MerQury News - Quicksilva’s Monthly Messenger
2008 Issues
December 2008
Every cloud has a silver lining they say and it certainly seems so for Sainsbury’s - sales up over Christmas. I have a theory that people who wouldn’t normally, usually treat themselves to M&S food for the festivities, however this year they haven’t pushed the boat out and have gone for the Sainsbury option instead - a one notch belt-tightening exercise?
November 2008
I don’t know about you but I’m getting burned out already with the tales of lost fortunes. There are winners and losers in every business scenario but it seems there are some surprising winners in the current financial climate – so who are they?
October 2008
Incentives – what a great idea for getting things done…or so you might think. I had a moan earlier this year when the Government set a target of 30% of its contracts being let to SMEs. My point then, as now, is that incentives are very powerful and do indeed drive human behaviour, often in unanticipated directions. For example, an easy way to meet the 30% target is to let all the high volume unskilled contracts to SMEs...job done!
September 2008
The press has been covering two large failures by government contractors in the last couple of weeks. First, the fiasco with lost justice data - I seem to be asked to comment on the Government’s poor data security record every week now - and secondly, the SATs test results failure.
August 2008
It looks like others are starting to feel the same - Ian Pearson, Minister for Science and Innovation says "The South West of England is home to world leading centres of innovative expertise..." He also highlights the area as being increasingly buzzing with sustainable and renewable projects which also happens to be an interest of ours.
July 2008
Yet more in the redtop tabloids this month about Big Brother going too far. I thought they meant the reality show but no, it’s the Government’s plans for a “massive database” of every phone call, e-mail, text message, internet search and online purchase in the fight against terrorism.
June 2008
Wiltshire Medical Services (WMS) are a forward thinking group of GPs who see the sense in integrating their Patient Administration Systems (PAS) with a portal to allow the commissioning of local services for their patients. This would save GPs the chore of entering data many times and thus provide a reduction in the drain on valuable resources by automating the process.
May 2008
Times change... and it seems nowhere faster than in government circles. With U-turns and shock polls and popularity ups and downs it’s vital to keep your eye on the end game. At Quicksilva, we try to stay ahead of the competition by providing innovative products and services to suit our customers, usually to the delight of the "early adopters"!
April 2008
As you may be aware, Quicksilva’s integration and data handling expertise was honed in the fiery furnace of the NHS Connecting for Heath programme. Our experiences of defining security architectures and stepping carefully through the red tape that is compliance now stands us in good stead to expand our services to others who need simple, secure data sharing.