Improving your Pharmacy

The three primary resources of your pharmacy are space, stock and staff.

Usually excess stock or labour can be quickly dealt with.  But if you have too much space, generally the only way out is to make the space work harder.

At Guild Accountants , we help pharmacists maximise the return on space by focusing on the returns (gross profit dollars) that are generated from the space occupied by stock.

Pharmacy owners are often told they have too much stock, they have dead stock, they need to increase sales or they need to improve margins.

What we find is that they are not quite sure of the next step – which stock do I get rid of, what stock can I put into the empty space, which stock do I need to carry more of, which margins need improving.

By using some simple statistics about your pharmacy’s retail performance you will be able to focus on the areas of your pharmacy that need improvement.

Dispensary management

In the average pharmacy, 70% or more of revenue comes from the dispensary.  Yet for many, it “just happens”.  Apart from “good service” which all pharmacies promote, not too much more is done to maximise the outcome from the dispensary.

Did you know that:

• With the advent of PBS reforms in August 2007, pharmacy must be focused on generic substitution?
• The dispensary can be a source of front of shop revenue through understanding who your customer is and what their needs are?
• The traffic generated by the dispensary can be more strongly leveraged by having an improved front of shop offer?

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia has developed a number of tools to help pharmacy owners improve the performance of their dispensary.  These include ScriptMap, MedsInex and Mirixa.  All of these programs are designed to raise patient awareness.

At the same time, pharmacists can leverage the data to improve both their dispensary and front of shop performance. Using additional data analysis and spending time understanding who your customer is, pharmacy owners can plan how to provide a more relevant offer to their customers.

To find out more about retail and dispensary management call the Guild Accountants Pharmacy team on 1800 101 296 or email pharmacy@guildaccountants.com.au.