Transpharmation Magazine - Issue 4 by Robert Sztar

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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JANUARY 2016

Issue 4 | Transpharmation Magazine

TRANSPHARMATION BOOK W E ’ R E C E L E B R AT I N G O U R 1 S T A N N I V E R S A R Y

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Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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CONTENTS Transp harmation Magazine | Issu e 4

04 05 06

About Transpharmation From the Editor How can I improve my Operational Efficiency? m

MY MONEY FEATURING MATTHEW MICHALEWICZ

MY PHARMACY FEATURING HOA & NAM PHAM

Your Pharmacy-IT dream team

MY TEAM FEATURING MICHAEL HAZILIAS

Life is short. Set goals

Technology in Pharmacy - it’s a game changer, are you ready to play?

How can I create a Patient Centric Business Model?

MY PATIENTS FEATURING IVEN FRANGI

When was the last time you wowed a customer?

AUSTRALIA’S FIRST PHARMACY & TECHNOLOGY PUBLICATION www.transpharmationmagazine.com.au

CONTACT Editor: Robert Sztar rsztar@pharmactive.com.au Advertising Enquiries: magazine@pharmactive.com.au

INNOVATION FEATURING CATHIE REID i

The Transpharmation Magazine is published 4 times

Next Level Systems

each year by Pharmactive Pty Ltd

MY PARTNERS FEATURING SUE MULLER

When it comes to recruitment, go high touch not high-tech

whole or in part is not permitted without the written

Magazine material is copyright. Reproduction in permission of the publisher.

How can I leverage Smart Technology in my business?

IT SYSTEMS FEATURING ISSAC ELNEKAVE

The Connected Pharmacy is coming. Are you still playing catch-up?

Pharmactive Pty Ltd

m MOBILITY FEATURING JON HOLLENBERG

Founder & Chief Transpharmation Officer:

Robert Sztar

Website 101

a AUTOMATION FEATURING LINDA MILLER

23 Milton Parade, Malvern VIC 3144

1300 798 995

Making Change Management Easy

www.pharmactive.com.au

5 Prescriptions For A Stress Free Holiday

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ACN: 107 301 262

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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Issue 4 | Transpharmation Magazine

WHAT IS TRANSPHARMATION MAGAZINE? It is a multimedia e-magazine designed to provide pharmacy owners like you with easy to follow and accessible educational resources to help you understand the functions and applications of the latest technology. It is the only e-magazine of its kind created by a pharmacist for pharmacists. Transpharmation demystifies the evolving landscape of technology that will help you increase profits, design remarkable patient

experiences, and scale your business to its infinite potential. In each issue, you will discover and receive bite sized strategic insights that you can use to maximise your biggest opportunities in 9 critical areas that are pivotal to a sustainable and thriving 21st century pharmacy: Your Money, Your Pharmacy Operations, Your Team, Your Patients, Your Partners, Innovation, IT Systems, Mobility, and Automation.

HOW DO I BEST NAVIGATE THE E-MAGAZINE? Your best place to start is the ‘Contents’ page, click HERE to go there now, you can click on each of the sections, and you will be auto-magically transported

Each of the 9 sections include a summary article, and in most cases an extended interview which you can listen and expand your education. We aim to constantly review and optimise our best practices to ensure that you feel confident that you have the tools to help you re-connect with your passion for primary healthcare and design your lifestyle both in and out of the pharmacy.

to that area of the publication. You will also notice a ‘BACK TO CONTENTS PAGE’ button at the foot of each page, which will return you to the contents page.

HOW DO I KNOW WHICH AREA’S I SHOULD FOCUS ON?

You will notice this Icon at the top of each article which if you click on it will take you to the ‘Pharmacy Freedom Index’ which is a 7-10

minute FREE diagnostic test that will help you discover your area’s of opportunity. The short video below will tell you a little more.

WHY YOU SHOULD TAKE THE PHARMACY FREEDOM INDEX? Simply click on the image to watch instantly.

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Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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“

FROM THE EDITOR As w e b eg i n a n e w y ea r a n d a n e w ch a p te r i n o u r co l l ec t i v e j o u r n e y s a c ro s s t h e e v e r - ch a n g i n g co m m u n i t y p h a r m a c y l a n d s ca p e , It i s es s e n t i a l t h a t w e ta ke t i m e to a c t i v el y re v i e w 2 0 15 , a n d p l a n to ta ke o u rs el v es a n d o u r b u s i n es s es to a n e w l e v el i n 2 0 16 .

e live in a time where

achieved before may be more realistic. But,

experience that your customer’s can’t get

innovative change is

as Einstein famously said “We cannot solve

anywhere else, to taking you through the

around us, and upon us

our problems with the same thinking we

key elements of building a high-performing

whether we choose it

used when we created them”, and If you

pharmacy website.

or not, but what we can choose is to let

have area’s of your life or your business that

It influence us and create problems or

you’d like to improve then inherently you

Let 2016 be remembered as the year you

influence the change ourselves and create

must plan to move to the next level.

opportunities.

It is shown that, 80% of New Year

ongoing commitment to innovation as a

When you look back on 2016 in 12 months,

resolutions get abandoned, and may even

method of gaining certainty of your success

what achievements will you be most proud

be re-set year-in-year out without ever

and prosperity.

of? what will your pharmacy and your life

being seen through to completion. So

look like? What problems will have melted

If we just hope to transform our life and

At Pharmactive, from the beginning we’ve

away?

our business, without learning how to set

January is always my favourite month

effective goals first, we are destined to fail.

of the year, not just because I celebrate

In Transpharmation Issue 4, you will

more successful pharmacy before it’s

my birthday this month, but In an ever-

be inspired by the author of ‘Life in

too late. In 2016, I simply cannot wait to

increasingly fast-paced world It provides a

Half a Second’ and creator of multiple

share with you our latest innovations and

unique opportunity to refresh, review, and

multi-million dollar companies Matthew

discoveries, kicking off with the launch of

commit to goals that will stretch me, and

Michalewicz who will share with you

our ‘Transpharmation’ Lab in May, which

take me outside my comfort zone. Now

his evidence-based formula for setting

will serve as a living, breathing community

you may be thinking that the idea of setting

effective goals and achieving success.

pharmacy where you can see technology

big, hairy, audacious goals sounds too

Our panel of experts have you covered

and pharmacy innovation thrive in

uncomfortable, and that goals that you’ve

from designing a remarkable in-store

partnership.

took ownership over your pharmacy’s destiny, and sought to grow through an

pledged to serve you and our industry in testing and discovering innovative technologies to help you build a smarter,

CHECK OUT MY SHORT VIDEO Simply click on the image and be directed to the video URL

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Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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are you tuning into the weekly transpharmation show?

ever miss an episode by subscribing on itunes, soundcloud or by visiting transpharmationshow.com.au

no matter what size, format, or age your pharmacy is,

there is an episode waiting for you 6 |

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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My Money | How can I improve my Operational Efficiency?

How do I rate for My Money? Click here to find out!

LIFE IS SHORT. SET GOALS.

MY MONEY

Matthew Michalewicz (www.Michalewicz.com.au) is an international expert in entrepreneurship, innovation, and success psychology. We spoke to him about his latest book Life in Half a Second where he presents five doors you must walk through to achieve success in your career, business, or personal life. R ROBERT: We’ll all be making some resolutions on New Year’s Day. Setting goals is such a simple thing to do so why is it so hard to see them through to completion? M MATTHEW : The statistics are sobering: around 80% of New Year resolutions are abandoned. People set a specific goal for the year ahead, quit smoking or get in shape or start a business or change careers, whatever it might be. And not only do they not achieve the goal, 4 out of 5 of people abandon the whole idea well before the year is out. I found that people make three common mistakes. Number one they set the

wrong goals. They’re wowed by a flashy object, whether it’s a new diet pill, new diet routine, the allure of working less but and making more money, whatever their dream might be. Their goals aren’t thought through. They don’t align to their values, their real-life situation or what they really want out of life. The second mistake is setting an imprecise, indefinite goal. It’s kind of like, “I want to be rich this year, I want to be healthier, I want to get in

shape.” So, there are no specifics around it where you can measure the outcome, or measure your progress towards it or even know when you’ve achieved it. And the third mistake is there’s no mechanism for people to hold themselves accountable. So, they don’t tell anyone their goals. They might even forget about them themselves. So, those are the predominant drivers of why goal setting fails, and the majority of goals fail for these reasons.

R ROBERT: So goal setting is a good impulse we all have. But how can we make our goals more effective? M MATTHEW : Goal setting can be extremely effective if you set the right goals. In the book I develop the idea of five doors to success but here’s a summary. First of all align them to your particular interests or passions, whatever is really deep down inside the things you want to do. Test the goal against really what’s in your heart. Second make them very specific for the year ahead. “I want to increase my profit 20%” or

“I want to lose 10 kilos” or “I want to change from X career path to Y career path.” Third you need to make yourself accountable and the easiest way is to just tell everyone about your goals, publicly broadcast it to everyone: “This is what I’m trying to achieve this year.” You’ll find your commitment is so much greater because people will ask you, “How are you going?” My fourth door is to surround yourself with people that

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LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW Back to Contents Page

have achieved similar goals to yours. So, if you want to lose 20 kilos, spend time with people that have done that. If you want to set up your own business, spend time with entrepreneurs. You want to become wealthy, spend time with people that have rags-to-riches stories. Find out how they did it. The fifth and final door is to educate yourself on exactly what you need to do to achieve your goal. And take the first practical step.

with Matthew Michalewicz Simply click on the speaker icon.

IN HALF A SECOND

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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My Money | How can I improve my Operational Efficiency?

R ROBERT: Pharmacies are feeling the force of downward pressure on prices and it’s very easy to stick with what you know and not extend yourself. How can goals help business owners get out of that change-averse mindset? M MATTHEW : With a victim mindset, goals are incremental and nonsensical. Every industry is experiencing what you’ve described: financial services, manufacturing, mining, oil, everyone’s experiencing pressure whether it’s competitive pressures, currency issues, demand fluctuations, drop in consumer confidence, regulatory changes. In these circumstances it’s very easy to get into a victim mindset, “I’m a victim, there’s all these macro forces that I can’t control,” and so on. But once you have that kind of mindset, you’re dead in the water. So, you have to change it to an opportunity mindset. Look around, see other sectors

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Click Here for Free Access to the Full Masterclass and Resources’ competitive? Ask yourself how you can re-engineer your revenue model and set goals around that.

R ROBERT: Realistically in business things change all the time. Should we make our goals flexible to cope with that? M MATTHEW : Well, it’s not realistic in a business environment to expect goals to be cemented for all eternity. Circumstances change, you gather more information as you execute within a business, and some strategies have unexpected results. There are also sudden changes that surprise you and

uncompetitive actions that come out of the blue. So, you have to be flexible and agile in the way you execute, and that might mean changing some of the goals and some of even the tactics that you’re using to achieve the goals. But ultimately you should have a clear direction, path, objective all around what you want to

achieve. So, even though some of the goals might change and some of the tactics might change and so forth, you have a general direction and a general vision of where you want to take the enterprise and where you want to be at some point in the future. That shouldn’t be blowing in the wind.

R ROBERT: Tell us about the goal pyramid. How we can use that to unpack and visualise our goals and make them seem more achievable? M MATTHEW : Well, one of the reasons people give up on goals is because there’s too much distance between their current situation and the goal they’re trying to achieve. So, if you haven’t started a business at all, you’re at square zero, you’re thinking about starting a business, you have nothing operational, and your goal is to have a business that’s turning over one million a year or two million a year, there’s a pretty significant gap from where you are to where you want to be. And because of that gap, people can get discouraged and demoralised, and eventually they give up. It’s too hard. It’s too far. It seems, 8 |

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

after a while, not achievable. Research has shown that if you, what they call unpack your goals or just turn them into baby steps, where you identify

be incorporating. Another step might be developing a website and online presence. Another step might be getting some physical locations.

the small steps or incremental moves that you need to make to get to the goal, all of sudden it builds a bridge between your current situation and the goal. The distance doesn’t seem as great. So, instead of just having a goal of creating a company that’s going to turn over a million a year, you might break that down into steps. One step might be market research. Another step might be writing a business plan. Another step might

So, you could identify 10 or 12 steps that are needed to achieve the ultimate goal that you want, getting your first customers, whatever the case might be. Put them all in a one-page plan. Readers can go to robertsztar.com/lifeinhalfasecond where there’s a whole load of walkthrough resources on this. Back to Contents Page

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Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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My Pharmacy | How can I improve my Operational Efficiency?

How do I rate for My Pharmacy? Click here to find out!

YOUR PHARMACY-IT DREAM TEAM I N T E RV I E W W I T H H O A & NAM PHAM, FOUNDERS Z S O F T WA R E

Nam Pham

HOA YOU ARE A PHARMACIST, AND NAM YOU ARE AN IT ENGINEER. WHAT WERE LOOKING TO ACHIEVE IN PHARMACY TECHNOLOGY AND WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS INDUSTRY? Hoa: Yes I started off in community

our pharmacies.

pharmacy about 15 years ago and I realised there was a technology gap in the industry.

Nam: I had been working in financial IT for years when I heard Hoa having a little bit of a whinge about the software he was using.

The pharmacy software that was around then was pretty old and hadn’t changed for years, certainly compared to other industries. So I felt there was a real opportunity for someone to bring a little modern technology into

So we spent some time looking over a few systems available to pharmacists and I realised the industry was way behind. So we just decided to see if we could build something better.

Hoa Pham

SO YOU BUILT DISPENSE IT. THEN YOU MADE A NEW START WITH IT AT Z SOFTWARE. IN THAT TRANSITION, WHAT IMPROVEMENTS DID YOU MAKE? Hoa: Dispense IT was obviously a dispense-only software programme. When we built our own point of sale system, we completely integrated dispensing with sales. We re-branded slightly but the underlying Dispense IT system has stayed the same. We made some key updates we’d been itching to do, sped up a few areas up and added a few more integrations.

PHARMACY WAS ONE OF THE FIRST INDUSTRIES TO BECOME COMPUTERISED BACK IN THE LATE ‘80S BUT SINCE THEN THE INDUSTRY HASN’T REALLY EVOLVED MUCH. BUT WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS? Hoa: I think we have been a little complacent. We’re in an industry that’s been relatively protected in the past, so we got comfortable. It’s different now but there’s still this slightly change-averse conservative attitude “Okay, if it’s not

broken, it’s still making me money, why would I need to change it?” Until now pharmacists haven’t realised they were getting left behind and incurring costs because of it, let alone missing revenue opportunities.

But the economy and the advance of technology in other areas of life have given our industry a bit of a shake-up. Pharmacy is starting to look to technology for solutions.

HOA YOU ARE A PHARMACIST, AND NAM YOU ARE AN IT ENGINEER. WHAT WERE YOU LOOKING TO ACHIEVE IN PHARMACY AND TECHNOLOGY AND WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS INDUSTRY? Nam: We can make our data more customer-focussed. What we found lacking in the older systems was the ability to drill into the data and find out more information about customers. Not only seeing which products sell best but trying to figure out who’s buying them, who am I selling to? How can I make them buy more? How can I get them back in store? Those are the kinds of questions other industries focus their systems on and I think pharmacists want

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Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

customer information to be a big focal point too.

Hoa: It’s both the collection of data, and the ability to query it and get information out quickly and efficiently that’s vital. We’ve tried to address this in our software by giving customers tools for isolating and filtering the right data as well as querying it and producing the insights you want. I think traditionally, pharmacy saw data as something other people might use better than us:

government, PBS expenditure, how we should be remunerated, and statistics around clinical interventions. Or at best we’ve been using data to see how much it costs us to run our pharmacies and how much we’re giving away. With our software we’re showing people answers to questions like: Is my latest investment actually bringing people back on a more frequent basis? Is our basket size getting bigger? Are our customers having a better, more targeted experience?”

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MANY PHARMACY OWNERS WOULD ADMIT THEY HAVE LIMITED EXPERTISE WITH TECHNOLOGY IN THEIR BUSINESS? WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THEM? Hoa: Well give it a try! We’ve got a really smart intuitive interface, very Windows friendly, so a few easy mouse-clicks to navigate really quickly around, even when you’re with a customer. You can choose your filters and pull up as much detail as you like. For example, you can see what kind of medical conditions the customer has, all their medications, what they’ve purchased, what they haven’t purchased. You can get a list of all your customers, email them or generate a personalised letter. We also have trainers who go out to clients; we always make sure they’ve had pharmacy-specific

experience which really makes for tailored and effective training.

Nam: On the software side, we try to make the system as configurable as possible so clients can easily mould it in a way that will mimic what they are used to. There’s a whole host of functionality they can choose to use or choose to ignore. So if they want to use things like sick codes they can. Other clients have their own quirks and preferences so they’ll use what they need. Some features get used more than others. Some clients might use all the features, some only one or two to start with.

GETTING A NEW POS CAN BE THE BRIGHTEST DAY IN THE PHARMACY; IT CAN ALSO BE THE DARKEST DAY. HOW HAVE YOU LOOKED AT THAT MAKING THE TRANSITION MORE SEAMLESS?

MY PHARMACY

Hoa: In general the big thing we focus on at transition is converting the POS and dispensing data accurately: all the pricing, all the stock, all the customers, all their accounts. Miss something and it can be a dark day. We’ve spent a long time making sure data transfer is reliable and accurate. I’ve actually been through a couple of

software changes in my pharmacy and I found that the biggest headache was putting through all my repeats. As you know, most of your business comes from your repeat forms, scan, scan, scan. We made it a priority to carefully transfer the repeat numbers so from day one we could still scan old repeats.

WE’VE SEEN A LOT OF THIRD PARTIES POP UP OFFERING ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONALITY BUT DO THESE ADD-ONS ALWAYS INTEGRATE EFFECTIVELY? Nam: In principle we can link to anything. So far the add-ons have been a bit of a mixed bag: some of the integrations with other third parties have been great, some haven’t been as great. I guess it all depends on what

they offer, what they’re proposing to solve and how they propose to solve it. If we find the integration’s not great with a third party, but customers want the functionality, we’ll bring it in-house and do it ourselves. The more of these

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intermediary things you run the more chance that things are going to break down. Our aim is always to try to obviate the need for as many of those things as possible. Less integration, less chance of error.

with Hoa and Nam Pham Simply click on the speaker icon.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW Back to Contents Page

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s predicted that nearly 9000 jobs will need to be cut in pharmacy this year.

Cutting staff will boost short-term profits, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not the best long-term approach. View our whitepaper for tips on reducing costs whilst retaining the staff you have invested in. GET THE WHITE PAPER

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www.easyemployer.com

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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My Team | How can I improve my Operational Efficiency?

How do I rate for My Team? Click here to find out!

TECHNOLOGY IN PHARMACY, IT’S A GAME CHANGER, ARE YOU READY TO PLAY? USE OF TECHNOLOGY WITHIN PHARMACY IS QUITE PREVALENT WITHIN SOME KEY BUSINESS AREAS – WHEREAS OTHERS ARE SORELY LAGGING BEHIND. ONE OF THOSE AREAS IS WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT.

iven that a workforce is one of the most important and costly assets a business has – and one of the most difficult to harness – it makes good sense to look to the latest technology to streamline and automate the frustrating, error prone and time consuming task of

managing staff. Having been in the IT, software and staff management game for over 10 years - many of those years spent catering specifically to the pharmacy sector - I have seen the amazing results that staff management technology can bring to a business. Technology is a game changer

but implementing the latest technology comes with many doubts and concerns – even for an industry like pharmacy which would be considered quite tech savvy. I’ve answered some of the most common questions I get asked about implementing the latest technology to manage staff and labour costs.

DO I REALLY NEED TO LOOK AT IMPLEMENTING TECHNOLOGY INTO MY BUSINESS TO MANAGE MY STAFF? Being able to efficiency handle a more flexible workforce will mean your pharmacy is better able to cater to the ebbs and flows of demand throughout your store, on a daily basis. Your pharmacy relies on taking advantage of sales opportunities so the key is to ensure that you have the right staff at the right place at the right time, and the right number of them. Not enough staff scheduled causes your pharmacy to miss valuable sales opportunities, whereas over scheduling results in a blow out of wages and ultimately loss of profitability. The future of workforce management is all about fluidity – scheduling based on requirements which are predicted by data mining past metrics such as customer counts (not just numbers but where in the store they go), script counts, sales transactions, and to some extent gross profit and professional service bookings. Using past data as a prediction, ‘expected demands’ can be forecast and a roster can be fully Back to Contents Page

optimised - right down to 15 minute increments. Sophisticated scheduling software is required to achieve this goal. Being able to utilise technology to track past behaviour and predict

future behaviour and having a rostering system that can either generate and/ or use that data to schedule staff is vital if a pharmacy is to capture sales and efficiently utilise labour costs.

easyEMPLOYER is currently offering a FREE workforce management health check for pharmacies valued at $1495. It’s a great opportunity to get an assessment of the way you currently manage your staff and how it can be done better.

CHECK IT OUT www.easyemployer.com

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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My Team | How can I improve my Operational Efficiency?

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS AND PITFALLS OF CONSIDERING TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS FOR MANAGING MY PHARMACY WORKFORCE? There are many benefits of a high tech workforce management solution – as long as you make sure it’s the right one for you and your business and it’s implemented effectively. Some of the benefits you could expect to experience include: • Saving a considerable amount of time spent on staff administration - typically between 50-90% time saving depending on current processes and systems. • Efficiencies with regards to labour scheduling which will ultimately reduce labour costs. This is typically in the range of 2-8% of annual payroll, depending on what processes and systems are in place now. • Reduction of business risk and increase of business value through process streamlining and automation. • Increased industry and payroll accuracy and compliance, reducing the concern around the error prone nature of these areas. • Provision of greater understanding and visibility of labour costs across the organisation, allowing the business to better analyse labour for trends, insights and assist with future planning. In terms of pitfalls there are few issues to be on the lookout for when you are choosing and implementing staff

MY TEAM

management technology. Some of these include: • Poor solution fit. This is where the solution chosen isn’t a good fit for the business, either in terms of the underlying solution scope, or the features themselves (or lack thereof). This occurs often and it’s usually a result of either a poor choice at the sales stage or the provider not finding out enough about the client before a solution is created and/or implemented. There are often business intricacies that are missed by both the provider and the client and are not apparent until after a solution is implemented – this is especially the case if the provider is not able to ask the right questions to thoroughly assess the business requirements of the client. • Outdated solutions using old technologies. Choosing a solution based on old technology that won’t suit the requirements of the users, the future direction of the business, or keep up with technology platforms in general. Case in point here will be outdated desktop/ server technology or products that claim to be ‘cloud’ but are in fact just remote based software. Solutions like these out date quickly and require reinvestment a lot sooner than solutions build on modern, innovative technology.

• Inadequate implementation and support services. We see this often. Products are not backed by in-depth experience and tailored services, either for implementation or ongoing support. It doesn’t end once you buy the solution – you need support after your purchase. Implementation, training, ongoing support, evaluations… it’s vital that it’s all done right or your solution will not be effective. • Insufficient client resources for project delivery. Often the client organisation does not have the right staffing resources in order to support a successful project, ultimately hurting the desired outcomes of the implementation. When this occurs it’s crucial that the provider be willing and able to assist on the understanding that the client is busy running their business. If the provider does not, or is not able to, step up to provide adequate assistance to the client the implementation will fail.

I’M GOING TO HAVE TO SPEND SOME MONEY IMPLEMENTING STAFF MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY… WHAT FINANCIAL BENEFITS WILL I GET AS A RESULT? When chosen and implemented correctly, smart and powerful workforce management solutions can bring significant efficiency gains and labour cost savings to your business. Some of the quantifiable outcomes that can be achieved: •

Time savings of up to 90% for

administration and management staff. •

Labour cost savings of 2-8% through

efficient scheduling, eliminating time creep and reducing processing overheads. •

Increased revenue through

maximising sales opportunities in store by adequate / skilled staffing. 14 |

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

• Higher net profit as a combination of revenue growth and labour cost reduction. I’m sure you still have questions – there’s a lot more to cover, especially if you want to find the best solution for your pharmacy. If you want to find out more about staff management software, or what such a solution can do for your pharmacy then contact my team at www.easyemployer. com and they’ll talk you through the process. If you’d like to have my team look at your current staff management processes and suggest areas for improvement then be sure to get your free Workforce Management Health Check – it’s usually

valued at $1495 but we are offering it for Transpharmation readers as a complimentary service. Go to www.easyemployer.com/healthcheck to register your interest.

Finally, I’d encourage all pharmacy owners/managers to think of technology as an investment and as such the risks/costs/ change required to implement it needs to be embraced – it’s short term pain for a long term gain. If you don’t innovate with technology, others will, and you will fall behind and threaten your sustainability in a landscape that is rapidly changing and becoming more and more competitive. Back to Contents Page

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My Patients | How can I create a Patient Centric Business Model?

How do I rate for My Patients? Click here to find out!

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WOWED A CUSTOMER? Taking us outside our industry for a moment, Customer Experience specialist Iven Frangi says the best-in-class brands are creating magical moments that keep customers coming back for more. And pharmacists can do it too.

hat are the biggest, brightest, most delightful brands in the world? Apple? Disney? What about your favourite hotel? Or that little restaurant in your neighbourhood you keep raving about? These are all places you can’t wait to walk into, places you’ll keep going back to time and again, even if it’s for pretty much the same experience you got last time – in fact because it’s the same experience you got last time. So what do these retailers all have in common? Clever, consistent, customer-driven experience design.

MY PATIENTS ENJOY YOUR DINNER Let’s start with hospitality. Restaurants make a great point of study for customer experience because they’re all about that premium relationship, which is exactly what you want with patients in your pharmacies. Restaurants wouldn’t survive if they weren’t able to nurture customers. Next time you go out for dinner just look at the similarities between a waiter taking your order (script in) going into the kitchen (the dispensary) and coming

back with the food you ordered (dispensing) the time that the staff take to cater to your needs (preparation). If like a great restaurant, you can make this simple process into a remarkable experience, you will create magical moments that engage customers emotionally, driving loyalty, making price irrelevant and forging the best competitive advantage you could ever have.

NOT BY ACCIDENT Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that great customer experience just falls into place effortlessly. Just because it feels natural and effortless, that doesn’t mean it is. There’s a specific plan behind the entire food service offering: the layout, décor, lighting, staff, words of welcome, the seats, the timing, the ingredients… a million little

elements meticulously gauged and timed to create a fantastic experience. I call it choreography. Observe the choreography in any Apple store. It’s all designed to create that unique experience: the front section is the touch and play section. The middle section that they have towards the back is the learning section. And then at

the very back is their Genius Bar. Apple is saying we want you to really experience our product and enjoy it. Customers can play and stay. Compare that with JB Hi-Fi: if you want to try products in a JB store, you have to ask somebody. So people walk up to a JB computer, try to play with it, it doesn’t work, so they walk away.

the markets. Every shop I went into, if I stayed long enough and showed any kind of interest, they handed me a cup of black tea. Here’s why: you have to wait for it to cool down and so you immediately have browsing time. And one of the things that we know from research is that when people walk around, they find things to buy. Plus, you’ve introduced

something called the ‘lure of psychological reciprocity’: “I’ve done something nice for you. You’re going to do something nice for me.” That’s why Apple employees never ask you to buy. Instead they make it their mission to be helpful and in doing so, create the ‘lure of psychological reciprocity’.

BE MORE STICKY Is your pharmacy sticky enough? Have you even taken a script from a patient and said “Oh, that will be five to 10 minutes, why don’t you go for a walk and come back?” Are you crazy?! You’ve got people who are in your store and you’re sending them somewhere else to do some shopping? That’s the opposite of sticky! I was recently in old Cairo doing some touring around 16 |

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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EXPERIENCE ALL WRAPPED UP It doesn’t have to be a coffee machine in your pharmacy (but why not..) it could be something else sticky. Scargo is a US cafe restaurant chain in America. Every Christmas they offer a free wrapping service: you bring all your presents in and

while you’re having lunch, they wrap them for you. So they set aside a table space, and they have a couple of teenagers come in and wrap things. Pharmacies have gifts. Why not offer a free gift-wrapping service? All those people collecting scripts for ill

friends or family members… let them pick up a little get well soon gift and get it wrapped while they wait. You’d have to run the economics of it obviously but you might just find it adds up to a whole lot more footfall and revenue.

sandwiched into the corner because the merchandise only allows certain people to line up at the register. This is where a great blend of layout planning and automation technology can make all the difference: not having to run to the back of the store to find out if something’s in stock, not having to run away to go and

get a receipt or to get change. Apple stores work seamlessly, like their products. In the pharmacy industry, we often refer to Chemist Warehouse as the JB Hi-Fi of our industry. That frenetic chaotic vibe seems to work for them. There isn’t an Apple in our industry at the moment. Could it be you?

GOOD EXPERIENCES JUST FLOW The level of calmness in even the busiest Apple store is phenomenal. You walk into the front of the store and everything is visible. No corners, you can’t get stuck. Again it’s choreography, workflow and layout. Whenever I’ve seen a busy JB Hi-Fi, it never looks calm, it just looks like people are rushing everywhere getting

DESIGN YOUR EXPERIENCE DELIBERATELY

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Don’t just have a good experience just ‘happen’ (because you have Sally in today, who happens to deliver good customer experience). Find the measurable, replicable behavioural factors that good people use when they’re delivering great experiences and build them into your training, your, your technology and your processes. Choreograph experience and have it happen on purpose rather than by accident. So if Sally isn’t in today, no matter: it’s a different face, it’s a different customer, but the customer experience is the same.

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START BY REMOVING NEGATIVE EXPERIENCES Think about how you can design customer experiences where and remove some of the barriers that have created negative experiences in the past? That might be the high-dispensing counters, the way the pharmacist is hidden away at the back or an inefficient flow of prescriptions through

from scripts to data processing. The most magical moment we could ever create for our patients is when we make them feel like whenever it is that they decide to do business with us, is that we make them feel like we only ever had one job that day, and that was to look after them.

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Walt Disney said, “I wanna do something that is so good and create experiences that are so wonderful that people will want to come back and do them again, but when they come back, they’ll bring somebody else. And everybody pays.” I like that.

with Iven Frangi Simply click on the speaker icon.

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Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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Issue 4 | Transpharmation Magazine

THE 4 KEYS YOU NEED TO KEEP YOUR PHARMACY DOORS OPEN IN 2030

I N OV E R 1 0 0 AU ST R A L I A N P H A R M AC I E S , T H E AV E R AG E S C O R E F O R I N N OVAT I O N I S O N LY 46 % , W H AT I S YO U R S C O R E ? CLICK HERE

with Morris Miselowski, Business Futurist

THE FUTURE IS NOT SOME MYTHICAL SPOT ON THE HORIZON, MARKED X. IT’S HERE. RIGHT WHERE WE’RE STANDING. THERE’S NO INVENTION, VISION OR GRAND INSIGHT WE NEED BEFORE WE CAN KICK IT OFF AND GRAB IT BY THE HORNS. TODAY’S THE DAY. LET’S ROLL. Automation is nothing new. It’s been

rebuild their identities.

changing our lives for a couple

Well, pharmacy owners, it’s your turn. If you were sitting there wondering whether anyone can have much of a future in a profession with dwindling sales, stagnating salaries and robots round every corner, you should know that the opportunities for pharmacists are astounding. But only if you start playing a bigger game and only if you start now.

of hundred years now, since the Industrial Revolution in fact. By and large, automation has made life better, easier, faster, healthier and more fun. But when you look back, it’s a pretty traumatic thing for humans: whole industries have disappeared; new industries have been conjured out of thin air. It’s made thousands of human skills, trades and livelihoods utterly redundant. People have had to reinvent their professions and

YOU CAN create a better future for you and your pharmacy today by thinking and planning for 2030.

“WE CANNOT SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS WITH THE SAME THINKING WE USED WHEN WE CREATED THEM” - ALBERT EINSTEIN

18 |

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

INSTANT DOWNLOAD CLICK HERE! Back to Contents Page

Innovation | How can I create a Patient Centric Business Model? This article was originally published on cathiereid.com and has been re-published with the author’s permission.

INNOVATION How do I rate for Innovation? Click here to find out!

NEXT LEVEL SYSTEMS W I T H C AT H I E R E I D

ONE OF THE QUESTIONS WE’RE ALWAYS ASKING IN OUR BUSINESSES IS ‘WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO BE WORKING ON NOW TO BE PREPARED FOR FUTURE CHALLENGES?’ THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A FIVE YEAR PLAN ANYMORE, THE WORLD IS CHANGING AT A PACE FASTER THAN EVER PREVIOUSLY EXPERIENCED, AND AS A RESULT THE TASK OF FORWARD PLANNING HAS NEVER BEEN MORE DIFFICULT.

hat said, while we don’t know what we don’t know, we can look at the trends we are currently experiencing and expect that they will continue, with technology amplifying them to new and greater levels – or that’s the approach that we take anyway. We know that human capital is going to become increasingly scarce as a resource, and it’s important to use this precious commodity where it adds the most value. For us this means continuing to progress with automating all tasks where human execution doesn’t add any additional benefit, and ensuring that our people have access to the information they need, in a useable, accessible format, when and where they need it to allow them to deliver the best possible care to our patients. We’re increasing the use of mobile devices in daily work activities to facilitate this, and planning for this to continue to a point where much of the daily workload is conducted at the point of patient contact via mobile rather than the traditional fixed PC locations in the dispensary. That might sound logical and no different Back to Contents Page

to what we are all already doing in our personal lives – after all we all bank, shop, create and consume content on a daily basis via our mobile devices – but it still presents some significantly greater challenges in the healthcare workspace at this point.

healthcare service delivery had never been contemplated, and with the ‘act of dispensing’ still inextricably linked to an inked out section on a floor plan, there is still much work to be done here as we move beyond the traditional product supply role.

Many of the proprietary systems that drive healthcare operations are not mobile enabled, or if they are they are still a fair way from being mobile optimized, so it’s necessary to build or utilise bridging systems that push and pull the necessary data in and out.

The one inescapable trend that every healthcare provider needs to be thinking about is increasing the accessibility of health data to patients. Today’s patient has increasingly different needs and expectations, and if businesses are not preparing to deliver them information about their own health in a way that they can access anywhere, anytime, from any kind of device then they will undoubtedly get left behind those who are.

There are also important security issues that need to be addressed, with those same proprietary systems currently using server based installations, allowing them to be heavily protected behind firewalls and network infrastructure systems. Opening those up to mobile utilisation requires a new way of thinking, but fortunately the advances in containering security for mobile are helping to facilitate some of this. In addition, the legislation and guidelines governing pharmacy practice had their origin in times when this style of

This doesn’t mean having a website or a Facebook page – although those are important communication platforms, and if you haven’t already put those in place I’m not certain you’re going to buy into the rest of what I’m saying here – it means figuring out how you are going to present them with their own health information in a relevant, useable manner that allows them to actively participate in their own Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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Innovation | How can I create a Patient Centric Business Model?

healthcare planning and outcomes.

“As we move into the era of adaptive medicine, where known data is blended with what to date has been unknown, but is now able to be captured by wearables and sensors, partnering with our patients to understand their healthcare goals and needs has never been more important.”

As we move into the era of adaptive medicine, where known data is blended with what to date has been unknown, but is now able to be captured by wearables and sensors, partnering with our patients to understand their healthcare goals and needs has never been more important.

Numerous studies have shown that our patients are prepared to share information with us, so long as they feel that they are getting benefit as a result. If we can blend patient generated data, ideally collected passively with little or no effort required on their behalf, with the data that we already have around their medication information really powerful insights result. These can allow us to partner in disease state management at a level never previously possible, and this enables the

building of relationships that transcend price, location and many of the other challenges facing our industry.

Again, adopting this new thinking and turning it into reality is not without its challenges. As a country our e-health execution to date has been less than stellar. Time will tell as to whether the PCEHR will ever become a tool of value, but there is too much at stake for healthcare organisations to sit back and wait passively for the government to deliver a result. We’re increasingly seeing businesses build the tools they need to resolve the issues that are causing pain for their organisations and their patients, and this is a trend that I’m certain will continue. Clearly not every pharmacy operator will have either the ability or the desire to go out and build their own EHR,

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but their eyes should be wide open to the options that are presenting as others do just that. The pace of change in healthcare may still be glacial in comparison with that which some other industries are experiencing, but it’s vital that we don’t get lulled into a belief that it isn’t happening. The biggest business risk of all is to sit back and do nothing- information has never been more accessible, and the very fact that you’re reading this publication indicates that you’ve got an interest in knowing more.

Identify the things that are causing you and your patients the greatest pain, track down solutions, and implement them in manageable bite size chunks. Don’t overcomplicate it, but most importantly don’t wait any longer to get started.

with Cathie Reid Simply click on the speaker icon.

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My Partners | How can I create a Patient Centric Business Model?

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WHEN IT COMES TO RECRUITMENT, GO HIGH TOUCH NOT HIGH TECH IN AN INDUSTRY WHERE WE’RE ALWAYS TRYING TO MAKE THINGS QUICKER, FASTER, CHEAPER, SHOULD WE BE LOOKING FOR SHORTCUTS IN OUR HIRING PROCESS? SEASONED PHARMACY RECRUITER SUE MULLER, FOUNDER AND CEO OF LOCUMCO, SAYS NO. IN FACT SHE ADVISES SLOWING THE WHOLE HIRING PROCESS DOWN TO AVOID COSTLY MISTAKES.

SHOW A BIT OF CULTURE

You may not think your business has a strong specific culture, but it does. Most pharmacy owners can talk for hours about their script numbers, dispense software, roster, but when it comes to saying what makes their business unique or special, they struggle for words. I think the profession has been rushing around for so long, being everything to everyone, business owners have not had the chance to step back and think about things like brand, personality or culture. But believe me, those things have been bubbling away all by themselves and

opportunity for future growth for that matter) you need to be able to identify and articulate your culture. Basically you need to recruit people to match your style not cramp it. A new hire with the wrong attitude can put your whole well oiled dynamic out of whack and give the bottom-line a good old wobble. For example, are you all customerfocused, warm and fuzzy? Are you a super-organised, left-brain kind of

business? Is yours a creative culture where you throw new ideas in the mix every week? Do you have a passion and a niche for senior citizen customers? If you’re not sure you can clearly describe your culture, use a good recruitment consultant to help you – and it’s worth taking the extra time to do so. Not only does it act as a great filter for candidates who will self-select employers they feel are right for them (and not waste your time applying) but it will help you recognise the perfect candidate more quickly.

HIRE FOR ATTITUDE AND TRAIN FOR SKILL

You may think it’s cheaper and quicker to hire the first person that meets all your skill-based criteria, but it can actually cost you more time, more money and frustration. When you write a job ad or look through resumes, don’t just list the qualifications you’re looking for. It’s not simply a case of matching keywords and ticking boxes; there are so many more layers to a good hire of the right employee for your business. If the particular pharmacist doesn’t have 22 |

for effective recruitment (unlocking any

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

the skills but has an ideal personality for your business, you can teach the skills. But if someone has the skills but the wrong personality type, the chances of it working out happily ever after are minimal. Interviews are the time to dig for personalities. Ask plenty of open-ended questions and give them the opportunity to speak. You can also try psychometric testing to enhance your understanding of candidates. And it’s not always as simple

as mirroring the personalities already in your business; to create a strong wellrounded team you want to complement. Psychometric testing on your whole team might show that your pharmacy team already has a strong leaning towards leadership (everybody wants to be a Chief). Recruit another Chief and you’re going to be in trouble. So you might want to select someone who’s happy to be an Indian. Back to Contents Page

BE SUPER CLEAR ABOUT THE ROLE

A couple of years ago the market was flooded with candidates and pharma businesses would have 10 resumes landing on their dispensary bench every week. Lately those numbers seemed to have dried up. Unfortunately, I think some pharmacists are leaving the profession and going on to study medicine or dentistry because they’re disillusioned with it all. So it’s really important to clearly

led by award-winning young pharmacist

If you’re happy to offer training, make that a selling point to attract the best candidates – particularly among younger recruits. Consider the emerging concept

If your pharmacy is developing a niche,

Catherine Bronger, of a ‘pharmacistslash-something else’. This is where a pharmacist is also a specialist in a certain area such as diabetic education, naturopathy, asthma support and so on. let them become involved in skilling up, firstly to help you achieve your business goals, but also to offer career expansion.

RECRUITMENT DOES NOT END WITH A HIRE

Recruitment and tender loving care of a new hire in your business does not end when they turn up on day one. You need a pretty good induction program not only to ensure an easy transition but also to check we’ve made the right hire. Probation really is a trial and the sooner you find out if you’ve made a mistake the better. You shouldn’t need the full three months to be

show candidates exactly what the job will involve. If they’re going to spend most of their time in the dispensary, be honest. If you expect them to be out front with customers, tell them. You’re more likely to get someone who’ll stick around.

able to determine that. So stick around during probation, work with them, give advice and communicate with them. I think within the first week – certainly within the first month – you should have a very good understanding of whether that person is going to work out. If you get to three months it probably means that you haven’t been there enough.

CHOOSE HIGH TOUCH RECRUITMENT

Of course you can be fully committed to the recruitment process, while finding smarter ways of doing it. For example, we’ve developed a mobile app, a LiveChat video function on our website and a Facebook site that can make the whole process more efficient. But modern pharmacy is all about that connection with people and customers, so I think recruitment should be a much more vital strategic element of businesses. It’s very seductive to think that you can recruit somebody at no cost in one fell swoop via social media, but please resist. Finding good people is one area where you need to be ‘high touch’: take the time, talk to people, interact in person, use recruitment professionals to find and filter candidates, screen

After a successful probation, remain present. If you want a high performance environment don’t expect one to create and manage itself. Reviewing new recruits more frequently than just the standard annual performance review, set them a good level of expectation but give them enough freedom to innovate and grow the business in their own unique ways.

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yourself, or at worst, you hire the wrong

Otherwise, at best, you’re wasting

person in a rush and regret it for months

precious time doing the due diligence

to come.

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with Sue Muller Simply click on the speaker icon.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW Back to Contents Page

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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“Labour and maintenance represent 80% of the Total Cost of Ownership of IT Solutions.” IT system breakdown can hurt sales and customer satisfaction. Reduce this risk by outsourcing IT maintenance to a reputable and experienced IT provider. Service Level Agreements are a good way to proactively maintain IT infrastructure and reduce downtime.

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THE CONNECTED PHARMACY IS COMING. Are you still playing catch-up?

I.T SYSTEMS

Issac Elnekave is a serial entrepreneur and c o - f o u n d e r o f P h a r m a c y Te c h n o l o g y G r o u p . His mission is to monetise the problems facing pharmacists and says connected technology is the way to do it, but there’s some way to go.

hy is it that Australia’s biggest general commercial retailers have a strong connected health category but most pharmacies do not even stock a single connected device? How come Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi and Good Guys are shifting fitness

trackers and sleep trackers in record numbers but no one thinks of getting these things from their local pharmacy? It’s wrong. Patently wrong. We are playing catch up guys, big time. Pharmacists urgently need to understand what connected health devices can do for our business. It’s

called the Internet of Things and we need a strategy for it before we lose our claim on primary healthcare forever. As a business you have got to be able to meet or exceed your customers’ expectations and if your customers are travelling at the speed of light on technology and you’re not, well, you’ll be left behind.

WHAT IS THE INTERNET OF THINGS?

WHAT ARE CONNECTED HEALTHCARE DEVICES?

Simply put, this is the idea of a network of devices embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity, which enable them to collect and exchange data. It includes everything from cell phones, coffee makers, washing machines, headphones, lamps, wearable devices like fitness trackers, sleep trackers, blood pressure monitors – and almost anything else you can think of.

We haven’t traditionally held a lot of technology in our pharmacies from a consumer point of view. We have blood pressure monitors, but they’re typically not connected, so data is collected but not shared with anything or anyone. Probably the closest things that we have right now are our blood glucose monitors that we can plug into computers, but not really anything that’s dynamically communicates with the Internet.

Analysts at Gartner predict that by 2020 there will be billions of connected devices in the world, averaging around six per person – and that’s not including all the ones in our homes. Not all of them will be directly related to health or pharmacy, but all of them are related to the consumers’ drive into the technology sector. And all it means that pharmacists need to understand the connected world their customers will be living in. Back to Contents Page

If we gave a patient a connected blood pressure monitor for example the data on that monitor could be shared with their primary care team: their doctor, their hospital, their carer, their pharmacist. We’re not just talking about just the basic devices either: the Scout can take pulse oximetry measures, ECGs, core body temperature. In future we could be remotely monitoring chronic health conditions or even spot some serious acute ones.

BUT WHY IS IT SO BAD FOR RETAILERS TO SELL THESE DEVICES? It’s not. It’s just bad that pharmacists are not even active in the category. It’s our home territory. Connected health needs to be in pharmacy. Why? Because wearable monitors give consumers data they cannot fully interpret without healthcare professionals. They can’t go back to these retailers and find out, “What is the impact of this particular reading for my health?” People don’t go to Harvey Norman for medication or health advice. We go to our pharmacy. But if pharmacists don’t understand the connected

health products, then we will lose those customers. GPs aren’t really embracing that side of wearables – they should be, but they’re not. So it’s a big opportunity for pharmacists to do so. We could easily have patients walk into our pharmacies right now with a connected blood pressure monitor that they’ve bought somewhere else or a sleep tracker and say, “Look, I’m only sleeping six-and-a-half hours. Is that enough? What do I do about that?” People need some wisdom with their data. Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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I.T Systems | How can i leverage smart technology in my business?

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DON’T PEOPLE PREFER THEIR HEALTH DATA TO BE PRIVATE?

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I think we’ve crossed that bridge with financial services. We’ve freed ourselves from branch-based transactions to mobile transactions, and now we don’t even think twice about transferring money and logging into our bank accounts from anywhere. Health is going to have to cross that same bridge but it will happen – and soon. We’re up for it. For example, when was the last time you downloaded an app and actually read through the terms and conditions? We have reached that stage where we understand: OK there’s an app that I’m about to install, and the app requires certain information, and I’m prepared to share that information.

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WHEN DO PHARMACISTS NEED TO GET GOING ON THIS? Now. Today. With the baby boomer tsunami that’s heading our way there’s going to be a massive shortage of aged care beds. Connected home and health devices will play a huge role in enabling the elderly to stay in their own homes and remain connected to their health community and the community at large. We all want to grow old in our own homes

surrounded by our family and loved ones for as long as we possibly can. Connected devices facilitate that. My mom lives in LA and she’s ill. Her blood pressure drops when she forgets to drink. So if she had a simple device connected to a smart water bottle, I’d be able to tell, in Sydney, whether my mom’s hydrated or not. Start preparing yourself. Look around with a

view of “Can that product be connected? Will that product be connected?” and start to understand that connected health devices needs to be a category within your pharmacy. It doesn’t mean that we need to run out and start to develop algorithms and force consumers to connect and to share their data with us, just be ready.

BUT WHAT WOULD WE DO WITH PATIENTS’ DATA IF WE HAD IT? If we could receive and analyse data from connected health devices, we can create intervention points for the pharmacy. For example if we know that a consumer is trending towards a higher blood pressure than normal (for them), we can reach out and say, “Hey, are you taking your medication? And if so, well, maybe that

medication isn’t the right medication for you at the moment. Let’s come back in, go see your GP, come back to the pharmacy, and we can close that loop.” And so, the consumer isn’t watching their blood pressure in a silo and the pharmacy isn’t selling the blood pressure monitor on a silo either. Pharmacists can pull together

all the data in a simple dashboard: what medication a patient is on, when did they last take it, what is their blood pressure, temperature, oxygen levels? I’m talking about being able to combine all of that data into a 360-degree health view of a patient’s health.

OK SO JUST SUMMARISE IT ALL FOR ME ISSAC? I would love to see a connected health category in pharmacy. I would love for pharmacies to be able to see a dashboard of their customers’ health status. I would love for pharmacies to be able to actually predict the intervention points that are going to be needed to keep their customers healthy. And that is only going to

happen if we’re able to get the data back from the consumers and into the pharmacy. And to get that data the consumer needs to have connected products. So it starts with the connected health products, the connected mind frame, and it migrates to a data bridge between the consumer and their primary care team, including us, the

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pharmacy. We cannot be silos. Our future is connected. Ultimately it’s about re-establishing pharmacies as that central community hub we’ve been known as for centuries where customers come to us as first. Taking a role with connected devices can put us at the frontline again – where we belong.

with Isaac Elkenave Simply click on the speaker icon.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW 26 |

Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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Transpharmation Magazine / Issue 4

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Mobility | How can i leverage smart technology in my business?

How do I rate for Mobility? Click here to find out!

WEBSITE 101 IF YOU’RE WONDERING HOW TO BEST APPROACH YOUR FIRST WEBSITE, HERE’S A NON-TECHNICAL RUN-THROUGH OF THE BOXES YOU’LL NEED TO TICK FROM JON HOLLENBERG, OWNER - FIVE BY FIVE. IF YOU’VE GOT A WEBSITE, THIS COULD BE A GOOD TIME TO TAKE A QUICK LOOK UNDER THE HOOD, CHECK YOU’VE GOT THE BASICS COVERED.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO YOUR WEBSITE Why is it so important for every pharmacy to have a website? Why should even a small local community pharmacy take the time to set up at least a web page or two? Because these days, websites get you found. For any business, a website is the central hub of the entire online presence and that’s really where you want all your traffic to end up. Whether someone’s coming to you from a Google search, from Facebook or Twitter, or whether someone’s seen your offline advert or sign and looked for you on the Internet – your big destination, your big welcome sign, your smiling hello, is your website.

WEBSITES GET YOU FOUND You’ve probably taken a Yellow Pages ad before. But really, as a father of two toddlers I know what it feels like to desperately need a pharmacy – and fast. It’s 10:30 at night and you’ve got a screaming, unwell child and we’ve just run out of Infant Panadol or something. Do we run and get the Yellow Pages, flick through until we get to P, run down all the listings, choose one with a nice box ad? Nope. It’s 2015: we go to Google. Personally I grab my phone, search for a chemist in my suburb and keep going until I find someone open. From a really practical standpoint I only need the

MOBILITY opening hours, the address, maybe a map or directions. So having at least a basic website is a no-brainer even for a small pharmacy; you’ll have helped a dad in desperate need, a child in pain and your emergency Panadol customers could be your new long-term loyals.

WEBSITE GOALS ARE BUSINESS GOALS What you want people to do once they get to your website depends on the core goals of your business. Do you want to increase sales, store visits, customer satisfaction? Do you want to establish yourself as a specialist in a particular medical field or condition? Do you want to be known as the friendliest pharmacy around? Will you take orders online for in-store pickup? In 12 months’ time when you’re looking back and analysing the success of your new website, how will you decide if it’s been a success? What are the metrics that you’re really looking at? Whatever your business’ goals, use the, to guide everything about your website: content, images and functionality. 28 |

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REAL CONTENT IS REAL IMPORTANT MAKE IT MOBILE RESPONSIVE When you think about my emergency Panadol scenario, you’ll realise that a mobileresponsive website is also a no-brainer. Think about it: toddler on one hip, phone in the other hand. I really don’t need to be pinching in and out to resize your web pages. You need a website that looks great on a desktop, say 27-inch monitor, and automatically resizes or adjusts on a tablet or phone. Mobile screens show bigger fonts, bigger buttons and the ability to click on a phone

number to automatically dial it. All these things make the mobile user experience a lot easier. And you’ll only have to maintain one version of your website – it’s all automatic once you’ve set it up that way. The interesting thing is, some of the big pharmacy banner groups are not actually using responsive sites, so there’s a tremendous opportunity for smaller independent chemists to embrace this approach and make that experience a lot easier for the customer.

The best websites still need to get on Google’s good side and that means high quality original content and links. Gone are the days when you could just pay thousands of dollars to cram your site with keyword-soaked pages of duplicated drivel. Google has learned to recognise sites that do that and it punishes them harshly by pushing them way down the rankings. Good meaningful content is anything that readers find useful and helpful: from articles, product reviews top ten lists and blogs to photo galleries and videos. For example, add a howto video showing people how to use blood pressure monitors or electronic thermometers. Create valuable content and experiences for your customers is not only good for customers, it’ good for Google and good for business.

INJECT SOME PERSONALITY So many times you see the ‘About Us’ page on websites and you can’t really tell who owns the business, let alone get a feel for what they’re like as a person. Don’t be afraid to make your website a human, friendly place to be.

Record yourself giving a simple welcome message or have a photo of you and your team outside your storefront. Our personalities are one of the key points of differentiation in our pharmacies; some pharmacy owners are pinnacles of their

community so showcase that. Tell people what you can do for them, what you can offer them and why you’re doing it – what you believe in. People buy into a feeling before they buy into products.

the content on your site so you can keep it up to date and fresh. Then you can be responsive to what’s going on around you. There may be a big health story in the news and customers may want to turn to your website to know what you think about it.

4. Get a WordPress website. It’s an open

SO WHAT’S YOUR FIRST STEP In the online world, as in the physical world, you get what you pay for. A good quality website that’s well set up is going to bring you a good return on that investment. There are four ways you can go about building your first website:

1. Hire a web developer to build and maintain a website for you. A costly option.

2. Depending on your technical ability but it is possible to build your own website if you fancy acquiring a few skills and a bit of knowledge. It’s useful knowing at least how to amend and edit

3. Go with one of those ads that pop-up every-so-often to say: “You can build a great website for free, and it takes only five minutes.” These website providers, like WIX, are proprietary platforms that you can never quite get away from so this is probably something to avoid.

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source content management system and is hugely flexible. It’s free to use, free to customise, you can shape and mould it, you can turn it into an online store, you can turn it into a forum, it could be a static simple site, you can run blogs and all kinds of content. You’re not tied to any one provider, there are thousands of website designers that work with WordPress. If you’re not happy with a current provider, you can literally pack your bags and you can leave and you can find someone else to help you with.

with Jon Hollenberg Simply click on the speaker icon.

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Automation | How can i leverage smart technology in my business?

How do I rate for Automation? Click here to find out!

MAKING CHANGE MANAGEMENT EASY

AUTOMATION

Linda Miller, CEO and Principal Mentor at Pharmacy Profit Secrets has 29 years’ experience in pharmacy, reinvigorating and increasing pharmacy profitability and sales through proven sales & marketing strategies and by motivating and teaching pharmacy staff how to sell with integrity, to ethically increase customer base, customer loyalty and basket size. Today she talks to us about implementing changes successfully.

ith the rise of competition matching the speed that technology is progressing, there is both opportunity and danger. The pain of big discounters and the threat of a change to location rules and other potentially detrimental actions potentially by the government is very real so what can the forward thinking and smart community pharmacist do to offset these threats? As it turns out, plenty. You see it’s equally true that there exists, right now, opportunities to increase revenue, to tweak staff productivity and focus, to enhance customer experience and decrease costs with investments that are small or have great ROI thanks to technology.

YOUR SECRET WEAPONS The technology you choose can change how you conduct your business, improve your profitability, efficiency and customer loyalty. Whether it’s automating your DAAs using an outsourced service, moving your rostering, time sheets and payroll to a cloud based service or simply introducing a text based script reminder service to your customers, implemented correctly these technological changes can future proof your business, reducing

your vulnerability to discounters and government changes eating into your profits. Understandably, the next question is usually “well where do we start”? Robert Sztar knows best which technology to incorporate into your pharmacy and creating a plan so you know exactly what to do. It’s always smart to work with someone who’s experienced and from whom you can learn.

YOUR STAFF’S ENGAGEMENT Once you know what to do and where to start, the next challenge is getting your staff’s support. How do you tell them about the changes, involve them in the

decision making and implementation of the changes without throwing the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons?

YOUR PERSONAL VISION Having a vision and knowing what you stand for can really help, especially because your customers may need to be educated and supported through the change, much like your staff. Also your certainty that the technology will be good for your customers, your team and the business will increase your focused determination (which has already seen you through some pretty tough times in pharmacy) and help things fall into place. Then there’s setting up your environment to be able to manage the change and thrive with the new systems and technology. Back to Contents Page

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Automation | How can i leverage smart technology in my business?

QUICK WINS BEFORE YOU INTRODUCE CHANGE First, consider your work flow processes and your current time management and productivity practices and those of your staff. Are there any inefficient practices that you can outsource, dump altogether or manage with technology? Can you group some activities together and have the most suitable person handle them in a concentrated regular space of time? What about your role? As the owner, is it really hard to keep all the balls in the air? Are you doing only those things that nobody else can do? If you’re mostly in the

dispensary or with customers, can you take some time off to work on your business and put in place the changes and technology needed to allow you to do more of what you want as well as differentiate yourself from your competition and better serve your customers? Do you have the right aces in the right places? Are your staff performing well in their jobs? Do you need to do performance reviews and/or performance management? Are there any entrenched assumptions and attitudes you need to be address before

you introduce any major changes? Are your staff maximizing the value to your customers by offering complimentary products and services to your customers and thereby building the trust and liking they have for you and your team? Do they make the effort to get along with you and each other? This aspect will be critical when you introduce change. The bigger the change (like introducing a dispensary robot for example) the more you’ll be relying on their flexibility, adaptability and good nature to embed the change painlessly.

THE SECRET TO MANAGING CHANGE SUCCESSFULLY Given the human resistance to change,

‘forming’ (honeymoon) stage by getting

there may be some friction. This is real

staff ‘buy in’. Get them to tell you what

and it’s not your fault. Tuckman’s model

improvements they’d love and involve

of team behaviour describes the stages

them in researching, then introducing and

a team goes through as ‘forming’,

implementing the change.

‘storming’, ‘norming’ and performing.

It’s a challenge that no one prepares you

Expect to cycle through these levels

for, not only introducing the technology

every time you introduce a major

but also managing employees’ feelings

change. To move through these stages

around it. Minimise the ‘storming’ by pre-

as seamlessly as possible, enhance the

empting the objections and highlighting

Managed properly you will quickly move to ‘performing’ aka ‘the new normal’

beneficial for pharmacy and patients.

effectiveness.

• Get your staff maximally motivated and skilled in their roles.

If you do all that you’ll get maximum benefit from your technology and manage change well for your business, your team and your customers’ benefit.

the benefits of the change to each staff member as well as how it will benefit the customer, efficiency and/or the business. To move the team to the ‘norming’ (rule making) stage and stability, consider the strategies which form the essential parts of the change management. They’re outlined below for you.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT STEP BY STEP But before we get to that, let’s talk about what “change management” actually is and what it applies to. Tim Creasey from the Change Management Learning Center defines ‘change management’ as “the process, tools and techniques to manage the people side of change to achieve a required business outcome”. When introducing technological change into pharmacies, these are the actions which will yield you the best outcome. • Set your goals and purpose for automating or adopting another technological change. • Do your research and cost/benefit analysis to ensure the technologies and strategies are tried and proven to be

• Introduce benefits to staff and get their ‘buy-in’, asking for their refinements and ideas. • Ascertain their current roles and how they could/ should change. • Review staff performance and rosters. Make sure you have the right aces in the right places. • Set measurable KPIs so you can see the impact of the change and improvement on your business and staff performance.

For more information or if you’d like to make it even easier to implement these changes and manage the process optimally then click here to arrange your 90 minute Business Analysis Review and Assessment for only $97 (valued at $997), available to the first 9 Transpharmation readers to apply.

• Test and measure everything you implement to maximise success and

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with Linda Miller Simply click on the speaker icon.

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5 PRESCRIPTIONS FOR A STRESS FREE HOLIDAY Have the freedom to learn, network and plan, all while feeling confident your Pharmacy is under control.

ROUTINE FOR SUCCESS Create a daily routine for success, that helps you refresh, re-energise, and provides you with reassurance.

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CREATE YOUR BEST YEAR EVER! Return to your pharmacy on top of any new challenges or opportunities, and ready to create your best year ever!

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