Customer Services
Customer Services
Sharecare has a range of services available to it's customers to help increase margins, reduce costs and improve the overall efficiency of the business.
We encourage innovation and welcome requests for us to add additional services to our portfolio.
Sharecare Procurement:
End-to-End Purchasing
From partnering with the best suppliers at one end of the purchase-to-pay pipeline to consolidating invoicing and payments at the other, Sharecare's procurement team will ensure you get the best from your purchasing.
Economic Triangle
The economic triangle of price, service and quality is a difficult one to get right: low prices are attractive but impact service and quality and suddenly home is the bottom end of the market; but charging too much leads to uncompetitiveness, no matter how good the service or how fine the quality.
At a recent Health Service Journal (HSJ) roundtable in association with NHS Supply Chain, HSJ editor Alastair McLellan, chairing the debate, opened by describing procurement:
as “the thorniest of thorny problems” which many groups of clever people had come together to debate over the years without achieving the success they would like.
Coming from a background in technology and management consultancy, we offer a different approach to improving an organisation's procurement.
previous nextSharecare Procurement:
The Staged Approach
Change is a necessary part of evolution and, done carefully, thoughtfully and against an agreed, well-documented plan, can be liberating rather than daunting; it is in this manner that Sharecare would introduce new or revised providers and procedures.
Tender Assessment
The first thing we do at Sharecare is conduct a thorough review of your procurement practices. Our skilled and experienced team will examine your recent purchasing, your supplier portfolio and your product profile across your organisation.
We do this in stages so as not to overwhelm your staff and adopt an incremental implementation strategy to minimise disruption and maximise acceptance.
Set the Benchmark
This is followed by a benchmarking exercise where we compare your performance with similar organisations and national metrics. From these comparisons we can quickly ascertain where the greatest savings are to be made and produce a prioritised implementation plan over an acceptable timescale.
Portfolio of Providers
In addressing your current portfolio of supply partners, we place them into three broad categories:
- high-performing - suppliers who are providing competitive pricing, consistent quality and value-added services;
- require-improvement - suppliers who should be retained but need to 'up their game';
- replaceable - suppliers who may not retain their place in your portfolio.
Sharecare Procurement:
Monitor Evaluate Improve
Sharecare's renowned reporting and analysis service has ensured our customers competitiveness month after month, year after year. With the introduction of our Business Portal and Notification system, that assured approach just got better.
Monitor
Our new Notification System will alert you to a unit approaching their budget limit or the 10th bottle of scotch purchased that month, and a great deal in-between. The best part is that you set what you want to be notified on and you control at what level the alerts kick-in.
We keep a continuous watch on your purchasing because, contrary to Newton, what comes down will almost certainly go back up! We monitor individual prices but also your basket; we partner a number of major manufacturers and monitor their movements, but we also keep an eye on the retail price index and food inflation because, the devil is always in the detail.
Evaluate
After we've analysed the data we present you with options and recommendations because only you know your business well enough to determine works best and decide what changes to make.
Once you've told us what you want to do, we'll set about implementing the changes in the quickest and least disruptive way possible.
Improve
Which is, of course, the reason all this is done!
previous nextSharecare Procurement:
A Recipe For Success
Although the Business Portal contains a menu-management and recipe system, delivering nutrition in an appetising manner while remaining under-budget takes more than some nifty programming.
From Seeing To Eating
There are a number of links in the chain:
- Identifying the right providers who can deliver the quality, the service and the price
- Preparing the portfolio of products that maximise nutrition, appeal and cost-effectiveness
- Tapping into experts in the food, health and nutrition fields and taking advantage of their services
- Delivering all of this in an easily 'consumable' manner.
Sharecare Procurement:
Centralised Ordering
A Single-Point Ordering System
Sharecare's Business Portal offers a single-point ordering management system where you can browse provider catalogues, check prices, place orders, accept deliveries and, in due course, be able to process invoices and consolidate payments. It also features promotions, previous order history and a great deal more. This service is available now and will be continually expanded and enhanced based on customer feedback going forward.
Tendering for Heavy and Light Equipment
Complementing the single-point ordering service will be online tendering for equipment. Whether for a single item of light kitchen equipment or for a full refurbishment, Sharecare's provider portfolio includes professional and experienced companies who can tender to your requirements, no matter how big or how small.
previous nextSharecare People:
The Single Most Important Factor
Whether it's picking the right people in the first place or looking after them when you have, the most important ingredient for a business is the one it relies on for ideas, for enthusiasm, for loyalty, for commitment and for success.
Finding And Keeping The Right Stuff
Sharecare recognise the difficulties involved with recruitment and, although still in its infancy, have begun partnering with recruitment agencies to make the process easier. In this way we hope to be one of the first considerations when you're looking for new people. We're alos bringing online a number of services to help make managing these people as convenient as possible, the first being our simple rostering service.
Gentle Control
The guiding principle behind Sharecare People is to provide simple, easy to use tools that take some of the time and effort out of the routine aspects of administration, while preserving the close contact and relationships that are as important to efficiency and achieving best-practice as the technology.
previous nextSharecare People:
Electronic Rostering
One of the most basic aspects of routine administration that is ideal for adaptation to online use, but one that is so often implemented poorly with a resultant impact that can be so frustrating for the people affected.
eRostering
Sharecare's electronic rostering service is a simple-to-use system for managing shifts. Add people, add locations, optionally add pay bands and the system does the rest. All users can see where they stand and the group messaging service makes altering shifts as easy as possible. Adminstrators can 'step-in' if they need to or simply monitor the chnages which are immediately promulgated to everyone concerned.
Printouts Optional
The system can remain totally IT based with everyone who has access to a computer, a tablet or a mobile phone able to manage their working patterns easily. Equally however, the hard work can be done by the system and the result printed as normal for when you just need something laid down in black and white (well, in colour, actually).
previous nextSharecare People:
DiSC Profiling
Understanding the behaviour profile of your team will provide great benefits for retention, productivity and morale. The DiSC profile is a well respected tool to understand each individual and to build effective teams
The DiSC profile was developed 70 years ago and is in use worldwide. It has four key dimensions which differentiate individuals. These dimensions, which were of course developed in the 1940s and were named at the time, are:
- Dominance - as it sounds, this dimension indicates how forceful a person is in their dealings with others
- influencing - this dimension indicates how much a person works with and through others to achieve their aims
- Steadiness - This is how step by step and even paced a person is, how reliable and how well they finish what they start
- Compliance - This indicates how readily a person follows the rules, fits in and avoids conflict.
The key thing is understanding the strengths and limitations of each type and building a team of individuals that compliment each other. Not a team of clones which share the same weaknesses as that will only magnify shortcomings in the group.
DiSC is also a powerful management tool - turning the traditional managerial dynamic upside down.
A quick and easy questionnaire - available online - can produce a comprehensive individual profile. These can be valuable in training and development, performance management and team development. The profile can also form part of a recruitment process.
Sharecare can offer the profiles and analysis as part of our service to our clients.
previous nextSharecare Communications:
Keeping the Lines Open
Whether through IT networks, the telephone or old fashioned 'in-person', effective communication is vital; without it people are working at cross-purposes and that's never a good thing.
Innovation and Growth
Open communication fosters innovation and growth through a willingness to communicate ideas, develop strategies and encourgae team collaboration. Clear goals, timely advice, relevant feedback; these things all improve the effectiveness of the business and can be acheived with the help of an internal network and a willingness to use it.
Keeping Things Up-To-Date
A key aspect of communication is relevancy as out-of-date information is better not communicated at all. Sharecare's messaging systems try to make recording information as simple as possible, reviewing information as concise as practicable and a notification system that remembers when you don't!
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Sharecare Communications:
Group Messaging
Virtual Conversations
The Messaging system is nothing revolutionary; just a neat idea, executed cleanly and simply.
Why another system?
Because while email is great for sending documents to many people and regular messaging is handy for that quick question, voices get lost in the 'noise' of spam, threads get tangled as a subjects are misappropriated and recalling who has replied to what is an exercise in imaginative searching.
With the Sharecare Busines Portal Messaging system:
- someone starts a virtual conversation with one or more people about a specific subject;
- each of them 'hears' and replies;
- you 'converse' until you're done;
Sharecare Communications:
Information Centre
Having the right information at just the right level of detail is the holy grail of any decision-maker and the acid-test of any information system; and why you hear so much about 'data-mining' these days.
Under the Spotlight
Once logged in to the Business Portal you'll see what Sharecare's team has highlighted that might be of interest:
- new government legislation
- a new provider added to the portfolio
- what key industry sector organisations are up to