“Today’s technologies, tomorrow’s standards”

“It is only a matter of time before today’s technologies become tomorrow’s standards” – a pretty powerful quotation from the business transformation segment in The Times last week, which, I think, captures succinctly the rapidly evolving digital demands throughout our industries.

Indeed, a cursory glance at any national newspaper warns of the current pace of digital transformation. And the unanimous bottom line is always that those who do not reposition digital at their core will likely see themselves overtaken by digital-first enterprises. There is little time to wait for technologies to mature.

So sector-by-sector, the change is picking up speed, whilst becoming increasingly disruptive. And technology, long confined within the IT department, is now being unleashed across businesses as the main player for this next season.

Healthcare’s healthy dose of tech

In a sense, this is music to our ears at Virtualstock. Finally, industries beyond retail (which, of course, is still leading the charge) are appreciating the importance of digital agility. And in particular, we welcome the technical and cultural transformation in the healthcare sector, which has suffered for want of innovation.

Our vision is to help make the NHS a more digitally viable service through our e-Procurement platform, The Edge4Health. Our platform provides a centralized hub that brings together the previously fragmented systems in the NHS supply chain, and through which orders and stock levels can be monitored, as well as real time delivery status. This is in parallel with Lord Carter’s efficiency targets for Trusts, which require them to digitalize and streamline their catalogues by October 2018.

Moreover, if a push towards technological nimbleness were not motivation enough, the benefits for the NHS are immense; an increase in savings, significant improvements in efficiency, total supply chain visibility and higher compliance are but a few.

And for context, it’s predicted that our technology will help the NHS achieve around ￡1bn in annual savings, thereby helping Trusts focus on the most important thing: patient care.

The quiet winners

But less obvious, and hidden behind the NHS success story, are the benefits for the suppliers – the quiet winners of the operation. Indeed, The Edge4Health enables suppliers to get all of their products on offer and in front of more healthcare providers, initiating a fast increase in sales. Suppliers will also be granted greater control over their data; the platform permits full product visibility as well as the ability to receive orders across the entire range.

What is more, the intuitive system automates numerous labour-intensive processes, resulting in more efficient product induction and order processing. It will also ensure that suppliers are paid much faster than they currently are, meaning a significantly improved cash flow and less time chasing invoices (which, we understand, happens a lot).

And, unlike other solutions that can prove costly to suppliers and mean demolishing all their current systems, The Edge4Health platform works with the existing infrastructure. Suppliers need only connect once, as well as load their entire product catalogue once.

The supple supplier

But perhaps most significantly, our model is created in such a way so as to protect suppliers against the future threats that linger just around the corner. We point in particular to the worrying developments in the States, with Amazon Business announcing the establishment of a healthcare marketplace. The same system in the UK could lead to the engulfing of our smaller suppliers and concerning competition for others, if taken seriously.

Therefore in contrast to Amazon’s more aggressive approach to healthcare ‘optimization’, The Edge4Health guarantees certain digital resilience and suppleness for suppliers, whilst protecting their relationships with Trusts. And as 11 Trusts are already using The Edge4Health, with many more to follow in the next few months, only suppliers with catalogues and pricing on our platform would be able to receive orders through it.

So as the digital wave hits the healthcare sector, it’s key that suppliers get on board with the movement, pick their partners, and not risk their business through waiting. And as Amazon, Apple and other giants start to sniff out more technological opportunities in healthcare, we may be sure that there is no turning back from a digitalized future for the sector – from AI down to the supply chain.

Should you require further information regarding our services, please visit www.virtualstock.co.uk. Alternatively, please email [email protected] or call the team on +44 (0)118 315 0950