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Guardrails – Why they Need Continual Analysis and exist with a Balanced Direction
Guardrails “A large, freshly-paved parking lot has no boundaries. You can drive in any direction, free to speed to your destination. But once there’s more than a few cars driving, traffic stops. It’s too risky, there are too many uncertainties. A car could come at you from any direction, and so we crawl. Flow is…
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Developing a Single Patient View
From the last business cycle to the current version, pharmacists and community pharmacies have undergone some profound experiences and rapid change. The transition to now is leaving in its wake a sense of indecision and while many opportunities have arisen to improve pharmacist skills and community pharmacy development, only a small number of talented individuals…
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Losing isn’t the opposite of winning, it can be a part of winning
Vince Lombardi once said, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” Like most kids growing up, the importance of finishing first or winning was always stressed. As a competitive person, I thought that second place was the same as last. Losing was a source of shame and bitterness. No one wants to be defined as…
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Value Over Profit ?
When pharmacy comes under financial pressure it always looks for a “quick fix” and it usually takes the form of concentrating resources and focus into various retail channels of activity. Even though pharmacists are criticised for expanding their retail offering and daring to create survival profits, it is a necessary activity to ensure that the…
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Marketing Focus – Essays on Management & Marketing March 2017
THE BRIDGE FROM DISENCHANTED TO ENGAGED Disenfranchised. A key and fundamental issue in commerce, politics, religion and society at large is the disenfranchising of consumers. The consequences are profound and diverse. Lack of loyalty, increased price sensitivity, less tolerance and more assertiveness among existing and prospective clients are relentless in business. In politics the new…
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Sales is everyone’s business
Everyone is in sales. To me, job titles don’t matter. Everyone has to be thinking about sales. It’s the only way any company can stay in business. There are no jobs if you don’t bring the business through the front door. That’s why I have a sign on my office door, “If you know where…
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The Amazon Supermarket (and Pharmacy) Coming to a Place Near to You
Just before Christmas 2016 i2P alerted pharmacists to a global retailer (Amazon) making plans to enter the Australian market with a massive retail offering (see http://i2p.com.au/how-amazon-will-dominate-global-retail/ ) and ambitions to dominate the entire retail sector. Amazon, of course, is already known in Australia for its online retailing of books While it often seems that some…
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Marketing Focus: Essays on Management & Marketing February 2017
Momentum. That will be, and should be, the mantra for commerce during 2017. Momentum will precede profits, sustainable growth, enhanced productivity, more expeditious decision-making and, above all else, improved confidence. It is indisputable that the calendar year 2016 was a period of economic slow-down for many sectors, regions and entities. In reality, it is arguable…
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Change your perspective, change your life
Perspective has many definitions, such as the ability to understand what is important and what isn’t. And the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance. Consider this excellent example of how differently people view the same subject in this ancient fable. Four blind men were asked to examine an elephant and…
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Planning for Uncertainty and Anxiety
To say that pharmacy began the current fiscal year with a high level of uncertainty – a major contributor to anxiety levels – is to state the obvious. Every person working within the pharmaceutical industry has been affected, with employed pharmacists complaining about the poor incomes they receive and fresh reports of a potential for…