Hi there,

Let’s be honest, there is no magic wand when it comes to IT transformation.

Unlike Cinderella, with her fairy godmother who could wave a wand and transform her into the belle of the ball, IT transformation is more about hard slog.

This week, Fonterra laid bare the challenges of making even small steps towards its IT transformation with India’s HCL Technologies. With HCL's core focus to ‘Fix our IT Foundation’, the sentiment is plain.

As CTO Toby Granwal told us, it’s early days. Like all ‘transformation’ projects, Fonterra is in this for the long haul. But then, isn’t that the way IT – and indeed business – has always been? There’s no magic cure, no end point, just continuous iterations of change. The new normal? No. I’d say business as usual.

In other news this week:

Countdown takes AI to the aisles
Public-sector data sharing – what could possibly go wrong?
Snowflake’s record-breaking IPO
ERP provider ups its A/NZ ante
The bizarre politics of the TikTok/Oracle/Walmart deal

Enjoy the read,

Heather Wright
Editor
editor@istart.co.nz

TRANSFORMATION

HCL curds forming in Fonterra whey

ERP mess just one challenge in tech reset…

The cheese and crackers are still some way off in HCL’s challenging transformation of Fonterra’s IT services.

“There’s a long pipeline of productivity improvements and things we can do.”

[Read more]

RETAIL

AI for apples: Countdown debuts ‘Scan&Go’ shopping

High(er)-tech hits the supermarket shelves…

Contactless, self-service shopping has taken another step forward with Countdown trialling a new ‘Scan & Go’ app-based self-scanning service, but it won’t be entirely checkout free.

“We definitely have a very high appetite to take it into some other stores.”

[Read more]

DATA SHARING

Making public-sector data available and transparent

Sharing is good, says the Govt…

Robust public-sector data sharing capabilities are a necessity in 2020.

“It’s true this bill would ostensibly provide transparency, but it won’t provide genuine accountability.”

[Read more]

STOCKS

Snowflake’s staggering IPO

Unicorn mobilises the world’s data (and capital investment)…

Cloud-based data storage and analytics service company Snowflake has made history with the biggest software IPO ever.

“Our public profile will evolve rapidly and dramatically as a function of our public market debut.”

[Read more]

ROAD TO RECOVERY

CHANNEL

Syspro’s BrainStorm deal for growth

New channel partner lines up for ERP provider…

Manufacturing and distribution focused ERP provider Syspro has ramped up its local coverage, signing BrainStorm IT to its lineup of channel partners as it looks for ‘ambitious’ growth.

It’s important that Syspro is investing heavily in tech including ML and AI to enable anomaly detection.

[Read more]

TIKTOK TACK

TikTok: Four companies and a president

The messy, political, world of the TikTok deal – will it scare users away?…

It’s the young, hip social media platform, and now TikTok apparently has new owners – the, well, less young and hip, Oracle and Walmart.

“There is still work to do on final agreements.”

[Read more]

PROUDLY SPONSORED BY

Latest articles by this vendor:

- Right part, first time for Commercial Transport Spares
- Vodafone retailer replaces five systems with one
- Keeping up with the Joneses on the smell of an oily rag

[Read more about this vendor]

Upcoming events:

> NZ Cyber Security Summit | Oct 14 | Wellington
> A/NZ Project Management Conference | Oct 19 | Virtual event
> Government Digital Transformation Summit | Oct 28-30 | Wellington
> 2020 IT Architecture Forum | Nov 24 | Auckland
> ACIS Conference | Dec 1-4 | Virtual event

More events

iStart is proudly supported by these leading New Zealand software providers:

Latest Buyer's Guides

ERP Buyer's Guide | CRM Buyer's Guide | HR/HCM Buyer's Guide | BI Buyer's Guide

Privacy statement: We have sent this weekly newsletter to you at your e-mail address: [email address suppressed]. iStart will never share your e-mail address, but you may from time to time receive other event invitations or partner communications from us. You can opt out of these by managing your subscription preferences, where you can also update your e-mail address and other details.

Find out more about iStart | Advertise with iStart | Subscribe

Please support independent journalism!

Here at iStart we are passionate about independent fact-based journalism.

If you feel the same way, and like what we do, then we welcome your support through crowdfunding platform PressPatron.