In this episode of Pharmacy Podcast, a stream of Pharmacy View Podcast that provides regular interviews with Pharmacy leaders, entrepreneurs, and members of The Independent Pharmacies of Australia (IPA), host Melody Mugari, a Pharmacist and Programs and Corporate Partnerships Manager at The Independent Pharmacies of Australia Group (IPA) interviews John Kardis, Pharmacist and Director of Buy-IT-Right. John shares his inspiring journey from facing challenges in entering Pharmacy school to co-founding a successful Pharmacy network. His story highlights the importance of perseverance, community engagement, and innovative technology in transforming Pharmacy operations.
Topics Covered
- John Kardis’s Journey
- Early Challenges
- Automation in Pharmacy
- Business Growth
- Importance of Collaboration
- IT Infrastructure Investment
- Ordering Complexities
- Data-Driven Decision Making
- Engaging Pharmacy Teams
- Advice for Young Pharmacists
Key Quotes (Time Stamps)
- “I really enjoyed dispensing, the interaction with the customers and chatting, and we were predominantly country based. And I really enjoyed it because we knew the whole community.” (6:17 – 6:24)
- “I enjoy the work I do. When you’re involved in your own business, you want to always keep achieving more because it’s just what drives you to go to work every day and you’re always collaborating with people and there’s always new opportunities.” (10:14 – 10:29)
- “I think we’ve got to where we are because we’re very like-minded.” (11:51 – 11:54)
- “Back then IT platforms and systems weren’t as sophisticated to manage things from a distance. A lot of management was done in-store. It was the local knowledge of being in there. And to be able to expand and have more stores, we needed to put processes in place.” (13:56 – 14:19)
- “So, when we go to a third-party person or a Pharmacy that is potentially looking at it, we had to have confidence in what we were delivering and we needed to have the answers for everything. So having a robust IT infrastructure whether it be with POS, through to the data, through to how you purchase, we had to make sure we could answer every question.” (16:46 – 17:06)
- “We’re not going to replace that person from full time ordering. What we’re trying to do is free them up to go do better more meaningful tasks for that Pharmacy whether that’s from liaising with customers, with their own team and really bring that ordering component down to if I’ve got to do my orders within 30 minutes, I can do it.” (26:58 – 27:19)
- “The more effort you put onto an automated system, the better the returns are over a period of time.” (29:24 – 29:30)
- “And when you start using these types of platforms and start automating things and start knowing what your product range is; and then you start actually getting really good data coming back, you’re getting this great information; you can make decisions because you’ve got forecasts, you’ve got rate of sale, you know what your dead stock is. Then you start looking at things like how else can I improve the workflow in my business? That’s when you start and that’s what we’re looking at now: electronic shelf labels and the benefits that electronic shelf labels can bring for store and what sort of efficiencies they can create. And if you’re already looking after your IT platform, stock, inventory, cleanliness, arranging stock file, then implementing something like this is relatively easy because everything’s lined up nicely and then you can start rolling these more sophisticated things into your business and think of how much time it saves or your ability to change all your pricing overnight. You might become more competitive. You might want to improve your margin. You can’t do that unless you’re set up nice and tidy. So, you need a really good stable foundation.” (29:46 – 30:58)
- “I’ve got to engage with the customers. I’ve got to make sure they can see what they need to see and understand where the gaps are, and then teach them to go fish for themselves. And then they’ll always come up against something a little bit curly, but they reach out that that’s what we’re here for.” (31:50 – 32:06)
- “I actually purchased stock on behalf of all my members and had it there, ready for them. And I could do that because it’s a centralised system. We can make a decision quickly. And that’s what these sorts of systems do. Because I knew, on my end, users were going to take that stock. It wasn’t a guess. It was based on logic.” (43:00 – 43:19)
- “We don’t only just do it for IPA. Our product is very vanilla in that we have external groups that do nothing else with IPA but they run their own group and we just provide the IT infrastructure or bits and pieces that they won’t build up for themselves. So, they can actually work as if it was an IPA store, even one of my own stores. It’s absolutely not a problem. IPA, non-IPA, we’re there to help.” (43:59 – 44:31)
- “You just got to be persistent because I think the big wins are out of—the harder the problem is, obviously the bigger the win. And that comes down to you just being persistent and chipping away at it.” (48:36 – 48:47)
Important Time Stamps
- John Kardis’ Journey from Student to Innovator (1:14 – 6:35)
- The Power of Collaboration: Inside the Rise of Advantage Pharmacy Group (6:37 – 9:45)
- How Collaboration and Ambition Built a Pharmacy Giant (9:50 – 12:31)
- From One to Many: The Tech Pivot That Fueled Pharmacy Expansion (12:48 – 17:06)
- Scaling Pharmacies with Smart Solutions: The Buy-IT-Right Story (17:07 – 22:58)
- How Data-Driven Ordering Saves Time and Cuts Costs in Pharmacies (22:59 – 32:06)
- Avoid These Common Pharmacy Inventory Mistakes – Insights from John Kardis (32:07 – 43:19)
- Tech Solutions for Pharmacies: Seamless Integration, Maximum Impact! (43:20 – 46:35)
- The Tougher the Tech Challenge, the Bigger the Win—Stay Persistent! (46:51 – 48:47)
- How John Kardis Merged His Love for Tech with Pharmacy! (48:48 – 52:52)
Useful Links
Independent Pharmacies of Australia Group (IPA) | LinkedIn
The Independent Pharmacies of Australia Group (IPA) | Website
Chemist Discount Centre (CDC) | Website
