Written by Michael Harris on February 14, 2012.
The Sandy Springs-based logistics company stressed that any information shared with Atlanta-based Kabbage is done by customers voluntarily.
UPS marketing Vice President Joseph Guerrisi said he thinks allowing access to the information will give customers who need more working capital a chance to grow — and therefore do more shipping.
Kabbage, which began in late 2008, uses information about an applicant’s eBay and Amazon sales, Twitter followers and Facebook fans to quickly determine whether the business will receive a working capital advance.
Most advances average about $2,000, but can range from $500 to $40,000, Kabbage Chairman Marc Gorlin said. The company has 15,000 accounts.
Gorlin said there is an increasing need for nonstandard data in making loan decisions, and that an applicant’s online activity is often a better indication of his or her commitment to a business than a credit score might be.
“If people are more engaged in their business, they’re probably running a better business,” he said.
UPS’ participation validates the business model, Gorlin said.
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Written by Jeremy Martin on February 12, 2012.
London’s NHS trusts are looking for new patient administration and electronic patient record systems (PAS/EPR), worth between £250 and £400 million over four years
St George’s Healthcare, an NHS Trust based in Tooting, South London, is leading the procurement. The tender is split into three lots: one to build, deploy and maintain the PAS/EPR systems themselves, another to provider a portal that allows clinicians and patients to access the systems, and a third to provide the hosting infrastructure.
The tender specificies that the portal should allow clinicians and patients to access healthcare records “without the need for them to access directly the Trust’s back-end solutions”.
This is the latest in a string of patient records systems that have been tendered in recent weeks. The Northumbria NHS Trust published a contract notice for a similar system at the end of last week, while Morecambe Bay Trust sought a new electronic records system in early February.
An electronic patient records system for the whole NHS was one of the components of the troubled National Programme for IT. CSC,
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Written by Jeremy Martin on February 9, 2012.
According to the ICAEW, the start of a new year is a good time to think about starting up on your own, and given the importance of SMEs to the community, the Government is currently conducting an enquiry into entrepreneurship.
The current economic climate is also driving thousands of employed people to consider making the leap into self employment.
With this in mind, the accountancy body has provided some tips for would-be entrepreneurs.
Business start-up tips
Here are some key things to consider before starting up, based on original tips penned by Clive Lewis, its Head of Enterprise:
1. Research the Market – make sure you find out if there is a market for your products of services.
2. Business Planning – this sets out how your business will operate, and become profitable. Find out more in our business plan section.
3. Business Funding – how are you going to finance your new enterprise. Being under-finances will put you at a disadvantage from the start.
4. Contingency Planning – what if your business does not have the flying start you hope it will? Factor
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Written by Michael Harris on February 3, 2012.
Meanwhile, protesters against nuclear power chanted and sang outside the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Southeast headquarters in downtown Atlanta, saying not enough has been done to ensure that nuclear reactors are safe since the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan 11 months ago.
Southern is trying to get permission to build twin 1,100-megawatt reactors at Plant Vogtle, joining the two that are already there and started producing electricity in the 1980s.
“The NRC has not taken appropriate safety measures for the people living in the shadow of Plant Vogtle,” said Courtney Hanson, Public Outreach Director for the Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions. The gro
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Written by Jeremy Martin on January 31, 2012.
The Department of Health (DH) has awarded a five-year, £74 million desktop management outsourcing contract to IT services provider Atos.
Atos will provide shared desktop services to the Department and some of its ‘arms-length bodies’, such as the Care Quality Commission. The company says that it will “work with SMEs and use open source software” to deliver desktop services, in accordance with the government’s ICT strategy.
The contract was awarded under the Additional Supply Capability and Capacity framework (ASCC). This was originally set up by NHS Connecting for Health in 2008 to streamline procurement for systems outside the National Programme for IT. It was scrapped in April 2010 by the previous government but resurrected later in the year.
“Suppliers on the ASCC framework have gone through an evaluation process in relation to their capability and capacity and have agreed to a number of pre-defined terms and conditions to be awarded a place on the framework,” a DH spokesperson explained today.
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Written by Michael Harris on January 28, 2012.
The team is led by HR&A Advisors Inc., a real estate, economic development and energy efficiency consulting firm that has worked in New York, London, Cincinnati and Hong Kong.
The team also includes Urban Collage, a firm founded in Atlanta in 1997, according to Central Atlanta Progress, a downtown economic development group.
The companies are expected to yield their recommendations in roughly 90 days.
Written by Jeremy Martin on January 20, 2012.
Figures show that investment under the Corporate Venturing Scheme surged by 65% in its final year, leading some experts to suggest that the Government were too hasty in scrapping the scheme.
According to accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young, the amount larger firms invested in smaller companies during the final year the CVS was running rose by 65% to £28m.
The CVS scheme was created by the Labour Government to encourage investment in smaller high-risk businesses by larger firms, in exchange for 20% upfront tax relief on the investment value, as well as any losses incurred.
Over the 10 year period the scheme was in operation, just over £130m was invested in around 600 small businesses.
The CVS provided tax incentives for investment in unquoted business with gross assets under £7 million and limited the investment to up to 30% of the issuing company.
The incentives were available from 1 April 2000 to 31 March 2010 and offered three types of tax relief: Investment relief against corporation tax of 20% of the amount subscribed for full-risk ordinary shares; Deferral relief from tax when the shares were sold and the funds reinvested and relief against income if shares were sold at a loss.
Ironically, given the scarcity of lending currently available to small firms, UHY Hacker Young believe that the now-closed scheme could play a useful role in bridging the massive funding gap which has resulted from the collapse in bank lending to smaller businesses.
Corporate venturing is far more widespread in the US – with an estimated $1.9bn invested in 2010 alone. In
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