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Sage Reveals 6 Tech Trends SMES Should Watch Out for in ‘17

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Sage Chief Technology Officer Klaus-Michael Vogelberg
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Sage, the market leader in Cloud accounting software, has predicted that chatbots, collective intelligence and blockchain are some of the big technology trends that will change the way entrepreneurs run their businesses in 2017.

In this report, Klaus-Michael Vogelberg, Sage chief technology officer, talks about the role chatbots, collective intelligence and blockchain will play at start-up and scale up enterprises in 2017, saying, “As every business – big or small – is transforming more or less intensively into a tech-enabled business, today’s entrepreneurs should be on the lookout for the opportunities these technological developments can bring to their business.”

 Vogelberg sees six major trends in 2017 that could make a big difference to the way business builders will work in 2017 and beyond.

Trend #1: Chatbots and Autonomous Interfaces
Autonomous interfaces such as chatbots or digital agents will become increasingly common on different devices and user interfaces which entrepreneurs use to manage and control their businesses.

These interfaces will dramatically change the way that humans and computers work and interact with each other. While, in the past, people used a keyboard or mouse to interact with their PCs, they will gradually start talking with their systems or using gesture control such as hand, head or eye gestures to interact with them.

The user experience will not only become more convenient but also more enjoyable – these systems will work autonomously and have self-learning capabilities.

Eventually, software could act without user intervention, or ask a certain question only once and use this information for all further activities.

In June 2016, Sage launched the first accounting chatbot, PeggTM. Pegg acts as a smart assistant that allows users to track expenses and manage finances through messaging apps such as Facebook messenger and Slack.

Pegg hides the complexities of accounting and lets entrepreneurs manage finances through conversation, making the process as simple as writing a text.

By digitising information at the point of capture, it takes away the hassle of filing receipts and expenses, eliminating the need for paper and data entry.

Trend #2: Artificial & Collective Intelligence
According to Vogelberg, artificial and collective intelligence is another major trend to look out for, even for smaller companies.

With mushrooming data volumes being generated by all sorts of sensors and devices on the one hand (see trend #6), and computer power and special analysis software and intelligent agents becoming increasingly affordable and powerful on the other, companies need to find ways to extract knowledge from today’s wealth of Big Data.

Sage’s Klaus-Michael Vogelberg therefore advises SMEs to “team up”. “If small and medium-sized enterprises join forces and – while considering their corporate data protection policies and personal rights laws – share, for example, computer power and data with other companies in a structured and systematic manner, they could profit from this collaboration by receiving a better and larger data pool and superior data intelligence. Similar to crowdsourcing mechanisms, this enriched data pool would enable companies to better understand how customers behave, what they need, what to offer them and the business areas to invest in.”

Trend #3: Blockchain – Or How To Create Trust In The Digital Age
According to Sage, business builders should also carefully analyse if, and how, the new blockchain technology could impact their current business models.

Particularly all those industries which work as intermediaries between two parties – such as lawyers, notaries, or real-estate or financial brokers – could be affected by this new, innovative approach.

Bookkeepers and accountants might also be affected in the way they do business in the future, as blockchain has the potential to eliminate a significant part of the workload – such as checking and booking transactions, transferring money or paying invoices – handled by these professions today.

Why could this happen? Blockchain organises transactions of digital assets between two parties in a radically new way. Instead of using middlemen or intermediaries such as banks, notaries, state authorities or trading platforms to legitimise the exchange of certain assets – such as digital properties, digital trading goods, digital contracts, or even financial transactions via digital currencies such as Bitcoins – blockchains allow individuals to transfer these assets in a direct, safe, secure, and immutable way between each other.

A decentralised, distributed ledger, essentially an asset database shared across multiple participants, combined with crypto-economic algorithms serve as the technological basis of a blockchain.

All participants of a blockchain (so called nodes) have access to the distributed ledger, which contains an inventory of all the relevant digital assets. All parties within this network have their own identical copy of the ledger.

Any changes to it are applied to every copy in a matter of minutes or even seconds. Thus, the system is transparent and creates trust among all nodes without the need for legitimisation by any other third party authority.

Trend #4: Revolutionizing The Movement Of Money
The way people use money and transfer their payments from one account to another has already changed dramatically: at the frontend, in-app payment solutions nowadays enable users to effortlessly make one-click payments and purchase goods via mobile devices or websites. This functionality is already available in many apps today.

But at the backend, systems such as accounting software are less user-friendly and less integrated.

For example, companies currently have almost no possibility to make one-click invoice payments or easily manage their financial transactions between partners, suppliers and their bank with a fingertip.

In 2017, more and more new solutions will allow companies to establish an end-to-end payments value chain with their suppliers and customers.

These new solutions enable ubiquitous anytime anywhere, immediate and omni-channel payments and will be fully integrated into the financial accounting systems of tomorrow’s enterprises. All parties, such as e-commerce platforms, banks, fin-techs or partners, will profit from open API standards which will be used for creating new services and enable seamless, fully-automated processing of payments and financial transactions.

At Sage Summit in July 2016 Sage announced its partnership with US Bank, a technical example for this paradigm change in payments.

The AP Optimizer for Sage Live that Sage built in partnership with U.S. Bank marks a first truly digital accounting and payment solution that enables start up and scale up businesses to manage their cash flow through dynamic integration with customers.

AP Optimizer is integrated in Sage Live and determines for example the best time to pay bills and the best method for payment to optimise cash flow in near real-time, and then carries out the payment.

Trend #5: Platform-Based Infrastructure
In 2017, more and more SMEs will replace their stand-alone, on-site software systems with integrated, cloud-based software solutions that operate on global Cloud platforms such as Salesforce.com who are offering their users access to a wealth of business apps and integrated services.

Moreover, companies will also benefit from mobile-app platforms such as the one operated by the Apple Mobility Partner Program.

“The big benefit of these platforms is that they give even smaller companies access to innovative business software solutions and services which these companies would not have been able to afford five years ago.  To some extent, these types of cloud platforms are democratising the way in which companies gain access to state-of-the-art apps and smart and scalable technologies,” says Klaus-Michael Vogelberg. “They allow business builders to discover new ways of working and give them the infrastructure needed to receive every kind of data from partners or the Internet of Things, analyze it, and then – in a “citizen developer” style – create something new and productive,” the Sage CTO says.

Trend #6: Internet Of Things Will Create New Services And Job Profiles
Small and medium-sized enterprises should be on the lookout for new possibilities that emerge with the realisation of the Internet of Things.

Multiple data streams originating from all sorts of sensors built into e.g. machines, cars, mobile and immobile goods, clothes or even human beings (e.g. for medical monitoring purposes) will result in a true treasure trove of data, thus creating all sorts of new services.

SMEs should think about how to use these data streams to grow their business:

Mechanics will develop new services such as predictive maintenance for all sorts of technical infrastructures.

Logistic companies will optimise e.g. the navigation of their truck fleets by using traffic data from many different sources including smart city data from traffic lights, streets or other vehicles.

Concierge services will develop all sorts of surveillance services with the realisation of new smart home technology.

Retail companies and shop owners might connect to smart home devices such as refrigerators or Amazon-style dash buttons to supply customers automatically and predictively with goods and services.

Mobile medical care services will innovate their work with the assistance of all sorts of new devices e.g. to improve their support of elderly people living alone at home.

Early last year Sage demonstrated its partnership with TomTom telematics which enables Sage Live customers to keep track of vehicle journeys, and feed data into the accounting process in real time.

In summary, Sage Chief Technology Officer Klaus-Michael Vogelberg said: “In 2017, every business will need to start thinking of itself as a technology business. To stay competitive, they will need to grasp the opportunities that this development brings with it and change almost every aspect of today’s more or less traditional ways of working. The good news is that this technology means that we believe that very soon, business admin could become completely invisible, as easy as messaging a friend, or even completely automated, as machines learn like humans. This will empower entrepreneurs to stay focused on building their businesses, driving growth in the economy and contributing to their communities – not basic admin.”

 


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Nigeria CommunicationsWeek believes that technology makes life more exciting and helps improve the lives of people around Nigeria and indeed the world. So since 2007, we have devoted our energy to independent reportage of technology and how they affect lives.

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Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

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Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.

Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

 

China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.

The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.

“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.

The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.

It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.

Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.

Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.

Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.

A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.

“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.

Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.

Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.

It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.

Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.

 

 

 


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NIMC Warns Nigerians of Fake NIN Website

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National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued a public warning that it is not associated with NINcard.com.

NIMC Warns Nigerians of Fake NIN Website

According to the commission, the website has been circulating online to offer services for Nigerians seeking National Identification Number (NIN) services.

NIMC, in a post on its official X account on Wednesday, said, “NINcard.com is not in anyway affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!”

The warning was accompanied by screenshots of fake payment receipts and OTP request pages from the website, both of which were boldly stamped “FAKE” by NIMC to alert the public.


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NITDA, API Partner Against Harmful Online Content

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National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), in partnership with the Advocacy for Policy and Innovation (API), has convened a one-day workshop in Abuja to advance dialogue on the draft Online Harm Protection (OHP) Bill to confront harmful online content.

NITDA, API Partner Against Harmful Online Content

The bill, a rights-based, locally rooted, and multi-stakeholder initiative, is aimed at addressing the challenges of the digital age.

The event, which held yesterday, brought together government officials, civil society, academics, digital platforms, and legal experts to shape a policy framework designed to combat online ills such as cyberbullying, disinformation, hate speech, digital exploitation, and gender-based violence, while safeguarding democratic freedoms and digital inclusion.

In his keynote remarks, Kashifu Inuwa, director general, NITDA urged a paradigm shift in the way society engages with digital technologies.

“For almost two decades, we have viewed digital technology through a consumer lens. But these technologies are not just products and services. They are transforming how we live, work, and interact. They shape our politics, our society, and our democracy,” he said.

Warning against unaccountable digital power in the hands of private corporations, the DG likened the digital journey to the tale of Alice in Wonderland, where initial fascination with innovation has given way to deeper concerns about privacy, autonomy, and manipulation by big tech platforms.

“We thought we were using Google, but now we realise Google is using us. Social media, once a tool of expression, has become a tool of surveillance and influence,” Inuwa noted.

He, therefore, emphasised the urgency of developing a democratic and accountable framework.  He explained that following the 2021 Twitter ban, NITDA facilitated dialogue between the government and platform operators, leading to a Code of Practice that stressed Nigeria’s sovereignty and legal standards.

According to him, the same process birthed the multi-stakeholder steering committee and the OHP White Paper in December 2024, laying the foundation for the current legislative push.

Earlier in her opening remarks,  Victoria Manya, co-founder, API, observed the moral and civic necessity of the bill.

Her words: “The internet did not break society, it merely revealed its unfiltered version. Every day, Nigerians are exposed to harassment, disinformation, exploitation, and even algorithmic violence. The OHP Bill is not a war on the Internet. It is a peace offering to its users, a social contract for a digital future that is safe, inclusive, and democratic.

“We cannot answer the question of algorithmic power with unchecked state control. We must answer it with shared, rights-based governance. This bill must not be written for the people, but with them.”


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