Case Study: Meaghers Pharmacy Group

Business Need

When Meaghers joined RWA in 2014, they had a number of problems they were looking to solve. Multiple systems were being used – a PMR for dispensary data, an EPoS system for retail sales, a procurement system for orders as well as a separate system for their new Online business – resulting in loads of data but great difficulty in extracting the important information. The manual process of finding and collating the key pieces of data was highly labour-intensive and time-consuming leading to long delays in decisions being made and actioned. Because everything was manual, staff absence and human error were factors that could affect the availability and accuracy of the reports. Meaghers were looking for a solution that would extract and collate those key pieces of data and present them back to the management teams in the support office and the pharmacies so that they could make and implement good decisions quickly and easily.

What changed?

Speed

Once the key piece of data became available at the very beginning of each new week, it became possible to make better decisions, and to make them faster and more easily. This effect was felt in both the dispensary and the retail side the business.

Transparency

Once the data became clear and easy to read, understanding the ‘why’ behind strategic decisions became easier too, making the implementation of those decisions at store level smoother and more successful. It also became possible to track the progress of those strategic initiatives by looking at the ‘before’ and ‘after’ data. Reports are clear, concise and actionable, enabling the team to focus on what really matters. Reports are automated to stores and the support office on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, depending on the need and the subject matter.

Revenue

As a business with a strong retail presence, Meaghers felt the biggest revenue benefit on that side of the business. Instead of focussing on areas of weakness, the team uses the RWA reports to focus on areas of strength and make them even stronger, growing revenue and maximising profitability. Key reports that help with this are:

• Top seller reports, showing topsellers by store and by group with alerts for low cover or sales at store and product level.
• 80/20 analysis, showing what percentage of sales and margin in a particular area is coming from a relatively small number of products and, conversely, which products you are stocking that you can really do without.
• Replenishment reports, allowing purchasing to move from store-based to support-office based and maximising stock efficiency.

Margins:

“By using Real World Analytics and the data, and having that transparency has allowed us, without making any improvements in terms of driving revenue or additional business, to get so much more profitability.’’

Using RWA enabled Meaghers to maximise both elements of margin – procurement margin and fees. The biggest margin impact was seen in dispensary procurement, where being able to do a deep dive into dispensing meant that negotiations at molecule level with suppliers were more effective, resulting in increased procurement margins.

By managing the two components of margin, Meaghers were able to grow profitability without driving item or patient growth or affecting patient care.

As an example, every time that you dispense your preferred generic rather than a brand or non-preferred you improve your margin. It’s a constantly moving feast and requires management, but over the last 3 years Meaghers have increased the number of preferred generics dispensed per 100 items by almost 10 percentage points, so the reward is well worth the effort.

More than just a supplier

‘’The people at Real World are much more like partners, they are like an extension of our business. I’ve always found the team incredibly curious, incredibly open, and incredibly agile, so there’s never been anything we’ve asked for that hasn’t been embraced or taken onboard and delivered upon.’’

As one of the early adopters of RWA, Oonagh has seen RWA grow from a team of 3 or 4 people in 2014 to its present size of over 30. In that time, the RWA solution has evolved as requirements have changed but we continue to pride ourselves on those three characteristics – curiosity, openness and agility. System enhancements are generated from conversations with customers as well as changes implemented by the PCRS and PMR / EpoS providers, and reporting requests from one customer can be added to the foundation system so that everyone benefits.