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Why 56% of Payroll Teams Can’t Keep Up with Modern Work Culture

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11 months ago

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payroll

When companies still rely on old software, they lack the flexibility they need to grow—and payroll software is one of the surprising culprits

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, October 23, 2025/APO Group/ –Working remotely has benefits, as does working from the office. Both concepts are part of changing workplaces. Rather than choosing sides, workplace cultures should evolve to embrace these new dimensions. But when companies still rely on old software, they lack the flexibility they need to grow—and payroll software is one of the surprising culprits.

RTO? WFH? It’s not a contest

Tensions between working remotely and in the office are well-documented. Employees treasure their hard-won autonomy, the option to work remotely (WFH), and not being judged by how long they sit at a desk. Many executives see human contact as the foundation for strong workplace cultures and insist on return to work (RTO) as the way forward.

At a glance, the latter have the momentum. Most recently, Microsoft joined the RTO trend by requiring employees to be in the office at least three days a week, while Amazon requires five days a week. But business experts warn against rushing back to the previous status quo. The new workplace culture grasps how people work at least as much as where they work.

“Work hasn’t been limited to an office for at least a decade. When businesses decide about where they want their people, they should modify their culture and not romanticise a style of working that hasn’t existed for quite some time,” says Sandra Crous, MD of payroll provider Deel Local Payroll.

Businesses are realising that simply rewinding the clock has consequences, ranging from talent retention, missing goals, and falling morale to legal consequences, especially when they contravene labour laws around due process.

The new office is the old office

An office is important. It represents the essence of an organisation and provides a common space for its people. Even so, it’s not the same office of a decade ago.

Technologies like video meetings and messaging platforms alter how people produce results. Many employees embed with customer teams or work on a customer’s schedule, often remotely or at the latter’s offices. Companies are hiring people for their skills and competitive costs, regardless of which country they live in. Productive workforces increasingly integrate part-time, contract, and freelance workers.

For payroll, the answer is simple—use cloud-native platforms

These changes became embedded during the pandemic years. The battle between RTO and WFH is a misguided attempt to diffuse this tension. Instead, business cultures should evolve to accommodate the new workplace.

Technology is at the heart of the change. This cultural reconfiguration needs flexible and feature-rich business software, while outmoded software creates more rigidity. Payroll software, a cornerstone of employer-employee relations, is one of the worst holdups.

Traditional payroll software makes it much harder for payroll, HR, and finance staff to align with employees. According to the 2025 Deel Australia Payroll Report (https://apo-opa.co/4huBEuQ), 56% of payroll staff flag inflexible reporting as a major barrier, 41% struggle to respond to employees in a timely manner, and 40% frequently encounter payroll system errors.

More specifically, many point to difficulties managing hybrid, remote, and global workforces.

“The office may have changed, but we still often meet payroll teams who say they have to keep doing things like they did ten to twenty years ago. That means old and inflexible systems that sit in a corner and grow more isolated from the modern direction their companies are moving in,” says Crous.

Going cloud-native

A substantial number of companies still use payroll software that is at least 10 years old. This is prehistoric considering the features of cloud-native payroll platforms, such as self-service access, earned wage access, process automation, remote administration, flexible reporting, and automatic legislative and software updates.

With cloud-native software, a payroll administrator can remotely access and process salaries securely. A travelling manager can seamlessly check and approve requests on their smartphone. Executives in charge of finance can examine audit trails and generate custom reports directly. HR staff can automatically enhance talent management systems with payroll data.

Cloud software improves productivity, saves substantially on payroll processing costs (PAYO – https://apo-opa.co/42QS8ay), and reduces mistakes by 60% (Forrester – https://apo-opa.co/4ow4BZg). It also reduces total cost of ownership—economies of scale create lower usage and licensing costs that companies can easily increase or decrease.

Remote work versus working at the office shouldn’t be opposing ideas. They are both part of the new workplace. Companies using modern software platforms enjoy the flexibility to find the right balance for their unique culture and requirements, says Crous.

“In the modern workplace, these options work alongside each other. The key issue is which parts of the business are lagging and how to improve them. For payroll, the answer is simple—use cloud-native platforms.”

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Deel Local Payroll, powered by PaySpace.

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RS South Africa Supports Next-Generation Edge Artificial Intelligence (AI) With NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 2

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9 hours ago

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September 22, 2026

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New compact robotics computer opens new possibilities for intelligent machines, robotics and vision AI

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, September 21, 2026/APO Group/ –RS (https://apo-opa.co/4doxsf6) is supporting the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 2 robotics computer, a new entry-level edge AI platform designed to deliver next-generation AI performance in a compact, power-efficient format. The platform is expected to become available in the first half of 2027.

The NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 2 delivers twice the inference performance of the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super while maintaining the same compact form factor and 40 W power envelope. It also consumes 40% less power at equivalent performance, making it well suited to applications where computing capability, energy efficiency and physical footprint are important considerations.

 




  

These capabilities have the potential to support the development of smarter, more autonomous equipment and systems for South African industrial and engineering organisations, particularly where real-time processing and decision-making are required at the edge.

 

More performance for intelligent machines

The NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 2 features improved Tensor Cores and higher memory bandwidth, delivering 78 TOPS of AI compute, 8 GB of memory and an eight-core Arm CPU. This combination enables a new generation of applications including delivery and inspection drones, robots and vision AI systems, with enhanced AI and video-processing capabilities. The platform is powered by NVIDIA’s open AI software stack, Jetson agent skills and a broad AI ecosystem, helping developers build and deploy AI-enabled applications more quickly.

 

Supporting South Africa’s AI and automation ambitions

This exciting product launch is a testament to the strong and successful partnership RS and NVIDIA have built since the introduction of the first Orin Nano™ in 2023

RS’s support for the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 2 builds on its established relationship with NVIDIA and its role as a strategic global distribution partner. “As South African businesses increasingly explore how AI, robotics and automation can improve the way industrial systems operate, access to capable edge computing platforms will become increasingly important,” comments Erick Wessels, Sales Director, RS South Africa.

 

The NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 2 brings substantial AI performance into a compact and energy-efficient platform, giving local developers and engineering teams new opportunities to explore intelligent machines, robotics and vision-based applications. “We look forward to supporting customers in South Africa as they investigate the possibilities this technology can unlock,” adds Wessels.

 

“This exciting product launch is a testament to the strong and successful partnership RS and NVIDIA have built since the introduction of the first Orin Nano™ in 2023,” explains Richard Curtin, SVP, Global AIoT Suppliers and Design Solutions, RS.

 

“As a strategic global distribution partner, we are well positioned to help customers worldwide access and scale this latest AI innovation, and we encourage them to stay close to RS and RS DesignSpark for further announcements and early ordering opportunities,” says Curtin.

 

A platform for the next generation of edge AI

The NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 2 represents the next step in making high-performance AI computing accessible in a compact form factor. By combining increased inference performance with improved energy efficiency and an extensive AI software ecosystem, it is designed to help developers accelerate the transition from AI experimentation to practical deployment.

 

RS will support customers as they explore the opportunities presented by the platform, with further announcements and information on early ordering opportunities to follow ahead of its planned availability in the first half of 2027.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of RS South Africa.

 

 




 

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Huawei Cloud Rolls Out Enterprise AI Products Across the Board, Building an Open Agentic Cloud

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1 day ago

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September 21, 2026

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SHANGHAI, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 18 September 2026 – On September 18, Dr. Peter Zhou, Director of the Board at Huawei and CEO of Huawei Cloud, delivered a keynote titled “The Agentic Cloud for the Agentic World: Build Together, Grow Together” at HUAWEI CONNECT 2026. He shared Huawei Cloud’s latest progress. He announced the global launch of the latest AI Cluster Service (AICS), a key step in Huawei Cloud’s strategy to strengthen the silicon bedrock on the cloud and reinforce the foundation for agentic AI. The keynote also highlighted the Agentic Model as a Service (MaaS) platform, which brings together diverse models to accelerate model capabilities as services at scale. The AgentArts enterprise-grade agent platform already serves over 100 enterprises. The Industry AI Foundry has accumulated more than 1,000 industry assets, with over 1,000 projects deployed. The Industry AI Foundry now includes two new zones, Smart Government Zone and AI Hardware Zone, to drive agents toward large-scale adoption. These efforts, taken together, are building a thriving AI ecosystem on the cloud.
 




 

Building Agentic Infra for agents
Dr. Peter Zhou also highlighted that in the agentic era, infrastructure no longer simply exists to provide compute. Instead, its purpose has expanded to making every token more efficient, coordinating general and AI compute, enabling models to keep learning, and, more importantly, running agents securely and reliably within real production environments. Huawei Cloud has defined Agentic Infra, a new paradigm around efficient tokens, enhanced memory, unified general & AI scheduling, and secure autonomy. To date, Agentic Infra has served over 3,500 customers.

The latest AICS is built on a five-level fast recovery mechanism with full-chain observability. It supports over 40 days of stable training on cloud and is capable of fault recovery within 10 minutes. Furthermore, supported by coordinated optimization across scheduling, cache, and algorithms, it delivers 20% higher token throughput than the previous generation of compute service. The latest AICS will be commercially available in China on September 30 and in markets outside China on November 30.
The Context Memory Storage (CMS) solution addresses the needs of long-horizon agent tasks for memory capacity and access efficiency. It provides a petabyte-scale memory space, twice the storage capacity of comparable industry products, and supports high-speed terabyte-scale memory reads with 50% higher performance than industry peers.
Agentic MaaS brings together diverse models, enabling developers to invoke state-of-the-art (SOTA) models from leading providers with just one click and no deployment required. At the event, MiniMax demonstrated its advanced multimodal model, which, combined with Huawei Cloud, delivers open, cutting-edge multimodal capabilities.

Building an enterprise-grade agent platform to help enterprises develop and use agents effectively
Huawei Cloud is advancing its enterprise-grade agent platform through a dual approach: commercial and open source. Built on AgentArts and its open-source edition openJiuwen, the platform opens up more than 5,000 general Model Context Protocol (MCP) assets and over 1,000 industry-specific MCP assets, making it easier for enterprises to develop, use, and manage agents. To date, the platform has served more than 100 customers, including the Shenzhen Longgang District Government, China Southern Power Grid, Guangzhou Laboratory, the University of Science and Technology of China, Kingsoft Office, Sichuan Yingu Carbon Sink Renewable Resources Co., Ltd., Changsha Thunder Cloud Network Technology Co., Ltd., and KingMed Diagnostics. At the event, Kingsoft Office shared its implementation practices based on Huawei Cloud’s agent platform. By deeply integrating the agent platform with the WPS 365 Document Center and WPS Comate, Kingsoft Office has built vertical office agents that are now deployed across multiple industries, including finance and government.

Huawei Cloud has announced that AgentArts will be commercially available in markets outside China on December 30. To date, the openJiuwen open-source community has surpassed 50,000 stars and 3.29 million downloads. Together with Chinasoft International, iSoftStone Group, and Beiming Software, Huawei Cloud has launched partner commercial editions and shared a broad market space, helping partners thrive on Huawei Cloud’s silicon bedrock.

Advancing the Industry AI Foundry to accelerate AI adoption at scale across industries
Through the Industry AI Foundry, Huawei Cloud brings together assets such as industry scenarios, models, data, knowledge, and agents, turning industry know-how from isolated project experience into reusable industry capabilities. It has built five industry-specific zones — Smart Healthcare Zone, Embodied AI Zone, AI for Science (AI4S) Zone, Smart Manufacturing Zone, and Smart Finance Zone — with over 1,000 industry-specific assets and more than 1,000 deployed projects.

Two new zones have been launched within the Industry AI Foundry: Smart Government Zone and AI Hardware Zone. The Smart Government Zone has already brought together 24 founding partners, covering a range of scenarios such as government office operations, public services, urban governance, and industry development. The AI Hardware Zone has onboarded 15 core partners, covering more than 20 device types, including AI glasses, AI toys, and AI recording cards, along with over 10 scenario templates and more than 110 scenario skills.

From infrastructure and enterprise-grade agent platforms to industry ecosystems, Huawei Cloud is committed to building an open agentic cloud, with open infrastructure to power AI, an open platform to support enterprises in effectively developing and using agents, and an open industry ecosystem to accelerate AI adoption at scale. Ultimately, Huawei Cloud looks to move forward with customers and partners to build and grow together in the agentic era.

Themed Advancing the Agentic World, HUAWEI CONNECT 2026 will delve into AI across three dimensions: strategy, technology, and ecosystems. You can expect an in-depth look at our latest strategic initiatives, and we’ll also be unveiling our all-new digital and intelligent infrastructure products, scenario-specific solutions for industries, and development tools. The event will run from September 17 to 19 at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center and Shanghai Expo Center. For more information, please visit HUAWEI CONNECT 2026 online at www.huawei.com/en/events/huaweiconnect
 




 

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Huawei Pioneers a New Computing Architecture for the AI Era: Making One Million Processors Work as One Computer

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4 days ago

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September 18, 2026

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SHANGHAI, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 17 September 2026 – Huawei today announced the Peerium Computing Architecture, a new computing architecture for the AI era. The architecture enables processors at the million scale to work as one computer, meeting the ever-growing demand for AI compute.

The Peerium Computing Architecture achieves strong scaling to the million-processor level through nested parallelism, unified memory addressing, and peer interconnect. It breaks through the Turing paradigm with the introduction of Nested BSP (Nested Bulk Synchronous Parallel), extends the von Neumann single-machine architecture, and overturns the master–slave architecture that has prevailed for decades, so that a million processors truly become one larger computer.
 




 

UnifiedBus (UB) is the key interconnect technology that makes the Peerium Computing Architecture possible. Built on a single open protocol, UB is a high-speed bus that scales without limit to connect CPUs, NPUs, memory, SSDs, network interface cards (NICs), and switches. With UB, peer interconnect is achieved across compute, storage, and networking.

The Atlas 950 SuperPoD and SuperPoD-based SuperClusters are the first-generation product built on the Peerium Computing Architecture. An Atlas 950 SuperCluster with 256,000 cards is already being deployed, and the Atlas 960 system based on near-packaged optics (NPO) is currently under testing.

Eric Xu, Huawei’s Rotating Chairman, said, “In the AI era, Huawei is drawing on the Peerium Computing Architecture we pioneered to continuously build the SuperPoDs and SuperPod-based SuperClusters that meet customer needs for training and inference, making computing power available everywhere and intelligence accessible to all.”
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
 




 

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