At a recent business communications conference, we had the opportunity to talk to senior writer at Madrigal Communications, Chris Duvall on effective business communication strategies.

Duvall’s career extends across a variety of work in internal and external corporate communications, specialising in developing strong communications strategies. He was kind enough to share his expertise with us, specifically his perspective and approach to tender writing.

As tender proposals play a crucial role in winning new contracts, we asked him about the most common mistakes made by inexperienced tender writers.

“Tender writing is not as tricky as it seems. But still, it requires attention to detail. I’ve noticed that many writers include way too much information. Irrelevant details not only lengthen the document, but detract from the message you are trying to deliver. Readers don’t have the time to fish around for important information. Your focus should be presenting the required information clearly and concisely.”

He suggests being wary of alienating your evaluator with complicated language, “It’s important to avoid going overboard with technical jargon. For instance, you might be an expert in hydraulics, but it’s unlikely that the evaluator has any clue what you’re talking about. Try to communicate complex ideas in easy-to-understand terms.”

To keep the reader engaged, Duvall recommends including graphics and illustrations. He warns “You can’t submit a plain, boring document. Use a passionate and active tone to create a compelling tender proposal.”

Yet with all this in mind, Duvall advises that often it is better to play it safe and utilise professional writers, especially for high-value contracts.

“Finding a successful tender writing approach takes time. In fact, I suggest organisations seek tender writing courses and training to improve their writing capabilities.”

Chennai, August 18, 2020:  Medall Diagnostics, India’s leading integrated diagnostic services provider, has announced a five-fold increase of its RT – PCR COVID-19 testing capacity. With this expansion, Medall diagnostics is now equipped to conduct 6000 COVID-19 tests per day at its 15,000 square feet central reference lab located at Guindy in Chennai. The facility, with state-of-the-art testing equipments reinforces Medall’s commitment to offer top-of-the-line testing further cementing Medall’s position as the leader in the diagnostics space.

Speaking on the new milestone, Arjun Ananth, CEO, Medall, said “India is grappling with a steep daily rise of COVID-19 cases. The need of the hour is quick and large scale testing to control the spread of the pandemic. With a daily RT-PCR capacity of 6000, we are well poised to serve the needs of the government and the private sector during this time. In addition to
RT-PCR capabilities, we also offer Antigen and Antibody tests on multiple platforms.  Medall has been active in supporting the Government’s initiative to contain the spread of the pandemic.  Commitment to improving testing standards and helping the government contain the spread of the pandemic are the primary goals of Medall”.

Medall has also partnered with large NGOs to help bring factories back to life and in this exercise has also partnered closely with corporates in restarting their factories and their place of work. Medall launched a package called “Back to work”, to create a healthy and safe workplace. Over and above this, Medall has also partnered with various Siddha Institutes to evaluate the efficacy of Siddha medicine in treating COVID-19.

About Medall: Medall is India's fastest growing integrated Healthcare Diagnostics and the fourth largest Diagnostics player in India. With 7000 plus customer touch points in 9 states and 70+ districts, 24 NABL accredited labs and 108 ISO Certified Labs, Medall provides both radiology and pathology services under one roof. Medall has served over 10 million customers and performed over 30 million tests in 2018. With a strong focus on digitisation and deployment of state-of-the-art technology, Medall is pioneering clinical and technological innovations in Diagnostics. To know more please log on to: https://www.medall.in

For media enquiries, please contact: Meghna: +91-6299404815 / This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

MOSCOW, Russia - August 18, 2020 - Maestro, Softline’s proprietary platform, is based on services from major cloud providers. Its users can manage any combination of clouds in one window, consolidate billing, increase budget transparency, and automate provisioning.

Softline Maestro supports an enterprise cloud portal with a simplified interface for solving IT tasks in self-service mode. The platform monitors compliance with security requirements and reports suspicious activities.

Softline Maestro also provides several efficient cost management tools for the use of cloud resources at any level of the company. They include cost overrun alerts, expense limits on subscriptions and accounts, recommendations on cost optimization and infrastructure automation, as well as authorization mechanisms for the purchase of new resources.

Most importantly, Softline Maestro offers a universal toolkit for efficient multicloud management and self-service. Its key features include infrastructure-as-code automation, role-based access control, and a unified API for connection to cloud services such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, VMware, or OpenStack.

Maestro is a framework solution open to integration with other cloud providers and capable of accommodating new technologies. In the near future Softline is planning to add container support to this platform as well as make it compatible with cloud services from Mail.ru, Alibaba and Huawei.

Products similar to Softline Maestro have been available on the hyperscale solutions market since its inception. Gartner analysts believe that by 2025 more than 70% of companies will be taking advantage of multifunctional cloud management tools [1]. In Russia, however, the demand for hybrid and multicloud infrastructures, as well as tools for their management is just gaining momentum.

"The platform helps customers reduce economic and technological dependence on providers, speed up access to infrastructure for end users and make cloud service costs more transparent. In fact, Softline Maestro can save businesses up to 30% of their total cloud infrastructure costs. Despite its immense capabilities, the platform is fairly easy to master: any staff member would need just a couple of hours of training to operate it. After the first month of using Maestro, the customer receives a consolidated bill, comparable information for private and public clouds, an itemized cloud expense report and recommendations on cost optimization,” explains Liliya Ermakova, a product manager from Softline.

About us:

Softline is a leading global Information Technology solutions and services provider focused on emerging markets of Eastern Europe, Americas, and Asia. We help our customer achieve digital transformation and protect their business with cybersecurity technologies. Our services include end-to-end technology solutions, public and private clouds, software and hardware provisioning and broad array of associated services.

Softline’s 2019 turnover exceeded $1.54 Billion US dollars with sales growth 13.2% in the Group of Companies. Softline has offices in 50 countries and 95 cities worldwide. With more than 25 years of distinguished history we have managed to grow rapidly while consolidating technology expertise and a business model encompassing all emerging markets.

We serve over 60 000 Enterprise and SMB clients, both from private and public sectors. Over 1500 account managers, 1000 solution sales and technical presale professionals and 1000 engineers and technical specialists help our customers navigate through the ever-changing complex IT environment. We build long-term relationships with our clients, partners and employees.

Softline has partnerships with more than 3000 software and hardware manufacturers and has highest partner status with all our key partners. We provide a unique marketing and sales channel for our partners in all the markets where we operate. Softline is always customer centric and provides brand independent solutions which best serve customer’s needs.

For more information, please visit www.softline.com

Contacts:

Valeriya Aver

Head of International Public Relations Department in Softline

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The European Union’s 2019 RAPEX Annual Report shows that there is a continued focus by market surveillance authorities on toys and children’s products.

Published on July 7, 2020, the latest results from the Rapid Alert System for dangerous non-food products (RAPEX) show that toys account for 29% of notified products, with motor vehicles in second place at 23%. Clothing, textiles, and fashion items are in third place with 8% of notifications, but it should be noted that children’s cloths and shoes are often the notified product. In 2019, toys also accounted for 7% of follow-up notices, a clear demonstration of Member State’s determination to protect children from dangerous products.

Since 2012, the annual reports show a general stabilization in the number of alerts. In 2019, a total of 2, 243 notifications for unsafe products were made. There was, however, an increase in the number of follow-up actions – from 4,050 to 4,477. 80% of these related to motor vehicles.

The annual report also shows that injury is the most notified risk, which again relates to a number of motor vehicle alerts and children’s clothes and toys. The second most notified risk was chemical (23%). These are mainly associated with certain toys, jewelry, and clothes.

When looking at risk in toys, we see 47% relate to chemicals – often the presence of phthalates in plastic dolls and boron in slime toys. In 2019, there was also a large number of toys found to be dangerous because they contained button batteries that were easily accessible and could be swallowed.

The report also notes that 16% of RAPEX alerts in 2019 related to dangerous products that were sold online.  Internet sales are one of several areas that are receiving attention.

The EU Commission has also stated in its report that it is helping market surveillance authorities to work together on joint tests for specific projects – Coordinated Activities on the Safety of Products (CASP). The products that have been focused on so far are:

• 2019 – soft-filled toys, slime toys, personal transporters, children’s bicycle seats, batteries, and chargers
• 2020 – toys, jewelry, home play outdoor equipment, cables, small kitchen heating appliances, baby nests and children's car seats

In addition, COVID-19 related products (masks, gloves, hand sanitizers) will also be analyzed in 2020.

The products chosen for CASP are a clear indication that children’s products remain a key focus of EU market surveillance authorities.

SGS Product Recalls

SGS is committed to providing stakeholders with the latest news concerning product recalls from around the world. SGS sends a list of the latest unsafe product notifications in Europe, the US, Canada and Australia every week on the Product Recalls online platform. EU and US statistics are also published quarterly on Product Recall Trends. This information is also distributed with the SafeGuards. To learn more about SGS Product Recalls.

SGS SafeGuardS keep you up to date with the latest news and developments in the consumer goods industry. Read the full European RAPEX 2019 Annual Report: Focus on Children’s Safety SafeGuardS. 

Subscribe here to receive SGS SafeGuardS direct to your inbox.

For further information contact:

Frederique Lorber

Knowledge Management – Senior Project Manager

Tel: +33 4 42 61 64 42

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Website: www.sgs.com/cgnr

LinkedIn: sgs-consumer-goods-&-retail

About SGS

SGS is the world’s leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. SGS is recognized as the global benchmark for quality and integrity. With more than 89,000 employees, SGS operates a network of over 2,600 offices and laboratories around the world.