DRIVING PROFIT Pharmacy Driving up Profit
Community Pharmacists across Northern Ireland from both independent and multiple backgrounds attending a recent one-day training event aimed at exploring the many ways to improve your business
pharmacies in the North could make efficiencies and create opportunities, and I think it isn’t an understatement to say that every single person in the room hung on his every word as he outlined how pharmacies could improve their bottom line.
“We also had a number of other speakers, touching on areas such as data protection, succession planning for family businesses, claiming and coding, and each of these brought some nugget of information or thought-provoking comment to interest the audience.
Investing in IT reaps rewards Keith added, “I think that one key lesson learned from the day is that investment in IT is perhaps one of the only guaranteed ways of improving your profits, reducing your overheads and better serving your patients.
Robin Hanna, Helen Taylor, Anne Marie McWilliams, Keith McLernon and Tim
O'Brien McLernon Computors M
cLernon Computers, with their partners Real World Retail, put together a day
packed with interesting and informative speakers shared their knowledge and experience of how data driven decisions can drive up profit.
Keith McLernon, Managing Director, McLernon Computers, said, “Before I started planning this event, I thought there was an appetite among community pharmacists to explore new ways of bringing efficiencies to their businesses and increasing the range of services to their patients, but I was absolutely over-whelmed with the attendance at our Driving Up Profit event”, said Keith McLernon.
“We endeavour to support all our customers – independents and groups – in a number of ways, such as road shows, individual training, our excellent customer services department, and this was a new departure for us.”
Keynote speaker for the event was Michael Guerin, Managing Director of Medicare whilst Tony McEntee of
Allcare Pharmacy Group looked at the pros and cons of joining a symbol group and Joanne O’Hagan of Meaghers Pharmacy presented a case study of their ‘big turnaround.’
“I was blown away by the speed at which our speakers agreed to participate in the event, and the agenda took shape very easily,” Keith adds.
“At the forefront of the planning was the awareness that our customers are so busy simply maintaining their businesses that they don’t have the chance to lift their head from the dispensary and do some horizon scanning.
“I wanted to bring the information to them in a way that was thought provoking and easily accessible, and I am delighted to say that the feedback I have received would indicate that we achieved this goal.
“We work very closely with Real World Retail to bring enhanced business analytics to our customers, and they can parse dispensing and retail information and produce bespoke
reports, which reflect the particular needs of a pharmacy, as no two businesses are run in the same way.
“One of the aims of the day to was to bring the benefits of this collaborative working to the attention of those of our customers who had not already met Conall and John, and to supplement this technical information with real life case studies from some of our RoI customers who had used Real World Retail.
“Tony McEntee, CEO of Allcare Pharmacy, very kindly agreed to speak to his own experiences of inheriting a rather disparate group of pharmacies which had each operated in very different ways, and bringing them together into a coherent unit using IT as the means to do so.
“We are delighted that Allcare opted for McLernons as their pharmacy dispensing partner, and Tony talked about the difficulties and challenges faced and overcome.
“Michael Guerin, of Medicare Pharmacy Group, spoke about the various ways in which community
“By providing our customers with the business tools that they need we are helping to give them the space to raise their heads and look to what opportunities and possibilities the future holds.
“At McLernons we are constantly looking to find new and innovative products and technologies which will help our customers. We are always developing new software to anticipate legislative and professional changes and seeking to establish synergies with business which can complement the work that we do.
“We are a local software company, providing local on-the-ground support from our highly trained engineers and trainers, backed up with fantastic customer support from people who understand the nature of your business and who know how to help.
“I was delighted with the success of the day, and the subsequent feedback received from customers, and very much hope that the ‘Driving Up Profits’ day will become a regular fixture in the community pharmacy calendar.
The following pages present a synopsis of some of the keynote issues addressed during the day. n
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