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LBB Quickheart is one of the smallest ‘battlers’ we have met. Founded in 2000 and led by CEO Mark Sinclair, it has just seven employees. However, it was recently reinvented. The Company started life as a design consultancy for the financial services industry. But in 2009, Quickheart had its own ‘annus horribilis’, hit by the sudden death of its founder and CEO and by the Credit Crunch. 85% of the company’s revenues were for design consultancy in banks; the tap was suddenly turned off.
With some quick decisions to make, the management team focused on the company’s core strength: its IPR in transformational customer journeys. The decision was taken to try and leverage that IPR in a sector that was turning to ‘self serve’ (i.e. channel shifting) and where Quickheart could establish a ‘create once; sell many times’ solution. They identified the NHS & Social Care market in the knowledge that the Government’s personalisation agenda, and in particular the Care Act (due to come into force in April 2015), would have a big impact on local authorities.
The last five years have been all about developing a suite of products that will go live next year. The solution is based on the premise that local authorities will be faced with huge additional demands (many more social care assessments, additional auditing of care account expenditure). Quickheart’s self-service solution will relieve some of that pressure. Impressively, the £3.5m development costs have been funded entirely from partnerships with visionary authorities, including Birmingham City Council. The next part of the journey for Quickheart will be to scale up and increase its customer base. That’s where partners like Agilisys (see Agilisys adds string to digital platform bow), Atos and Capita come in. They could well help start Quickheart’s revenue pulse racing.
More to follow for subscribers in our Little British Battlers report out in a few weeks’ time.
Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '07:10' - Tagged: localgovernment software socialcare
