Monday, April 23, 2018

​SURGE IN MANAGEMENT LIABILITY CLAIMS DRIVEN BY HARASSMENT HIGHLIGHTS LATEST CLEMENTS WORLDWIDE RISK INDEX FINDINGS

NGOs and international schools are the leading industries experiencing loss from this growing trend

Washington, DC, April 19 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The rise of professional and management liability due to global harassment and abuse claims is a leading cause of loss and risk among global organizations, according to the 2018 Clements Worldwide Risk Index, released today in Lagos, Nigeria in an event held in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria.

The survey, which is released annually, found that 17 percent of the organizations surveyed shared they were subject to a lawsuit or litigation within the last six months, with industries such as international schools (28 percent), government agencies (25 percent) and government contractors (29 percent) the most impacted by this loss.  Twenty-seven percent of NGOs and UN agencies reported that they had suffered a significant loss from professional and management liability.

The focus on professional and management liability risks, which also includes gender pay gap and duty of care, by NGOs and international schools are new to the top featured losses and concerns of the survey, and threaten the quality of education and services provided to students and beneficiaries of their care. This coupled with emerging threats such as natural disasters, which cost the world $306 billion according to Swiss Re, nearly double the cost of 2016, and legislation posing greater challenges to program and school operations, data protection and infrastructure, make life challenging for these industries.

“Having worked in this business for over 30 years, I thought that nothing surprises me anymore, but we did not anticipate seeing such a surge in management liability claims and for it to be such a huge loss for our primary two segments – NGOs and international schools,” said Dan Tuman, President, Clements Worldwide. “In today’s social climate, these trends make a clear case for organizations and industries everywhere to take steps to adapt their policies accordingly and prepare for the unexpected as no one is immune to risk.”

And while respondents have shifted their attention to other losses besides political violence, more than 35 percent of respondents still express worry over increased threats of political violence and disruptions from elections or political environment, up from 27 percent last year. More conflict seems likely given the existing civil wars in Syria and Yemen, Al Shabaab in East Africa and Al Qaeda in West Africa.

Furthermore, political violence and disruption may present challenges leading up to some of the important elections on the schedule this year, including the Pakistani general election, Mexican presidential election and South Sudan general election this summer; and the Thailand general election, The Democratic Republic of Congo election and United States midterm elections later this year.

Among other results reported, almost a third of respondents said that a disruption due to terrorism is likely to happen in the next six to 12 months, with 58 percent of government agencies reporting terrorism as a significant concern.

Additionally, legislation and regulatory risk remains a primary concern with nearly 37 percent believing there will be an increase in bureaucracy for business processes and specific industries like NGOs and UN organizations sharing that nearly one in four had experienced high losses from changes in regulation.

These facts reinforce that last year’s global legislation and political leadership worries surrounding the rise of nationalism, trade barriers and fluctuating currencies have been replaced this year with the United States increasing tariffs on steel and aluminum, greater deregulation and protectionism by President Trump, Brexit and renewed fallout from elections; and it may get worse before it gets better.

However, the culmination of these critical risks has not deterred an overwhelming majority of respondents surveyed from expanding their international operations, with only 13 percent saying they would delay, down from 37 percent last year, which reinforces that organizations are taking the shifting geopolitical risks seriously and adapting accordingly.

The survey reports responses from more than 500 senior risk management executives in the international education, IT, manufacturing, construction, government, banking, transportation, non-government organizations (NGO), tourism, education and oil and gas sectors. In addition to today’s Lagos, Nigeria event, the survey will be featured at a panel discussion next week in Amman, Jordan.

The full 2018 Clements Worldwide Risk Index, which was conducted online from January to February 2018, is now available at clements.com/riskindex.

Clements Worldwide is a leading insurance provider for expatriates and international organizations. Founded in 1947, Clements offers international car, property, term life, disability, health, specialty, and high-risk insurance in over 170 countries. With offices in Washington, D.C., London, and Dubai, Clements delivers comprehensive and customized coverage, superior customer service, and unparalleled claims response. For more information on the Clements Worldwide Risk Index and the methodology associated with the survey visit www.clements.com/riskindex. To learn more or receive a quote online, visit www.clements.com

Attachment

Patricia Loria
Clements Worldwide
2028720060
ploria@clements.com

Source : Clements Worldwide

--BERNAMA

SD-WAN FOR OFFICE 365: ARYAKA HELPS ELEARNING COMPANY, CITY & GUILDS GROUP, IMPROVE OFFICE 365 APPLICATION RESPONSE TIME

Aryaka’s Global SD-WAN reduces time for global users to open SharePoint files from 10 to 0.05 seconds; Outlook performance improves 9x worldwide

LONDON, April 19 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aryaka®, the leading global SD-WAN provider, announced today its SD-WAN technology has enabled City & Guilds Group, a worldwide leader in workplace skills, eLearning, and executive coaching, to achieve faster Office 365 application response times leading to an increase in productivity and better collaboration between users in Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Headquartered in London, the City & Guilds Group works with education providers, governments and major corporations to help shape and support skills development for employers in over 100 countries.

Team members of the company are similarly scattered around the world and primarily collaborate using Microsoft Office 365 applications, but many remote users were struggling to access the group’s instance of Office 365 hosted in Dublin.  For example, it could take over 37 seconds to open one file from the corporate SharePoint drive. Besides leading to a high number of user complaints, the performance issues limited adoption of Office 365 for global employees.

“Our users in Wellington, New Zealand, saw delays between 10-15 seconds opening a standard Microsoft Word document, which obviously was impacting productivity. We knew this would be a barrier to further collaboration and helping us reach our revenue goals,” said Alan Crawford, CIO for City & Guilds Group. “It’s important to ensure the benefits we provide through group-wide application deployments are equally well received throughout every geographical region we serve.”

“City & Guilds Group tried connecting to local Microsoft clouds, but that did not solve the latency and application performance problems for users in the Asia-Pacific region,” Crawford added.

In their search for an answer, City & Guilds Group ultimately selected Aryaka’s global SD-WAN.   Because Aryaka delivers SD-WAN as a service, City & Guilds Group was able to deploy the solution in an hour.  Users saw dramatic improvements in application performance and could suddenly collaborate on Office 365 in real-time.

Some examples of the application performance improvements they experienced are listed below:

 Table

“Our colleagues around the world were able to load their files to SharePoint three times faster, we experienced a 200x reduction in the time to open 10MB SharePoint files, and saw three times improvement in the time taken to upload 10MB files to OneDrive,” continued Crawford. “With Aryaka, our global team members can now collaborate seamlessly and develop learning materials faster for our customers, providing the most current and high-quality resources for employee development. We look at Aryaka as the only SD-WAN for Office 365.”

“As businesses continue to expand globally and participate in merger and acquisition activities, while migrating applications to the cloud, addressing the enterprise WAN is a critical factor for business execution,” said Ashwath Nagaraj, Founder and CTO of Aryaka. “With Aryaka’s global SD-WAN, enterprises can act quickly to capitalize on changing business needs in near real-time, instead of suffering from slow application performance and project implementation delays. We’re delighted to see the results City & Guilds Group has been able to achieve with our global SD-WAN as a Service.”

According the recent State of SD-WAN Connectivity Report, the average time for a 100 KB file to traverse Internet links from Asia to the Americas can be as high as 4000 milliseconds. Companies using a global SD-WAN based on a cloud-native private network like Aryaka’s, achieve on average 4.1 times faster application performance and 2.5 times less variation in response times.

Deployed by more than 800 global enterprises, Aryaka is the leading global SD-WAN provider and has the fastest growing SD-WAN solution in the market today, delivering enhanced performance for cloud and on-premises applications worldwide. Aryaka’s global SD-WAN has quickly become the only viable MPLS replacement for global enterprises requiring alternatives to legacy WAN infrastructures for mission-critical application delivery.

For more information about Aryaka, visit www.aryaka.com.

About the City & Guilds Group
The City & Guilds Group is a leader in global skills development. The group works with education providers, employers and governments in over 100 countries across the world to help people, businesses and economies grow by shaping skills systems and supporting skills development. The Group is made up of City & GuildsILMKineoThe Oxford GroupDigitalmee3Learning and Gen2.

To learn more, visit www.cityandguildsgroup.com.

About Aryaka
Aryaka is transforming how global enterprises connect sites and users worldwide, and use mission-critical applications to support modern business execution demands. Aryaka’s Global SD-WAN combines a purpose-built private network, SD-WAN, optimization and acceleration techniques, connectivity to cloud platforms and network visibility in a single solution that is delivered as a service.

To learn more, visit www.aryaka.comFollow us on TwitterFacebookYouTube and LinkedIn.

Aryaka Media Contacts:
Shehzad Karkhanawala
Director of Marketing
Aryaka
+ 1 408-273-8420
pr@aryaka.com

Cheryl Billson
Aryaka European PR
+44 7791 720460
cheryl.billson@commacomms.com

Source : Aryaka

--BERNAMA

Friday, April 20, 2018

GOLDCRYPTO GUARANTEES ITS CRYPTOCURRENCY AGAINST THEFT - A WORLD FIRST

PANAMA CITY, Panama, April 18 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NetworkWire -- GoldCrypto.io (through its Service Operator Crypto Investor, Inc.) is pleased to advise:

In a world first, GoldCrypto is protecting and guaranteeing its cryptocurrency tokens from any theft through hacking. In the unlikely event of any hacking theft, stolen tokens will be replaced. This positions GoldCrypto AuX tokens as a better than bank-standard cryptocurrency.

GoldCrypto offers a gold-backed token with over a 50% premium in physical gold that keeps increasing over time. As well as having this token protected from hacking theft, it presents a rock-solid entry into the gold and cryptocurrency markets that is unmatched anywhere.

Through this innovation, GoldCrypto participants will benefit from bank-standard token (account) protection as well as 50%-plus leverage in gold-backing at initial commencement. 

The GoldCrypto cryptocurrency security initiative is being implemented through the CryptoSecure Cryptocurrency Platform, which makes hacking and theft of tokens futile. Stolen tokens are rendered worthless in the hands of any cybercriminal and replaced into the victim’s account. For more information on the security platform, visit: www.cryptosecure.com.

GoldCrypto pre-purchases the gold bullion backing its AuX tokens through the Key Capital Corporation (OTC: KCPC) Mining Division. GoldCrypto has already pre-purchased over 13,000 ounces of gold. The Key Capital Mining Division team of specialists will monitor gold production from various mining interests through production, minting at Scottsdale Mint, and the final delivery to GoldCrypto-appointed vault storage. For more information on Key Capital Corporation, visit: https://keycapitalgroup.com

GoldCrypto AuX tokens feature the following as the ultimate stand-out cryptocurrency:
  • Safe and secure. If hacked (unlikely), stolen GoldCrypto AuX tokens are replaced
  • Backed by physical gold – starting at over US$0.30 in value per token
  • A better than gold-standard cryptocurrency
  • Gold backing continually increasing
  • Transparent blockchain
  • Decentralized and nationless
  • AuX tokens exchangeable for physical gold
  • Better than Bitcoin – AuX, the future of money

In a cryptocurrency market where hacking and token theft is rampant, AuX tokens represent a major industry breakthrough providing utility, value, and security.
 
GoldCrypto ICO

The Pre-ICO’s offering of a 15% bonus is open until April 30, 2018. AuX tokens can be secured through exchange for BTC, ETH, LTC, BTC Cash, ETH Classic, Dash, or PayPal.  For details, visit: https://goldcrypto.io
 
Contact Information
 
GoldCrypto Inquiry: 
General Inquiries via info@goldcrypto.io
Darcy Johnston via darcy@cryptoinvestorinc.com
 
Institutional GoldCrypto Inquiry:
Ryan Lee via ryan@cryptoinvestorinc.com
  
Key Capital Corporation Inquiry:
Chris Nichols via info@keycapitalgroup.com

Source : GoldCrypto

--BERNAMA

Thursday, April 19, 2018

SCRUM ALLIANCE® AND SCRUM INC. ANNOUNCE PARTNERSHIP ON SCRUM@SCALE® FRAMEWORK FOR ORGANIZATIONAL AGILE TRANSFORMATION

Scrum Alliance launches joint venture with Dr. Jeff Sutherland's Scrum@Scale LLC.

DENVER, CO, and CAMBRIDGE, MA, April 17 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Scrum Alliance® and Scrum Inc. are launching a new joint venture to train, coach, and promote Dr. Jeff Sutherland’s framework for Agile transformation via scaling Scrum across entire organizations.
 
Scrum Alliance is the largest and most established Scrum certifying body and professional association of Agile practitioners in the world. With more than 500,000 certified practitioners, Scrum Alliance is dedicated to helping individuals and organizations transform their world of work. Scrum Inc. founded by Dr. Jeff Sutherlrand the co-creator of Scrum is the world’s leading authority of implementing Scrum. They have helped hundreds of organizations, from Fortune 100 companies to start-ups, fundamentally reshape themselves to dramatically increase productivity and drive growth.
 
Scrum@Scale® is the natural extension of the Scrum framework. It is designed to deliver business agility across an entire organization: all departments, products, and services. No matter the industry, Scrum@Scale makes every team a Scrum team and transforms organizations into market-disrupting forces. Dr. Sutherland, one of the original signers of the Agile Manifesto, recently stepped down from his position as CEO of Scrum Inc. to focus on the training and implementation of Scrum@Scale.
 
“Scrum@Scale is a framework where networks of Scrum teams can efficiently address complex problems while creatively delivering products of the highest possible value,” said Sutherland. “We look forward to working with Scrum Alliance and their tremendous networks of trainers, coaches, and members to promote this new way of building healthy, high-functioning organizations.”
 
“We believe Scrum@Scale offers organizations a strong solution for a Scrum scaling framework,“ said Scrum Alliance Board Member Lisa Hershman. “We are so excited to offer our community of trainers and coaches access to the Scrum@Scale education tools and framework solutions for a new phase in our mission of transforming the world of work.”
 
As the world becomes more Agile, more businesses search for ways to incorporate scaling solutions in their organizations. Scrum Alliance and Scrum Inc. share a vision to help as many organizations as possible practice “good Scrum” and change the world of work. Scrum@Scale achieves this goal through setting up a “minimum viable bureaucracy” that extends the benefits of single Scrum team across the organization.
 
The partnership was announced at the Scrum Alliance 2018 North American Global Scrum Gathering® in Minneapolis. The sold-out event was the largest Global Scrum Gathering in Scrum Alliance history.
 
To learn more about Scrum@Scale, read the open source Scrum@Scale Guide, which is being translated into dozens of additional languages.

About Scrum Alliance

Founded in 2001, Scrum Alliance® is the largest, most established and influential professional membership and certification organization in the Agile community. Scrum Alliance is a nonprofit association with more than 500,000 certified practitioners worldwide. Its vision is to help “Transform the World of Work” with a mission to guide and inspire individuals, leaders, and organizations with practices, principles, and values that create workplaces that are joyful, prosperous, and sustainable. For more information, please visit scrumalliance.org.

Connect with us on social media at:

https://twitter.com/ScrumAlliance

https://www.facebook.com/scrumalliance

https://www.linkedin.com/company/scrum-alliance

https://www.youtube.com/user/scrumalliance

About Scrum Inc.

Scrum Inc., the world’s leading authority on Scrum, provides training, consulting, and coaching that enables organizations to deliver value faster and reduce waste. Scrum Inc. was founded by Dr. Jeff Sutherland, the co-creator of Scrum, and has helped hundreds of organizations, from Fortune 100 companies to start-ups, fundamentally reshape themselves to dramatically increase productivity and drive growth. Scrum Inc. is the preeminent thought leader in the Agile community and publishes scientific papers, case studies, blogs, online educational content, and management and leadership books such as our recent best-selling Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time

Visit scruminc.com to learn about our consulting servicestraining courses, and online learning resources. Follow us on Twitter @ScrumInc, LinkedIn, or visit our blog.

About Scrum@Scale LLC

Scrum@Scale is a training and certification company that provides Scrum Practitioners with the most current learning thy need to Scale Scrum, to teach others the Scrum@Scale framework, and to address complex problems using the framework, while delivering high-value products and services. We do this by delivering rigorous training, openly sharing knowledge, and being the go-to thought leader regarding organizational transformation. Learn more at scrumatscale.com.

Scrum@Scale LLC is a joint venture between Scrum Inc. and Scrum Alliance, two of the world’s leading authorities on Scrum.
 
 
Heather Leigh
Scrum Alliance.
720-443-7314
hleigh@scrumalliance.org
 
Veronica Ruiz
Scrum Inc. Public Relations
718-781-4168
veronica.ruiz@scruminc.com
 
 
Source : Scrum Alliance.

--BERNAMA

AMAZON LAUNCHES THE INTERNATIONAL SHOPPING EXPERIENCE IN THE AMAZON SHOPPING APP

Customers across the globe have the ability to browse and ship over 45 million products to their country through the International Shopping experience

Available on iOS and Android mobile devices, the International Shopping experience is available in 5 languages, including English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese and German, and 25 currencies, with more languages and currencies to be added in 2018

SEATTLE, April 18 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- (NASDAQ:AMZN) – Amazon launched the ‘International Shopping’ experience within the Amazon Shopping App, making it possible for international customers to browse and shop over 45 million eligible items that can be shipped to their country from the United States. This experience is available on mobile browser and mobile app within the Amazon Shopping App for both iOS and Android mobile devices. The International Shopping experience offers shopping in 5 languages, including English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, German, and Brazilian Portuguese, with the ability to shop in 25 currencies. This makes it easier than ever for customers to get the best of Amazon and shop with ease in their local currency. Customers can choose from different shipping options and delivery speeds, depending on how quickly they want their package to arrive. To learn more visit www.amazon.com/international-shopping-help.

“We are always innovating on behalf of our customers, and with today’s launch, we are making the shopping experience on mobile devices even better and more convenient for our customers who live outside the US,” said Samir Kumar, VP of Amazon Exports and Expansion. “Customers have been asking for a way to easily find and shop only for products available to be shipped to them. The International Shopping experience solves this customer need and makes it simple to browse, shop and ship more than 45 million products to over a hundred countries around the world.”

To get started, customers can simply download the free Amazon Shopping App from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and they will automatically be placed into the International Shopping experience. Customers who already have the Amazon Shopping App simply need to go into their settings within the app, choose the ‘Country & Language’ option and select ‘International Shopping’ in the country picker. Customers can then set their language and currency of preference to enjoy a customized shopping experience, and can change their location at any time to automatically see products that are eligible to be shipped to their selected delivery location.

The International Shopping experience displays clear pricing, shipping costs, and import duty estimates, with Amazon coordinating with courier services for customs clearance on behalf of the customer so there are no surprises at the time of purchase or delivery. Customers will be able to browse and shop for products across categories including Electronics, Books, Clothing, Shoes, Toys and much more. For more information, please visit www.amazon.com/global.

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=51786869&lang=en

Contact

Amazon.com, Inc.
Media Hotline
Amazon-pr@amazon.com
www.amazon.com/pr

Source : Amazon.com, Inc.

--BERNAMA

CFRA TO PROVIDE INDEPENDENT EQUITY RESEARCH TO COMPANIES LISTED ON SINGAPORE EXCHANGE'S MAINBOARD AND CATALIST BOARDS


NEW YORK, April 17 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- CFRA, one of the world’s largest independent research firms, will join Singapore Exchange (SGX) to provide equity research to listed companies on its Mainboard and Catalist boards through the StockFacts Research Programme, it was announced today.
SGX-listed companies that choose CFRA to produce independent research can utilize these reports directly with investors while leveraging CFRA’s global research distribution network.

“We are excited to be part of the SGX StockFacts Research Programme and to provide our research to its listed companies,” said Peter de Boer, chief executive officer at CFRA. “We look forward to working with both the exchange and the management teams to support investor communications and to bring to the marketplace the objective and independent analysis that thousands of financial professionals currently rely on for industry insights.”

The Singapore Exchange is one of Asia’s leading and trusted market infrastructures, operating equity, fixed income and derivatives markets to the highest regulatory standards. As Asia’s most international, multi-asset exchange, SGX provides listing, trading, clearing, settlement, depository and data services, with about 40% of listed companies and 75% of listed bonds originating outside of Singapore. 

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

A.M. BEST AFFIRMS CREDIT RATINGS OF SUN HUNG KAI PROPERTIES INSURANCE LIMITED

HONG KONG, April 16 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- A.M. Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of A (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of “a” of Sun Hung Kai Properties Insurance Limited (SHKPI) (Hong Kong). The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable.

SHKPI is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sun Hung Kai Properties Limited (SHKP), one of the largest and most well-established property development and investment conglomerates in Hong Kong.

The ratings reflect SHKPI’s balance sheet strength, which A.M. Best categorizes as very strong, as well as its strong operating performance, neutral business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management.

The balance sheet strength assessment mainly reflects SHKPI’s low business net retention and moderate underwriting leverage. In addition, the company’s underwriting operations have been highly profitable and cash-generative. However, SHKPI’s investment portfolio shows an appetite to invest in higher-risk assets, which exposes its overall earnings to considerable market and credit risks. These risks are mitigated partially by the company’s significant level of excess capital.

Despite the soft market in Hong Kong in recent years, SHKPI has continued to generate strong and consistent operating profits, supported mainly by the company’s low acquisition cost structure, as well as by a steady stream of interest and dividend income. As a wholly owned subsidiary of SHKP, SHKPI underwrites insurance business associated with SHKP-related construction projects on a direct basis, which makes its acquisition cost ratio generally lower than its peers. Additionally, SHKPI’s investment portfolio is managed by SHKP’s investment arm, which has a long track record of delivering positive returns over different phases of the investment cycle.