Technology in Pharmacy Business with Scott Carpenter

Understand your Pharmacy Business with the My Pharmacy Appraisal online platform

May 5, 2022

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In this episode of the Pharmacy View Podcast, host Scott Carpenter, EVBC talks to Tod O’Connor, CEO & Founder, My Pharmacy Appraisal. My Pharmacy Appraisal (MPA) offers Australian Pharmacy owners the ability to better understand their business through an online assessment and valuation platform which is unique, pragmatic and cost-effective.

Tod has a background in banking but having realized that his work didn’t leave much space for his young family, he decided to take his business acumen and his passion for outdoor sports into building businesses that would give him the work-life balance that he much craved. The rest of what followed were 15 successful years of running three large-format retail stores. He says that those businesses taught him a lot about the challenges business owners face—understanding cash flows, lending and finance, among others. He then channeled this expertise and passion for helping business owners and entered the Australian Community Pharmacy Industry.

Tod says that even though he might not understand molecules and the more technical side of Pharmacy, he understands the drivers of business and what needs to be done in the industry to help business owners. In the earlier years, Tod looked at countless Pharmacies and the message that was driven home to him was:

Pharmacists were often going to the market with little planning and often under prepared; and
This lack of planning/preparedness can lead to unrealistic expectations

Then he read about how most breakthrough businesses have harnessed a convenience that was previously missing from everyday life by offering immediacy, convenience, range, and price online when meeting customer demands. That hit home for him. Using the evolution of Bugs Bunny’s images over a span of 80 years as a parallel, Tod shares that My Pharmacy Appraisal is an online platform that will continue to improve and evolve and add value, all done with the underlying goal of helping Pharmacy owners to tell a great story about their Pharmacy and to help them appraise their business and sell it only when they are ready to sell it.

Talking about the use of technology in bettering the business, Tod says that there are numerous tools and systems that add value to the business and to the customers likewise. MPA has partnered with Geotech Information Services to bring Pharmacy focused research and data set initiatives to the platform that are aimed primarily at existing Pharmacy owners, potential buyers or anyone transacting with a Pharmacy. In addition, MPA offers Business Planning, a SWOT Analysis & Action Plan Checklist that are designed to help Pharmacy owners think critically and strategically about their business. All in all, it helps owners understand where their business stands, what the key revenue drivers are, whether or not they have realistic expectations from sales, and how the core strengths and skillsets can be enhanced to ensure that the Pharmacy can be sold at the right time and at the right price. The end goal of the process is to enable owners to build value and create efficiencies and better productivity over a longer period of time.

Tod emphasizes how he loves the sense of community that exists in the Australian Community Pharmacy Industry and he cannot recommend enough the importance of stepping out of one’s business and understanding what goes on within the larger community to enhance critical and strategic thinking. MPA’s easy to use and cost-effective process helps businesses with just that—the platform provides consolidated data that would otherwise be available only to bigger businesses or governments.

Topics Covered

Constant improvement in the platform
Break-down and fully understand Revenue drivers
Understanding where the business is and when it can be sold
Tools used in the business
Use of technology in the business
Critical and Strategic Thinking

Key Quotes (Time Stamps)

“My passion is outdoor sports—surfing and skiing. So, we ended up opening two large surf stores on the Sunshine Coast which we ran and operated for about 15 years. They were very successful, award-winning enterprises and we did quite well out of those; employed over 100 people in that time; and in fact, built three large-format stores. What that enabled me to do was to build a background in finance, in lending, in understanding cash flow and small business and it really started to hone in on my passion which is helping businesses and business owners.” (1:12 – 2:51)

“I have spent the last just-on-11 years within Australian Pharmacy and found it to be an absolutely fantastic industry—love the people, love the culture, love what they are trying to do from a health perspective, from a community perspective.” (3:19 – 3:33)

“Although I have got no idea about molecules and all of that side of the Pharmacy, what I do understand is business drivers and what needs to be done from that perspective.” (3:33 – 3:44)

“I have got a fabulous sketch of the change of over about 80 years of Bugs Bunny, how he first looked when he was first drawn and how he looks now over an 80-year period. And I see My Pharmacy Appraisal as being a bit like that—something that is online, something that we can continue to evolve, something that we can continue to improve, something that we can continue to add value to—all with the underlying premise of helping Pharmacy owners to tell a great story about their Pharmacy. And then when they’re ready to sell, flick a switch, turn the appraisal into an anonymous mode and list their Pharmacy for sale.” (6:17 – 6:59)

“Break down your revenue drivers and understand what your core strengths and skillsets within your pharmacies are.” (8:47 – 8:54)

“Essentially what an appraisal does is it allows you to understand where the Pharmacy sits at a current point in time and then go: is that a value I’m comfortable with? Yes, it is! Switch it to anonymous mode, make the executive summary, list it on the platform, and sell your Pharmacy. If it’s not, then what you’ve got is a baseline strategic review of your Pharmacy.” (10:00 – 10:25)

“The whole premise of My Pharmacy Appraisal is: start that journey early and work on it. Because the process that you go through will enable you to build value and create efficiencies and better productivity over a longer period of time.” (11:16 – 11:33)

Social Media Clips (Time Stamps