GBS WORLD NEWS | WEEK 4 | OCTOBER 2022

American multinational conglomerate, Amazon, will be hiring 150 000 employees throughout the US to ensure a seamless holiday experience. A range of full-time, seasonal and part-time roles are being advertised from picking and packing to sorting and shipping across all experience levels. The company affirmed that these roles can be the start of a long-term career inside or outside the company. This is in contrast to the earlier announcement this month that Amazon would be closing most of its brick ‘n mortar contact centers to shift to a work-at-home model. A Canadian provider of customer service products, Comm100, has unknowingly been distributing malware to businesses and individuals, due to the tampering of its products by Chinese hackers. US-based cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike, found that a live chat app installer on Comm100’s website was responsible for delivering trojan malware. Those who downloaded the app between September 27-29, 2022, may have contracted the malware. Omnichannel marketing automation has significant potential in Europe, according to a new study published by Forrester Consulting and commissioned by Agillic. Surveying 306 senior people in commercial leadership and marketing technology roles in European companies, the study revealed that there are three levels of maturity in the market. Approximately 80% of respondents were equally split between Beginner and Intermediate levels, with only 20% qualifying as Leaders, presenting untapped potential in Europe’s omnichannel marketing automation market. Vehicle buyers in the Middle East have experienced heightened levels of customer satisfaction and engagement where Nissan Middle East is deploying innovative digital solutions that improve the overall vehicle ownership experience. New digital options, based on customer feedback, have resulted in a 36% increase in the time consumers spend on Nissan’s web platforms across the Middle East. As such, sales leads in the region have doubled. After launching its new delivery site in Malaysia, emerging South Korean business process outsourcing (BPO) provider, Ubase, has set an ambitious objective to be among the top three BPO players in the South-East Asian market by 2025. With a strong customer base in South Korea, Ubase CEO, Song Kheehong, said the company is looking to break into the flourishing South-East Asian market and provide a better cost-to-performance ratio to regional business owners. In general news, Gartner, Inc. released its IT market predictions for 2023 and beyond during the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2022 held from October 17 to 20. Gartner’s top predictions explore how business and technology leaders can seize the moment to turn uncertainty into certainty. One of the top predictions included that fully virtual workspaces will account for 30% of the investment growth by enterprises in metaverse technologies by 2027 and will “reimagine” the office experience. In addition, citizen-led denial of service (cDOS) attacks, using virtual assistants to shut down operations, will become the fastest growing form of protest by 2026.