Bridgescale Blog

Integrated Solution for Payroll, HR, Self-Service, Benefits and Workforce Management

MINNEAPOLIS & TORONTO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Ceridian and Dayforce today announced a major expansion of the InView solution that will bring payroll, HR, self-service, benefits and workforce management onto a single platform, backed by Dayforce’s award-winning technology.

Overwhelmingly Successful Track Record
The integrated InView solution will build upon the overwhelming success of the workforce management solution that the companies brought to market this year. That product was roundly applauded by analysts and clients alike.

“InView Workforce Management has been a tremendous success by any measure,” said Stuart C. Harvey Jr., Ceridian CEO and president. “We set a target of 300 accounts for the first year, and we exceeded that target in the first six months and over 75 of these accounts are now live. We will now take this momentum into the broader human capital management marketplace to achieve even greater growth and success.”

Industry experts agree. According to Nucleus Research, the InView solution “is winning deals by offering a wide range of workforce management capabilities at a better value than its rivals and providing capabilities that other vendors don’t have.”

Clients have been equally enthusiastic. Pat Frees, Plant Human Resources Manager, Hoffmaster Group, Inc., described the benefits of InView by saying “it’s like comparing the Jetsons to the Flintstones.” Dave Vierthaler, Vice President, Human Resources, Hoffmaster Group, Inc., added that InView was “not only easy to install and use, but also provided us with the ability to better manage our workforce and gave us significant ROI.”

Expanding on a Winning Approach
“We spoke to our customers,” said David Ossip, CEO of Dayforce, “and they told us that they loved the new InView approach. They wanted to see the same user experience, speed and return on investment across all of their human capital management needs. So we listened.”

InView HR and Self-Service will begin to be released in the fourth quarter of 2011, with the new InView Payroll functionality to follow in the first quarter of 2012.

Strong, Seamless Partnership
Ceridian and Dayforce have been strong, natural partners from the outset.

The expanded InView solution will be supported by a unified team combining the strengths of both companies. David Ossip will lead a new organization, which will be responsible for development, implementation, support and hosting. “David and the Dayforce team have continued to exceed expectations,” said Stuart C. Harvey Jr., Ceridian CEO and president. “Based on the success of our partnership and the complementary strengths of our organizations, an expanded partnership and increased investment was a natural next step.”

“Ceridian has been a perfect partner from the outset,” said David Ossip. “We are thrilled to begin this new phase of our extraordinarily successful alliance.”

Recognition Affirms Carrier IQ’s Mobile Intelligence Software as Critical Platform for Mobile Operators and Device Manufacturers

Mountain View, CA, October 27, 2011 – Carrier IQ has been selected as an Innovative Business Analytics Company to Watch Under $100M by leading IT market research and advisory firm IDC.

In its report, “Innovative Business Analytics Companies Under $100M to Watch, 2011” (Doc #230923, October, 2011), the firm cited three key drivers making an impact in the Business Analytics marketplace, including mobile analytics, cloud-based analytics and collaborative decision management. The Innovative Business Analytics Companies to Watch Under $100M list included companies that are successfully meeting the needs of customers in each prediction category. Carrier IQ was recognized in the Mobile Analytics category.

“New technologies are eliminating boundaries between content and data to enable pervasive access to all relevant information. Contributing to this innovation is a group of small companies with the vision and technology to have an impact on the marketplace,” said Henry Morris, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Software and Services Research at IDC.

Carrier IQ’s Mobile Intelligence platform is currently deployed with more than 150 million devices worldwide. It enables mobile service providers and device manufacturers to solve business and technology issues throughout the development and deployment lifecycles of networks and devices by delivering mission-critical intelligence on how services perform and how devices actually work in the hands of end users.

“Carrier IQ’s Mobile Intelligence platform puts the customer at the center of decision-making by providing a detailed understanding of the customer’s experience,” said Larry Lenhart, CEO, Carrier IQ. “Recognition by objective third parties like IDC provides additional confirmation of the value of our analytics capabilities in delivering tangible results for the most critical business objectives in the mobile industry.”

IMVU Attributes 1158% Revenue Growth to Strong Demand for Virtual Goods

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — October 20, 2011 — IMVU, an online social game where members use 3D avatars to meet new people, chat, create and play games with their friends, today announced that it ranked 87th on Deloitte’s 2011 Technology Fast 500™ ranking of 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America. IMVU grew revenue 1158% during the 2006 to 2010 period.

“IMVU helps its members to meet new people around the world and to have fun in a virtual environment,” said Cary Rosenzweig, CEO of IMVU. “Although IMVU is free to play, some members choose to enhance their experience by purchasing virtual goods, and this is what drives our revenue. Our revenue growth is a reflection of delivering a great consumer experience.”

About Deloitte’s 2011 Technology Fast 500TM

Technology Fast 500, which was conducted by Deloitte & Touche LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP, provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies – both public and private – in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2006 to 2010.

In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company’s operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000 USD or CD, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million USD or CD. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of five years, and be headquartered within North America.

Companies enter into strategic partnership to provide Ironkeys’s online cloud-based security services for Imation.

US-based technology firm Imation has acquired the assets of Internet security and privacy company IronKey’s secure data storage hardware business.

Imation and IronKey have also entered a strategic partnership where Imation receives a license from IronKey for its secure storage management software and service, and a license to use the IronKey brand for secure storage products.

IronKey will partner with Imation to provide Ironkey’s online cloud-based security services, said Imation.

The US-based technology firm said it has formed a Global Mobile Security unit headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., integrating with Imation’s international locations serving customers in more than 100 countries.

Imation’s strategic focus on data security offerings addresses the growing market need for businesses, governments and end users to protect their increasing amounts of data against loss, theft or security breaches, said the company.

Imation president and chief executive officer Mark Lucas said the acquisition is another important step in Imation’s strategy to grow in the secure and scalable storage markets, augmenting Imitation’s global leadership position in high-security data storage and device management.

“As Imation continues its strategic transformation, we are making key technology investments in growth markets that will enable us to extend our position in data storage, security, archiving, and protection. With our global reach and strong channel relationships, data storage experience spanning nearly 60 years, and focus on addressing the unique storage needs of small and medium business, enterprise, and government customers, we have a solid leadership foundation. Now, we are executing on targeted technology acquisitions and strategic partnerships to accelerate our transformation,” said Lucas.

Imation Global Mobile Security general manager Lawrence Reusing said with the key acquisitions in secure storage, Imation not only adds important technology, intellectual property, and skill sets, it also welcomes thousands of new enterprise and government customers to Ironkey’s already significant customer across the world.

“The addition of the IronKey secure USB storage product offerings, which support cloud-based management, enables us to continue to expand in the fast-growing high-security USB device market. Imation has a significant technology leadership position that will deliver the industry’s most complete solution set for organizations that need to secure their mobile data and mobile workspaces,” said Reusing.

New Partnership in IPAM and IPv6 Transitioning Offers Exceptional Value to Clients

Toronto, Canada – October 5, 2011 – BlueCat Networks, the IPAM Intelligence™ company, today announced that it has entered into a patent cross-licensing agreement with IBM (NYSE: IBM) that will allow the two companies to partner and leverage each other’s inventions in order to foster innovation in IP Address Management (IPAM) and IPv6 transitioning.

IBM and BlueCat Networks’ collaboration is focused on the Virtual Data Center. With the depletion of IPv4 addresses, organizations need to start planning now for the transition to IPv6 to avoid losing connectivity with customers, partners and suppliers in global markets. BlueCat Networks and IBM are working together to help clients prepare for IPv6 by using IP Address Management (IPAM) to ensure a smooth and successful transition.

“Given IBM’s role as a technology leader, a strategic partnership made a lot of sense to us as we have a number of Fortune clients looking into the shift to IPv6″ said Michael Hyatt, co-founder and CEO of BlueCat Networks. “This agreement with IBM is a terrific example of how companies can work together in the spirit of cooperation and innovation. We look forward to working with IBM in the future.”

“IBM has been the leading recipient of U.S. patents for 18 consecutive years and is committed to licensing intellectual property to encourage innovation and collaboration,” said Ken King, general manager, Intellectual Property and vice president of Research Business Development, IBM. “This patent cross license with BlueCat Networks will provide a foundation for organizations to prepare for IPv6 with IP Address Management (IPAM). ”

BlueCat Networks’ IP Address Management solutions provide an essential technology for helping organizations transition to IPv6, reduce IT management costs, launch new IP-dependent services including virtual data centers and clouds, and manage network growth and change.

SMBs Rapidly Embrace Native Force.com Application to Improve Sales Performance Without any Additional Hardware Investments

DREAMFORCE ’11 – San Francisco – August 30, 2011 – Xactly Corporation, a leader in on-demand sales performance management (SPM), today announced it has signed its 130^th Xactly Express customer. Xactly Express is the industry’s first self-service sales compensation application designed to meet the unique needs of SMBs. Built natively on Force.com, salesforce.com’s social enterprise platform for employee apps, Xactly Express provides SMB customers powerful, easy-to-use technology for managing sales commission tracking and payments, without the need for costly hardware or professional services investments.

Exemplifying the strong market demand for an affordable sales compensation management solution on a reliable, cloud-based infrastructure, 130 customers have adopted the solution since it was launched in early 2010. Recent Xactly Express customers include The Brooks Group, Carillion, ClearStructure Financial Technology, Centennial Jet Partners, Datatel, Digital Assent, Intermap, IVision International, Northern Freight, SciQuest, Inc., SkySlope, Titan Protocol, Inc., The Network, Inc. and Vorsight.

Xactly will be showcasing Xactly Express, as well as its leading enterprise sales compensation management offering, Xactly Incent, at the Dreamforce Cloud Expo, booth #520. To learn more, read the dozens of positive real-user reviews available on the salesforce.com AppExchange or visit here for a listing of Xactly’s Dreamforce sessions.

“Prior to Xactly Express, no compensation solution existed to serve the unique and specific needs of the SMB market. The sheer speed at which we are seeing customers adopt the solution is a testament the market demand for this type of solution, as well as the strength of the Xactly Express offering,” said Christopher Cabrera, president and CEO, Xactly Corporation. “Built on Force.com, Xactly Express can be up and in production in a matter of hours – without the need for costly hardware and implementation investments or IT involvement. This is critical for small to mid-size companies who need fast results and a quick time to value. With Xactly Express, users can manage the entire sales compensation process, from plan implementation through to payment in a few easy steps – saving them time and money, while improving sales visibility and performance.”

“Companies look to cloud computing to deliver business apps that are inherently social, mobile and open,” said Kraig Swensrud, chief marketing officer, salesforce.com. “Quickly reaching 130 Xactly Express customers on Force.com is a testament to the market need for a feature-rich sales compensation management solution on a powerful, cost-effective cloud foundation. This milestone, coupled with the many positive AppExchange ratings for Xactly Express, validates the solution’s ability to deliver on its ease-of-use and time-to-value promise.”

Customers Reap the Benefits of Powerful, Affordable Sales Compensation in the Cloud

Available as a stand-alone solution or connected to the Salesforce Sales Cloud, Xactly Express enables users with little to no compensation administration experience to rapidly configure sales compensation plans, calculate commissions, and export payments to payroll, all from a single, easy-to-use application.

When connected to the Sales Cloud, customers gain the ability to combine the invaluable pre-sales data within Salesforce with the powerful post-sales data in Xactly Express. This provides an end-to-end view of customer profitability and success, from initial lead clear through to compensation payout. In addition, Xactly Express customers can seamlessly integrate Salesforce Chatter, allowing users to communicate and collaborate on compensation related questions and approvals in real-time on the private and secure social network.

Xactly recently launched Xactly Express 2.3, providing sales administers with additional insight into their current compensation plans, support for 155 global currencies, and easier management of credit splits on future or ad-hoc sales deals. For more information on Xactly Express 2.3, please visit the press release.

Xactly Express and Xactly Incent are available on the salesforce.com’s AppExchange 2 or directly from Xactly at www.xactlycorp.com or 1-866-GO-XACTLY.

8.30.11 by Bernie Arnason: Much of the discussion regarding cloud services revolves around its role with business class customers. Indeed, the cloud presents some interesting, and potentially lucrative opportunities to serve business customers. But increasingly, small independent service providers are turning to the cloud for consumer services as well.

Case in point, Granite State Communications, a New Hampshire based independent telco, is migrating to Google Apps for its consumer ISP services, including Gmail for email. Granite is working through NeoNova, a strategic partner for Google, who says twenty of their independent telcos customers have transitioned to Google’s cloud offering, with another 12 in the pipeline.

It’s not surprising that independents are beginning to leverage the cloud for consumer services, given that the consumer segment is typically their largest market segment and by a wide margin in many cases. Luckily, despite all the hype regarding business class services and the cloud, consumer services are no stranger to the benefits of the cloud.

“Consumer products are leading the charge with the cloud,” comments NeoNova Vice President of Operations and Customer Support Jason McGinnis. “Google Apps was initially a consumer app. Much of the demand is driven by consumers.”

McGinnis points to the growing demand by customers to access their services anywhere, anytime. “By having consumer solutions in a cloud environment, service providers can better meet this consumer demand,” said McGinnis.

Indeed, the trend of the cloud points to both consumer and business applications. The rapid adoption of connected devices including tablets, smartphones, and connected TVs is driving more consumer applications into the cloud. And it will only intensify, as more consumer focused entertainment, gaming, and productivity apps are proliferate. Small independent service providers will need to identify strategic partners to participate in the delivery of those consumer applications, or risk being bypassed and simply becoming a pipe provider.

Since independents don’t have the scale to develop these cloud apps themselves, finding ways to add value through managing the process and better serving customers in the provisioning and operation of these apps should be the goal. As McGinnis pointed out to me, “Google does a great job in developing these apps, but they don’t do a good job in servicing the end customer.” What’s left to ponder is this business model. Is there enough revenue and margin in this servicing role to build a long term business?

EMERYVILLE, Calif.—Inc. Magazine ranked Nest Collective, home to leading organic baby and kids food brands, Plum Organics™ and Revolution Foods™, No. 77 on its annual Inc. 500|5000, an exclusive ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. In its first qualifying year, Nest Collective earned a spot in the top 100, after experiencing a three-year growth in sales of 3,054 percent.

Nest Collective is an organic baby and kid food company with more than 64 products launches in the past three years with an 88-percent success rate. Their portfolio of products includes a complete line of organic nutrition for babies, toddlers and kids with a focus on inspiring healthy eating habits for life.

“It’s an honor to be recognized on the Inc. 500, as it is a tremendous accomplishment for our young company,” said Nest Collective CEO and co-founder, Neil Grimmer.  “More importantly, it validates this powerful idea that providing healthy food for our children can be big business. As we’ve grown, it has been rewarding to see our social mission of ‘organic right from the start’ impact the health of the next generation with products that fit today’s active lifestyle.”

Through its brand, Plum Organics, Nest Collective was the first U.S. baby food manufacturer of the spouted pouch, which has become the popular and preferred format to the conventional jarred baby food. In less than three years, Nest Collective has become the largest manufacturer of BPA-free spouted pouch products in North America.

“We attribute much of our company’s success to category-changing innovation,” added Grimmer. “The launch of the pouch specifically has revolutionized a dormant baby food category while fueling the growth of our company. Consumers have adopted our products because of their convenience and superior taste, and retailers have been seeing higher profits and greater savings.”

A year filled with entrepreneurial recognition, Nest Collective received this honor on the heels of earning a publicly voted Top 5 spot in Bloomberg Businessweek’s roundup of “America’s Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs” and becoming a finalist in Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year.”

Positioned for continued growth, Nest Collective will be expanding its product offering and availability beyond its current distribution in 6,300 stores nationwide.  With more than 30 employees, Nest Collective maintains offices in both the Bay Area and New York.

Tomio Geron/Forbes 8.24.11: Start-up Rypple brings social networking tools to human resources departments, upending practices like the often-dreaded annual performance reviews.

Instead of traditional performance review tools, Rypple is a social website where people can go to quickly give feedback to anyone in their company. People can also go to the website to see what people are doing in the company and comment on other people’s actions. Co-workers or managers can also give other employees badges for doing a good job on a certain project.

Now Rypple is launching a new feature for companies called Rypple Flow, which is basically a constant real-time stream of activity in a company that is piped in over an HD television. At a number of technology companies such as Facebook and LinkedIn, companies show a world map on a television in the company’s lobby with dots popping up to show new members or new social connections. Rypple Flow is a similar idea, except it is designed to show activity inside a company. The idea is that employees can walk by the screen and keep in touch with what’s happening all over the company. The service is free for paid users of Rypple.

Toronto-based Kobo, the e-reader and digital book company, is one of the first users of Rypple Flow. The company was looking a way for employees to recognize each other and build the company culture around shared goals, says Jennifer Ricci, vice president of employee experience at Kobo. Another benefit of Rypple is reduction of mass emails with many “reply-all” messages, Ricci says. Instead, those messages typically end up on Rypple.

“Instead of waiting for a company town hall meeting or monthly newsletter, with Rypple people can immediately recognize people in other departments and recognize collaboration on goals,” Ricci says. “Everyone can rally around goals with real-time recognition.”

Rypple, which is backed by investors including Bridgescale Partners, Edgestone Capital Ventures, Extreme Venture Partners and PayPal founder Peter Thiel, is used by companies including Facebook (recently in Wired), Gilt Groupe, Rackspace, and Accenture.

The service is designed for people to give coaching from managers, progress reports towards goals, recognition of jobs well done or other real-time feedback says Daniel Debow, co-CEO of Rypple. In software development, companies have moved to “agile development,” or constant small software updates instead of infrequent major updates. The same applies for Rypple, where people can get immediate feedback and adjust their work accordingly, Debow says.

Rypple is a bit of a cross between the social interaction of Facebook and the badges and achievements of Foursquare. It’s in the realm of other companies such as Jive Software and Yammer that are bringing social networking into enterprises. Most employees and managers hate traditional performance management software, says Debow, but Rypple is designed to be lightweight and simple to use, in the way that consumer services such as Facebook are. If end of year evaluations are used, managers can look back at the record of employees on Rypple for a quick review.

The feedback and evaluation of employees can be made public in the whole company or just sent as private messages. Most people make them public if they are positive messages, says Debow. Rypple is not designed to change people’s existing behaviors, Debow says. “It’s about taking that latent behavior and amplifying it,” Debow says. Instead of sending a “thank you” email to a colleague, people can send that on Rypple. That recognition can then be surfaced instead of hidden, Debow says. Now on the TV screens, it can be surfaced even more.