Crosspharma Pharmaceuticals are Northern Irelands leading independent pharmaceutical wholesaler. Based at Mallusk North of Belfast, General Manager Catriona McElhone and her team are dedicated to supporting independent community pharmacy across the country.
O
ver 18 months have now passed since Crosspharma moved into their new premises at Mallusk. It is fair to say that the impact of the move has exceeded all expectations. Crossphrama have
expanded the range of product available ex-stock to include a full-line range of generics, PI’s, OTC products, feeds, fridge lines, UK’s, insulins and dressings. Schedule 2 controlled drugs will be added to the product portfolio in early 2016. On the IT side, they are compatible the PRM systems used in Northern Ireland and have their own electronic ordering system that includes daily updates for any pricing and stock changes.
The customer supporting sales team has also been expanded. The telesales team are based at the depot in Mallusk, and keep in contact with customers on a daily basis. The field based territory managers ensure that all customers are visited in person at least once a month. In conjunction with the increase in the size of the customer support team, the geographical coverage of the twice daily delivery service has also been increased to cover most areas of the country. The delivery service is undertaken by Crosspharmas own team of drivers. Their familiarity with the area and relationships with customers, provides the opportunity to tailor delivery patterns to individual customer needs.
The business will always aim to be as flexible as possible to help customers; examples of this include the order cut off times, and Saturday morning deliveries. Depending on the location, afternoon deliveries cut off is between 1pm – 1.30pm. Orders are also taken right up until 6.15pm for next morning/next day deliveries. When they moved in to the new mallusk site, a Saturday morning delivery service was introduced into the greater Belfast area. This service has been so popular with customers that it will be extended to other areas over the next few months.
As General Manager Catriona McElhone explains, “the main belief underpinning the Crosspharma success story, is that the best way to support independent community pharmacists across Northern Ireland, is to take advantage of the benefits of being part of a national operator, but to deliver our service with the personal touch, that can only be achieved by local people, on the ground listening and responding to our customer’s needs”.
Crosspharma are part of the DE Group, the UK’s largest independent pharmaceutical wholesaler. The group is independent in that it is privately UK owned, and it is independent in that it is not vertically integrated into a retail pharmacy network. The Group operates from 7 sites across the UK, serving 3000 independent community pharmacies on a daily basis. The group has a central purchasing department, based in Prudhoe Nr Newcastle, who utilise the group buying power to ensure that Crosspharma have access to the best range of products at the most competitive prices.
Being independent is a key part of the group philosophy. The DE Group do not attempt to compete with retail customers on the High Street, and consequently they do not favour “in-house” retail outlets with stock allocation. “We are 100% focused on supporting our customers. 100% focused on supporting independent community pharmacy” Catriona stated.
As stated previously, the feedback from customers since the move 18 months ago has been excellent. Coping with the growth in customer numbers and sales volumes has been a challenge that the team have met full on.
Catriona commented. “The whole team at Crosspharma would like to thank all our customers for their continued support. The response to the improvements in the product range and service we have introduced over the past year has given us all a huge lift. We still have some way to go to meet all our objectives, and whilst we do not get it right all the time, I can assure all our customers that as a locally based team, we will continue to listen learn and respond to your needs.” l
Local People Flexible Service Independent
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