surge in adoption by Noname Security is due to its proactive approach towards API security across the entire software development lifecycle. Compared to most other available solutions today, it relies entirely on traffic analysis to highlight active attacks. Noname Security aims to analyze code, traffic, and configuration to identify the broadest set of API vulnerabilities. In addition, it includes design flaws and misconfigurations.

A report from IBM Security X-Force put forth that 2/3rd of cloud breaches are due to misconfigured APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). The problem was recognized as one of the most common gateways for any compromise.

Widespread Digitization with Advanced Security

Oz Golan – CEO and Co-founder of Noname Security, explains that enterprises across different industry verticals are witnessing significant digitization. This has accelerated the overall adoption of thousands of all-new APIs along with the crucial requirement of securing them for businesses globally. He added that with Georgian’s backing and the existing investors, the company would continue expanding the industry-wide technology for helping its customers mitigate the overall risks of API deployment.

During the last year, Noname Security has managed to overtake other API security providers in the industry with API testing, runtime security, and API posture management. Until now, Noname Security has come across and resolved the problem of misconfigured APIs leading to data leakage of many sensitive data records. The platform can also block more than 1000 attacks every day throughout its customer base.

The partnership of Georgian with Noname Security 

Michael Robinson, Lead Investor, Georgian, explains that the company is quite excited about its partnership with the innovative team of experts at Noname Security. This is because the team remains differentiated in its proactive approach and technology concerning API security. Moreover, Noname Security also continues solving the market’s unresolved needs and resolving the ever-growing market challenges.

The investment is a testament to the fantastic opportunity for shaping the future of API Security –a significant component in ensuring modern digital transformation. Georgian takes pride in supporting the next phase of the rapid growth of Noname Security while collaborating with the Data Science team of the company to expedite the technical differentiation of Noname Security further.

The partnership of Lightspeed with Noname Security

Guru Chahal, Lightspeed, added that being an early investor in Noname Security, the company understands that its founders Shay Levi and Oz Golan are committed to solving a major problem growing at an exponential rate. In addition, with the ever-growing API complexity, the platform of Noname Security allows organizations to identify and secure APIs in a manner that was not possible a year prior. Therefore, Lightspeed remains excited about continuing to work with Noname.

Most similar solutions available in the market today only emphasize runtime attacks. On the other hand, Noname and its solutions can identify and eliminate attack characteristics before a major attack happens. Moreover, the solution aims to test APIs for core vulnerabilities across the entire lifecycle actively. It also helps in preventing real-time attacks. The holistic view followed by Noname Security for API security is brand-new. CISOs and the respective teams have searched to protect the ever-growing API attack surface.

About Noname Security

Noname Security is the one-and-only company that follows a comprehensive and proactive approach to ensuring API security. The company works with around 20 percent of the leading Fortune 500 companies globally. It is responsible for covering the entire scope of advanced API security across three major pillars –Secure API SDLC, Runtime Security, and Posture Management. Noname Security has a private holding. Moreover, it is a remote-first organization headquartered in Palo Alto, California. There are offices in London and Tel Aviv as well.

About Georgian

Georgian is a well-known fintech company. It invests primarily in high-growth software organizations reliably harnessing the potential of data. At Georgian, its team is building a platform for providing optimum experiences of growth capital to CEOs and the subsequent teams of the software company. The platform of Georgian is designed to spot and expedite the best-available growth-stage software firms by ensuring an intelligent and data-first approach. The approach aims to resolve the core challenges that CEOs face while growing their businesses. Georgian is based in Toronto. Its team aims at bringing together machine learning specialists, software entrepreneurs, investment professionals, and experienced operators.

Western Union –the pioneering leader in cross-border payments across the world, looks forward to collaborating with leading financial institutions in & around Ukraine for supporting cross-border payments. Western Union serves to be a world leader in ensuring cross-currency payments and money movements from all corners of the world. In addition to Ukraine, Western Union plans to extend its cross-border payment capability across the CIS or Commonwealth of Independent States. It allows millions of customers to send and receive cross-border payments through the Omni-channel network of Western Union instantly, reliably, and conveniently.

The expansion of the retail network of Western Union across the specified region has allowed the company to lately launch the concept of international money transfers through parts of Nova Poshta. In addition, it is a pervasive postal network in Ukraine. NovaPay is the non-banking financial institution in Nova Poshta. In the existing collaboration, NovaPay features a leading share of 46 per cent of the entire market for local money transfers. There are as many as 35,000 locations.

Transferring Money with Ease in Ukraine

Monobank is yet another leading financial institution in Ukraine. Its customers are now capable of sending over money across the globe. This is done by using the retail network of Western Union across over 200 countries and territories. It is achieved with the help of the mobile app. Using this capability, customers of the bank can now fund the respective international transfers with the help of the Monobank Card. At the same time, receivers can look forward to picking up the transferred funds from any of the retail locations of Western Union. There are over 600,000 retail locations of Western Union.

Due to the collaboration, Monobank in Ukraine has observed a rapid rise in the region’s financial markets. It boasts an overall investment in supporting the best-in-class customer support. Therefore, the branch has over 4 million online customers in the current scenario.

Accelerated Money Transfers Through Western Union

In addition to Monobank in Ukraine, Western Union has also unveiled its concept of international money transfers through Sovkombank –one of Russia’s top 10 financial institutions. Sovkombanktakes pride in having more than 11 million customers and around 260 locations across the nation. Moreover, it predicts rapid future developments in the coming times.

Western Union has also unleashed its international money transfer capability through Jusan Bank in Kazakhstan. In Tajikistan, Western Union extends the functionality with the help of the nation’s RushdiOrien and International Bank.

As far as the digital front of supporting international money transfers through the Western Union is concerned, three crucial activations have been achieved with the help of vital financial institutions across the country. First, customers of Kapitalbank in Uzbekistan, Bank Center Credit in Kazakhstan, and Unibank in Azerbaijan are also now given the capability of ensuring international money transfers. It is achieved through the integration with the platform of Western Union in the respective mobile apps of the banks.

Massimiliano Alvisini –General Manager of Western Union in Africa, CIS, and Europe, stated that the company feels privileged to consider joining forces with leading post offices and financial institutions across the CIS. Through this collaboration, the international money transfer giant aims at offering millions of customers ample flexibility, trust, and convenience in the field of cross-border payments and money transfers. Alvisini also added that the company aims to constantly expand its network across the area while integrating its global money movement functionalities to enhance the overall customer experience of core financial institutions in CIS.

Partnership with Gold Standard to Offer Green Hedging

Recently Western Union Business Solutions –the payment branch of The Western Union Company, has extended its partnership with Gold Standard –the sustainability and power pioneer. The partnership aims at offering Green Hedging for all scales and sizes of organizations across the world.

The collaboration will be enabling the customers of Western Union Business Solutions to support a wide range of initiatives featuring certified carbon credits –right from clean water access to renewable energy, as a part of the Green Hedging strategy.

The partnership will allow the customers to ensure financial support to sustainable initiatives under the hedging strategy. This will empower them to impact the globe quite easily positively. Available to both existing and new customers, the offering will enable businesses to choose from a wide range of climate and sustainability initiatives as certified by the Gold Standard. As such, the initiative will be offering support to the selected projects at an overall cost of only 0.1 percent along with the notional trading amount.

About Western Union

The Western Union Company is a worldwide leader in cross-currency and cross-border payments and money movements. The platform of Western Union offers access to seamless flows of cross-border amounts. Moreover, its pioneering financial network around the globe helps in bridging over 200 nations and territories and more than 130 types of currencies.

Western Union connects financial institutions, businesses, consumers, and organizations with its widest-reaching network globally. The company also manages to access millions of bank accounts in all corners of the globe. Currently, the company boasts over 600,000 retail locations in different parts of the world.

Identity verification in air travel is a necessary security standard, that’s why infrastructures such as the physical driver’s license exist. But as technology continues to improve, the continued use of physical driver’s licenses may soon be obsolete. Probably, a mobile driver’s licenses are the solution they are searching for. Let’s see the edge that this new infrastructure has over the former, and the discoveries of these security agencies.

Security agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are beginning to seek better ways to improve the security of air travel. The Department of Homeland Security (DHA) has also joined in this move, as well as other private agencies. 

The Need For Mobile Driver’s License for Air Travel – What TSA and DHA Says

Mobile driver’s licenses can be seen as an advanced version of the physical driver’s licenses, as they come in the form of phone apps secured using a PIN or via biometrics. 

Image source

This implies that with a mobile driver’s license, there’s no need to carry a physical identity card around. The new identification method requires an individual to just display their information electronically.

Accurate identification of passengers has always been a critical need of air transport. The goal is to reinforce security. In another light, the impact of unexpected global events such as the pandemic has spurred the need for digital security measures. In addition to security concerns it raised, it intimated the world with digital tools and channels. Now, security entities and agencies are beginning to consider a new priority as it pertains to air travel security. 

Two notable transportation security bodies in the United States have shown keen interest in this emerging intuitive technology. The DHS and TSA seem to be certain that the mobile driver’s license will help strengthen the security standard of drivers in the state.

“The TSA workforce comprises teams of security-focused innovators who look for opportunities to improve security and the traveler experience across the nation’s transportation network.”  “The mobile driver’s licenses are an emerging technology example, and TSA is interested in exploring its incorporation into our identity verification processes.”

As such, the DHS and the TSA have made an open request in the Federal Register for inputs of the society. They seek industry standards and practical ways to sustain this technology and explore its potential. They strive to standardize some core features that include privacy, identity fraud detection, and security.

Responses to the request will enable DHS/TSA to make better laws to revise the REAL ID Act. The REAL ID Act is an act of congress that modifies the US Federal laws relating to security, authentication, and issuance of driver’s licenses. This act also monitors states whose standards are not in compliance with the Act’s minimum standards for production and issuance of driver’s licenses.

In addition to strengthening air travel security, the act needs to be revised to accommodate the use of mobile driver’s licenses for other official purposes. According to the act, these include accessing federal facilities, the use of commercial aircraft that are under federal control, and nuclear power plants. The information garnered will be instrumental to possible adjustments to the REAL ID Act.

How Do Mobile Driver’s Licenses Work?

Vanderhoof’s Contribution on Mobile Driver’s License As Next-Gen Verification Tool for Air Travel

Randy Vanderhoof is executive director of the Secure Technology Alliance, a group whose concern is on security solutions for identity verification, payment, and access.

The Alliance and its partners have been working on a technical concept to control the information that consumers release during the identity verification process.  Rather than divulge all of a passenger’s details, the app shows only age, address or age, and photo.

According to Randy Vanderhoof, a digital version of a license would give users more control over the amount of information they share with a third party. Also, the pandemic has inspired a change in the trend of things – contactless verification of information. 

Rather than exchanging material objects, a passenger could just flash their driver’s license information electronically to the TSA agents. This can be a great way to curb the spread of highly contagious illness and beyond that, it is faster and creates an audit trail for the TSA agent.

Vanderhoof further stressed the need for doing things electronically in these modern days. “People are looking for ways to do things electronically much more so than face to face,” he said.

For Vanderhoof, the mobile driver’s license should also enhance privacy laws to check the searching of phones by police department officials. The idea is to check and not entirely disallow the checking of phones as it is also a security measure on the part of the police. The police officer doesn’t necessarily need to handle the phone, the mobile driver’s license could use a barcode or transmit the required information. 

But, according to Vanderhoof, achieving this is not so much of a task, as much modern technology can achieve it. However, the problem may lie in the ability to interoperate the technology among states that issue the digital credentials and where the information will be used.

The STA on its own is putting in efforts to see that the goal of supporting and promoting mobile driver’s licenses across all states is actualized.

Conclusion 

Some states in the United States are already wetting their feet with mobile driver’s licenses, about eleven of them, including Oklahoma, Colorado, Louisiana, and Iowa. And with corporate effort, mobile drivers license may eventually take over the physical driver’s license and effectively be implemented across all the 50 States of America.

Over the past few years, there has been a rapid circulation of stablecoin. It has resulted in a significant effect on the rate of cryptocurrencies traded on different exchanges. Financial market analysts have found that stablecoins will address some issues by securing their values to underlying assets.

Recently, a few employees from Figure (a financial platform) thought of selling their stocks and considered an exchange. They have encountered 2 institutional buyers bidding on their stocks. There had been a real-time settlement of orders after crossing the orders and bids. 

Mike Cagney, the Co-founder and CEO of Figure, said that the transaction was highly valuable on two fronts. During the PYMNTS interview, he also stated that it was the first marketplace deal for blockchain securities. According to Cagney, the stablecoin used by institutional buyers was a coin, known as USDForward. The New York Community Bank created this USDF, and thus, it was the first time a financial institution got engaged in deposit-backed stablecoin.

Introducing something big in the cryptocurrency world

USDF is a specially designed coin, and it deals with KYC issues and regulatory compliance. Moreover, NYCB has associated itself with the five-bank consortium entering the market. Now the market is open for any bank that thinks of choosing the framework. Cagney has illustrated some important functions of NYCB and according to him, it needs to provide several fiat currencies on Provenance Blockchain.

USDF is really a payment rail, and thus, it will enable financial institutions to transact cash using USDF. It will also promote application development with programmable money. Cagney stated that it would change something noticeable in the current payment ecosystem. 

Dismissal of the interchange system

Cagney has referred to the use of the Figure Pay application designed on the USDF rail. Figure Pay provides you with mobile banking opportunities, which include Buy Now, Pay Later and Visa debit card. There are also payday advance options available with them. The Figure Pay members will be successful in making B2C, B2B, and C2C transactions and can keep away from the conventional interchange system.

According to Cagney, banks can now use Pay banks in their landlord-tenant space. They will use credit cards to pay landlords. It will be easy to pay $300 to $500 a year, and they are incentivized to pay some dollars to the renters.

This will result in the development of the disruptive application, which will help in settling B2B transactions. From the supply chain finance to payment-receivable, everything will be manageable.

To get things going, merchants need to drive consumer adoption of USDF, which will, in turn, lead to additional adoption by other merchants and consumers. Figure Pay is an open API, which helps banks in integrating a mobile solution to another mobile application.

Taking advantage of the real-time payment rail

Figure itself relies on Pay, and it presently has more than 100,000 mortgage customers. These customers mostly use automated clearinghouses for payment that the company needs to identify the source of the money. By adopting Pay, it can minimize the servicing charge and will result in an increasing number of USDF users. It will be a good deal to get the real-time payment, and the company will save money. Thus, it will be a perfect alternative to the conventional interchange system. 

Cagney claimed that there were several doubts regarding the USDF transaction. Bankers did not feel comfortable with the stablecoin. However, now, stablecoin will cause a transformation to the payment space. During the first half of this year, there have been more than $3 trillion stablecoin transactions.

New stablecoins in the market

Terra is one of the newly introduced stablecoins chosen by lots of online merchants in Southeastern Asia, but it has still not become popular in the USA. It illustrates how stablecoins will work with the best value. It implements an automated monetary policy that stabilizes the price. Luna is the monetary policy tool and provides transaction charges as a reward. 

Economists think that the major advantages of using stablecoins are real-time solutions, lower-cost, security, and competitive payments. Businesses can make it cheaper and accept payments. Governments can easily run their cash transfer programs.

Lowe’s Co. Inc. experienced a surge in sales after increasing its forecast for the entire year –beating the expectations of Wall Street. It is a sign that the professional business at Lowe’s is helping counter a significant slowdown in the overall demand from the DIY (Do-it-yourself) consumers –responsible for fueling the early-pandemic boom last year.

Lowe’s is a major home improvement retailer and expects total revenue of around $92 billion in the upcoming year, the company revealed in a statement. The expectation is ahead of the preceding ‘sturdy market conditions’ that had assumed the total sales to be around $86 billion.

The ‘boosting’ outlook highlights more robust trends during August and predicts better-than-expected discipline and control on the overall costs, as revealed in a note by Jonathan Matuszewski –Jefferies’s retail analyst. The shares had ended up jumping by as much as 7.9 percent to reach $196.68 in New York.

Investors all around have prepared themselves for a potential slowdown. After the pandemic, last year there were intense demands for everything – from groceries to the development of building supplies, home goods, and much more –especially from consumers handling DIY projects.

Home Depot Inc. – the chief rival of Lowe’s – ended up disappointing its consumers the previous year with weaker results than the overall expectations. Lowe’s follows the concept of same-store sales, which are a significant factor in the retail industry. The concept fell by around 1.6 percent in the period that ended on 30th July, but it was better than the overall predictions concerning the decline –around 1.9 percent. The value of adjusted earnings of $4.25 per share also topped overall expectations.

Marvin Ellison –Chief Executive Officer at Lowe’s, said that they understand times are uncertain but the company aims to be optimistic towards short-term and long-term growth, and that he believes the pandemic has permanently shifted how we feel about our homes. 

Conditions Pro-investment

Lowe’s revealed that it had observed strong sales trends until August but analysts have revealed that the overall business of Lowe’s is much more vulnerable compared to Hope Depot because of the slow down in the DIY trend, because a significant part of their business is derived from that segment. The retailer does aim to invest in it’s pro-type business, including improving staffing services for its contractors, introducing a loyalty program, and so on. Still, the organization lags behind Home Depot. As per Ellison, the company managed to obtain around 21 percent growth in the pro segment.

Similar to Home Depot, the pro-business sales of Lowe’s managed to outpace the DIY unit during the quarter because the transition started taking place in the first quarter. However, it got exaggerated during the period, as revealed by Ellison, who further stated that the company had been currently focused on pro customers. The focus has started paying off its dividends. As a result, there might be a significant shift in the entire year’s balance.

During November, it was reported that Lowe’s was observing its sales being steady –featuring around $22.9 billion in total sales for the period of Q3 – rising from a value of $22.3 billion in 2020. As a result, the sales were up by around 2.2 percent during the given period and the total sales in the United States alone rose by around 2.6 percent.

Lowe’s Sales Steady with Consumers Investing in Home

In an announcement, Marvin Ellison, CEO, President, and Chairman at Lowe’s, revealed that business momentum continued in the quarter. The sales in the United States alone managed to reach 34 percent on a 2-year basis. This is because the Total Home strategy by the company continues resonating with DIY and Pro consumers alike. Additionally, during the quarter, the company observed around 16 percent growth in the Pro program and a 25 percent increase in its overall online sales.

Lowe’s boasts around 1,973 hardware and home improvement stores across the United States and Canada. Therefore, it represents around 208 million square feet of retail selling space as reported on 29th October while overseeing 230 dealer-owned stores.

Future Plans for Lowe’s

Lowe’s will launch the beta version of the feature of Measure Your Space on its app before the closing of the first quarter of 2022. The app allows its users to scan an entire room, measure, and predict the home improvement specifications as a part of the vision of the company –referred to as Spatial Commerce.

Measure Your Space will be made available across the iOS app of Lowe’s for users of iPhone 12 Pro, Pro Max, 13 Pro, Pro Max, and iPad Pro. In addition, it will be available with a focus on flooring. It is going to be a significant home improvement project as around 5 million homeowners execute their own flooring, paneling, and carpeting.

In October, the company also launched its One Roof Media Network feature. It served as a retail media service for including different Omni-channel advertising services for boosting home-based lifestyle brands and data-driven insights into home-based trends and customer behavior with a personalized advertising program.

Bamboo Rose –a multi-enterprise supply chain and product-based platform, has announced that it will be featured within the Customer Innovation Network in Milan by Accenture –one of the leading professional service firms in the world. In addition to this, the business also unveiled its plans of partnering with Blue Yonder –a popular digital supply chain and Omni-channel commerce platform.

The partnership is aimed at helping retailers in combining innovation, ensuring demand planning, supply chain operations, and maximizing product development. The partnership also focuses on streamlining supply chain operations for obtaining more profits while guiding the consumer-centric product assortment strategy.

Role of the Partnership

The partnership between Bamboo Rose and Blue Yonder will be leveraging the PLM or Product Lifecycle Management Sourcing capability of Bamboo Rose and PO (Purchase Order) management solutions along with the supply chain planning & management capabilities of Blue Yonder. As a result, it will reduce the overall costs, deepen supplier relations, synergize operations, and accelerate time to market.

Client organizations harnessing the partnership will equip the respective design and merchandising teams with actionable insights. It will be based on the combination of conservative development of real-time sales data and historical data for supporting consumer-centric, agile product strategy. The partnership will also enable retail clients to develop deeper transparency with the respective vendor community by revealing planning data to the suppliers beforehand. Finally, it will help drive optimized start dates on good production runs.

Alignment of Product Development with the Partnership

 The alignment of product development, assortment planning, and sourcing across different business processes and systems will help expedite feedback on in-depth merchant interest between the retailers and subsequent partners. It will also assist in reducing the overall costs linked with the development and streamlining process of product innovation.

Sonia Hernandez -Vice President, Retail Planning, Blue Yonder, explains that as the company welcomes Bamboo Rose in partnership, it looks forward to collaboratively offering support to the retail customer base. This is because the partnership will be committed to bringing profitable products to market, aligning with the ongoing consumer trends. The partnership will also enable synergies across different stages of product development, planning, supply chain processes, and manufacturing.

Andrea Imsdahl –Global Alliances Executive, Bamboo Rose, explains further that it is increasingly important than ever before that retailers continue leveraging accurate insights and meaningful data to inform product development and sourcing decisions. This is due to the ever-changing consumer demands, fluctuations in shipping costs, and the overall factor capacity. Andrea further stated that the partnership with Blue Yonder would enable retailers to achieve an all-new level of supply chain and product development agility when there is a need for it. In addition, this accelerates the mission to aid retailers in ensuring product differentiation based on the costs, time, and market trends.

Bamboo Rose’s Showcasing in Customer Innovation Network by Accenture

 As a part of the collaboration, Bamboo Rose put forth a demonstration for supporting consultants at Accenture to show CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) and retail food clients how they can innovate sourcing and product development processes and supply chain mechanisms. It would ultimately help in differentiating across competitive consumer markets.

In 2017, Accenture unleashed its Consumer Innovation Center in Milan, Italy. It is regarded as one of the largest innovation hubs by the company for professional fashion, retail, and consumer goods communities. The Innovation Center at Milan, in addition to other sibling facilities in Singapore and Chicago, makes up the broader innovation network of the company. It is an incubator initiative committed to creating state-of-the-art, groundbreaking solutions for clients that look forward to breaking through the disruption of modern corporate environments.

Accenture chose Bamboo Rose and its multi-enterprise platform as the superior technology for implementing best practices around the concept of supplier collaboration, private brand innovation, compliances, traceability, and consumer meetings as the need arises in the post-pandemic era. The collaboration demonstrates how brands, suppliers, and retailers will be capable of streamlining and accelerating product design & delivery through a robust partnership with the entire business community.

Maria Mazzone –Lead at Accenture Customer Innovation Network, Milan, stated that the Customer Innovation Network in Milan is focused on delivering optimum client value through collaboration and in-depth learning. As such, collaborating with Bamboo Rose will help the company provide clients with the possibility of learning further comprehensive business value as driven by the approach of supply chain and enterprise product development.

Sue Welch –CEO, of Bamboo Rose, states that the company has long admired the overall expertise and transition that Accenture is capable of delivering for its clients. The company is also impressed with how the firm is combining hands-on learning and industry expertise in different innovation hubs. Bamboo Rose remains delighted to showcase the Milan Innovation Hub by Accenture. It also takes pride in the fact that the Bamboo Rose Multi-enterprise Platform will be utilized as the enabler of sourcing, product development, and supply chain innovation for clients of Accenture in the CPG and food retail markets.

About Bamboo Rose

Bamboo Rose is a leading multi-enterprise supply chain and product platform. The company is dedicated to connecting the entire retail community and is also committed to bringing innovative products into the market more efficiently and faster, along with improved margins. The platform features an array of patented supply chain solutions –including Product Lifecycle Management, Bamboo Rose Marketplace, Global Trade Management, Purchase Order Management, Sourcing, Financing, and much more. Each of the solutions is supported by highly intelligent engines for ensuring optimization, scheduling, and costing across the entire platform.

As of August 2021, 4.27 million U.S. employees resigned from their jobs. This trend began in April 2021 when 3.99 million Americans quit their jobs and continued till August. What’s with the sudden fad?

Times of unrest often have a distorting effect on society. Amongst many other effects, the pandemic led to many employees leaving their jobs. For instance, a LinkedIn survey showed that 74% of people sought other employment because the pandemic kept them stuck at home.

On the other hand, it was a period of renewed focus for some as they realized their current jobs didn’t offer fulfillment. Hence, they took another career path. Let’s see what the Great Resignation is all about.

What is the Great Resignation?

The pandemic changed the world – quarantines, shut down, restrictions on movement as well as access to goods and services. Many businesses, across sectors, especially the retail sector, were forced to lay off some employees because they probably weren’t meeting up financially.

Also, across many sectors, remote work was initiated and popularized. But more significantly, it was a time of introspection for many – they had to look into their career path and what gives them fulfillment. As such, a lot of employees realized that they had not been doing their “dream job” all this while. They seemed to realize how unsatisfied they were with many things about their jobs ranging from the industry to their work environment to their work-life balance.

It was around this time that Anthony Klotz, an elite scholar of Management (associate professor at Texas A&M University) predicted and coined the term the Great Resignation. According to him, many employees were likely to quit jobs and careers that they were no longer happy with.

In a Bloomberg article he states, “The Great Resignation is coming. When there’s uncertainty, people tend to stay put, so there are pent-up resignations that didn’t happen over the past year.” And, Klotz’s prediction eventually appeared to be true.

The Great Resignation is beyond a mere idealistic phenomenon, but different statistics back it up, for example:

• According to the U.S Department of Labor, 2.9% of the workforce in the state quit their jobs in August 2021.

• According to a March 2021 Microsoft report, 41%  of the total global workforce is considering resigning their jobs.

• According to the Gallup State of the Global Workplace report of 2021, 20% of employees worldwide don’t have any other engagement aside from their work. This means that with the pandemic keeping these employees at home, they are most likely to take up another job.

Factors Driving the Great Resignation

From surveys and researchers, a lot of factors have contributed to the Great Resignation across different industries and in diverse regions. The effect, however, was more profound on some industries like healthcare and retail. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the majority of resignations were recorded in the following industries: hospitality, leisure, and food services.

For health workers, they found themselves under extreme pressure (even their lives were at risk) and a lot of them couldn’t cope. Consequently, 579,000 health workers resigned from their jobs in August 2021. For Galinsky, a social psychologist at Columbia Business School, the health care employees needed no further explanation to leave their jobs.

He said “I think a lot of people are just like, ‘I can’t take it anymore, it’s too stressful to be in this healthcare system.”

In the retail industry, many had to work for lesser hours and this perhaps meant less pay, some were even laid off completely. This was truly a revelatory period for many of the employees in this sector as they realized that their job offered little or no security.

Another major sector where people left was the professional services and business services and many factors triggered the Great Resignation in that sector. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that 706,000 employees resigned just in August 2021. Some professionals and business people may have needed a balance in their work-life, some, better employment and for others, probably lacked fulfillment. 

According to research led by Ian Cook, VP of people analytics at Visier, the Great Resignation was more among the younger generation, age range between 30 – 45 years. Resignation, according to Cook, increased by 20% among mid-career employees between 2020 and 2021. Cook and his team suggest that this was a result of the notable shift to remote work during the Covid-19 period.

Perhaps the younger generation needed to embrace the new work trend they discovered as a result of the pandemic, which was characterized by digital employment. The older employees could continue with the traditional way; the 9-5 office work. 

Many people praise remote work for offering convenience, and the ability to work at one’s pace and time. In addition, the stress of trying to catch up with traffic at peak commute hours can be circumvented.

According to Cook’s analysis, another reason could be that these employees from the beginning of the pandemic, could have been uncertain about the future. As such, the pandemic only confirmed their fears and forced them to resign.

Possibly, this was also a mere coincidence, people just reevaluating their work and life goals. It may be nothing close to these assumptions, rather a mere co-occurrence. 

Cook’s analysis also found that Resignations are highest in tech and healthcare. In those industries, an increase in demand may have put the employees under a lot of stress, as a result, those who couldn’t cope left. 

Galinsky thinks this increase in demand, especially in the tech industry, was fueled by the shift to remote work. As people began to realize they could do so much from the comfort of their homes using their gadgets, the demand for tech products increased.

Conclusion 

The Great Resignation is a factual phenomenon as statistics have shown. It may be an indication, however, that the employers of labor have some more work to do to keep their employees in times of societal upheavals. Basically, jobs should provide a degree of security for employees, and employers should work on strengthening work conditions to make them favorable.

They could make opportunities available for workers for the advancement of their careers, give better rewards, support work on fixed terms, and stress reduction. Employers will most likely work under conditions that offer more advantages than disadvantages.