Page 28 - Retail Pharmacy March 2021

26 PHARMACY GROUPS FROM PAGE 25 Determined and decisive Retail Pharmacy spoke to our major community pharmacy brands to gain an understanding of the impact of the past 12 months on their businesses, and to share some of the valuable lessons picked up along the way. Blooms The Chemist Head of Retail Emmanuel Vavoulas says the group’s top priority when Covid-19 appeared was the safety of its staff, its customers and their communities. “Once we could get everyone feeling safe, and ensure they actually were safe, everything else followed naturally,” he said. “If we consider safety as our number one, then keeping the doors open so people could get medications was number two. “We’d be communicating with our stores, feeding them information that frequently changed on an hourly basis. I’d describe the role that we took as a ‘support office’, dealing with all the changes and communicating them so our stores could focus on running their businesses and serving their customers. “We immediately started holding daily meetings, twice daily when required, during which we analysed and made sense of what was happening, before disseminating \[our strategy\] to the frontline crew in our stores in an effective manner. “It had to be easy for them to implement, so, even though things were changing hourly, we kept on top of it at a head office level, aware that every site had different rules. Being a national brand, we had to have information out to each state in a timely manner, too. “It’s a philosophy that worked very, very well, and looking back, we think we came out of it a lot stronger than how we went into it.” Terry White Chemmart (TWC) CEO Duncan Phillips says one of the lasting leadership changes to emerge from 2020 and Covid-19 has been the ability to lead through uncertainty. “The speed of change that was forced on many businesses, but in particular on pharmacy where regulations were changed very quickly with pharmacy operators having to adapt, was unprecedented,” he said. “As technology improves, customer expectations are raised, and pharmacy, like any business, isn’t just judged against the best pharmacy, but against the best example of what can be achieved, including online alternatives. “The interesting thing is some of the initiatives in pharmacy that have been brought to life and accelerated are things that have been happening across pharmacy for a long time. When you look at initiatives like the level of service on home deliveries or supporting customers with click and collect or e-scripts, they’ve been driven by pharmacy for years. “Now technology is advanced hugely, it’s almost a bit like Back to the Future, with the ability to do what we’ve planned for years suddenly becoming available. “Before Covid, we’d been working on the government-led e-script program for probably 18 months across various project groups, and then suddenly we had that launch through the network in just weeks, followed by a rapid rollout. “We also launched a simplified website to provide a quicker, more responsive solution for our network of pharmacies. “When the issues related to the pandemic started, we also decided part of our response should be providing a home delivery option on key convenience lines to our customers. This was in addition to our app, which is primarily medications-focused, so we wanted to extend that to the front-of- store and convenience lines. “In the space of six weeks, we launched a new website for our network partners, and from scratch we built and launched an online e-commerce convenience site for our customers.” Asked about the impact of Covid on the TWC group, Mr Phillips says one of the most noticeable effects has been a change in how people embrace uncertainty. “I think there’s been a fundamental leadership change that will last across corporate leadership, pharmacy leadership and team leadership,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who you are, dealing and living with uncertainty will be a long-term impact from Covid because it’s made people look at things in a different way. “That’s why we formed a task force right at the beginning. We gathered our pharmacist network partner leaders, including the TAG and TWC advisory groups, sat down with my key leadership team, and scenario planned all the various possibilities so we could communicate with our stores and make sure they were able to function effectively, whatever came their way. “One of the challenges was managing the updates that were happening at a state level, but as we have state managers at an operational level, we were able to set up quickly to handle it. “By the end of the first day, the team had gone from feeling an understandable degree of fear and uncertainty, to having a real sense of confidence. We knew we weren’t going to have all the answers to this, but what we could do was provide leadership to our network. “We made sure we had a plan-and- response piece, we set up a Covid team that gave daily updates to the network, we established a resource centre, we had an escalation process, and many other processes were put in place. It was a good feeling.” From strength to strength Looking ahead, there’s little doubt that lessons learned during the early flurry of activity in urgently launching initiatives can be applied to the future. “With the Covid vaccine coming next, Blooms The Chemist is looking towards the government and the Health Department to see what outlines they’re going to put towards this,” Mr Vavoulas said. “We’re going to work within those parameters and implement the changes that are required, and we’re already working closely with all our pharmacies to ensure that they can deliver what’s required for their communities.” Mr Phillips agrees. “Covid vaccinations are definitely going to be a major change for TWC and other pharmacies in the coming 12 months,” he said. “It’s quite likely that it’ll be an annual vaccine, which means that the community pharmacy will play a critical role in that for the indefinite future. “We’ve been heavily involved in vaccinations, having done 600,000 last year. So, with Covid vaccinations coming, we’ve already invested heavily in a new bookings platform and other resources, so we’ll be absolutely ready. “We think Covid vaccinations are going to be a major operational change in pharmacy, involving change in terms of workforce management and resources, so we’ve put a lot towards supporting that. “We’ve got an internal working party looking at how we’ll implement workforce management, customer safety protocols, local area marketing and how we support RETAIL PHARMACY • MAR 2021