Legendary Inv. Share Discussion Threads

[brian boru] 29/11/2016 16:45

come on RTW, give us some more research...........surely with your contacts you should be able to say when VS are going to float, which in my opinion is about the only way that LEG will be able to realise true value from our 7% investment, imfho

[kemorkid] 29/11/2016 15:11

The share price is so news driven here.
Come on Zaffy wee bit of news would be appreciated.

KK

[mudbath] 29/11/2016 09:08

As thread author here,if you chose to allow freedom of speech rather than banning all and sundry,then the Board might come back to life rather than being totally moribund.

[professor pettigrew] 29/11/2016 07:29

Morning all.

[professor pettigrew] 28/11/2016 07:12

Good morning all.

Looking for a solid performance here this week.

[professor pettigrew] 27/11/2016 23:30

Philmiboots - some excellent stuff there.

Many thanks.

[philmiboots] 27/11/2016 23:05

Plus, for those who have not yet heard this (3 week old) Rob Knott podcast.....

[philmiboots] 27/11/2016 22:55

Worth reading that second link (by Andrew Mills) in full.....

Serendipity – How Virtualstock & NHS SBS will digitise NHS procurement.
Nov 25, 2016

Serendipity often plays a big part in any success.

In autumn 2015, Virtualstock (VS) found itself at the centre of a ‘perfect storm’. The NHS was under pressure to save money so that more resources could be directed at improving patient outcomes against a backdrop of ever increasing demand. Lord Carter was concluding a review that would result in NHS England being challenged to deliver £4-5bn of savings over 5 years in the procurement of everyday consumables alone, and which would further demand that the change be Trust led. The Trusts had a strong appetite for change, but limited budgets to invest in the required technology. The retail sector was seen as an exemplar of efficient and effective procurement practices.

With our track record of working with some of the UK’s leading retailers, including Tesco & Sainsbury’s Argos, VS were in prime position to provide the sort of digital disruption to deliver the savings Lord Carter identified.

The similarities between retail and health procurement were surprisingly striking.

Curated catalogues provide the choice of products and prices. A web front end delivers an ‘Amazon like’ experience with behavioural insight to ensure that the best decision is made at the point of purchase. Orders are placed, routed to suppliers, and the goods are tracked and traced to the customer. The supplier invoice is matched against the order, catalogue price and receipt so that payment can be triggered. Inventory updates are shared to avoid out of stock orders or to highlight longer lead times. Regularly purchased items can be auto-replenished. All that we needed was someone with the vision to see this.

This is where serendipity helped.

Rob Knott, the former National Strategy Director at the Department of Health, saw a presentation given by Tesco in which they discussed the success they had achieved with VS’ ‘The Edge’. He knew that David Lawson, Chief Procurement Officer at Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT), was about to undertake a wholesale procurement transformation and had a reputation for embracing new thinking, and with this he opened the door for VS.

We worked with David and Rob to develop a disruptive pricing model which gave the NHS free use of the solution by asking suppliers to pay a small listing and transaction charge. This included concessions for smaller suppliers so that they were not excluded from the NHS market. ‘Supplier pay’ models are sometimes unpopular because they can be perceived as a ‘tax on trade’. However, we knew that The Edge would deliver such significant direct and indirect cost savings for suppliers that any charges would be dwarfed by the benefits – just imagine the efficiency of being able to maintain a single catalogue for the whole NHS and publish a curated catalogue/price list for each Trust you work with!

Serendipity then led to Rob Knott joining the VS team as it just happened that he was looking for a new opportunity outside of government that would allow him to continue to drive positive change within the NHS.

Early success at GSTT and the strong advocacy of David Lawson led to The Edge being adopted as a common e-Catalogue platform by The Shelford Group (the ten leading NHS multi-specialty academic healthcare organisations) and five other trusts, one of which is a Department of Health GS1 Demonstrator site, with at least eight of these trusts going for the full PIM-To-Pay solution.

This was fabulous progress, but the question became how we as VS were going to scale this business to deliver the savings and benefits to whole NHS.

Serendipity again.

NHS SBS is the market leader in business support services for the NHS, delivering average cost savings of 30% across finance and accounting, employment services, procurement and primary care. They serve 87 trusts and all NHS commissioning organisations.

NHS SBS had ambitious plans to transform and enhance their procurement services and after seeing how The Edge was being adopted by GSTT and the rest of The Shelford Group, quickly realised that by working together, VS and NHS SBS had a unique opportunity to combine forces to deliver great technology at scale and pace across the whole NHS.

This is the reason that this partnership will be so disruptive.

By partnering exclusively with NHS SBS, we will leverage their scale and expertise to accelerate the adoption and deployment of The Edge, with the medium term goal of building a single GS1 and PEPPOL compliant marketplace for the whole NHS, connecting over 1 million customers, 100,000s of suppliers and millions of products within an ‘Amazon style’ market.

Consumerisation of enterprise IT has never happened on such a scale, and it has the added benefit of delivering £billions in savings for the NHS!

And serendipity has played a significant role.

[philmiboots] 27/11/2016 22:44

Apologies for being a bit slow on the uptake, and might have missed earlier discussion about this, but Argos have been a VS/Edge user for nearly 2 years. Sainsburys bought Argos earlier in the year. Could Sainsburys be one of the potential (as yet to be announced) new VS/Edge clients?

[professor pettigrew] 26/11/2016 22:21

Thanks Phil.

Actually, I'm sure that by working together going forward, it will be beneficial for both of us, and all here.

ATB.

[professor pettigrew] 26/11/2016 22:03

Phil, I've sent my reply which I hope you appreciate.

If you could acknowledge it here, I'm sure we could agree to disagree, in a friendly way of course.

In fact, I hope going forward, it may be beneficial to us both.

[mrphiljones] 26/11/2016 21:25

I've messaged you

[professor pettigrew] 26/11/2016 21:19

And I and decent folk on here are not going to stoop to your level.

So, you can continue to talk to yourself.

[professor pettigrew] 26/11/2016 21:04

You'll be getting no more response from me, because filthy scum aren't worth bothering with.

[professor pettigrew] 26/11/2016 20:43

Mr PhilJones

Will you do everybody on here a favour?

And die?