Lloydspharmacy and AAH parent Celesio plans pharmacy strategy shake-up
Business Celesio, the parent company of Lloydspharmacy and AAH, has unveiled a restructure plan designed boost its pharmacy and wholesale businesses in Europe.
Celesio, the parent company of Lloydspharmacy and AAH, has unveiled a restructure plan designed boost its pharmacy and wholesale businesses in Europe.
Celesio will be building "a more consistent brand and sales format" across its pharmacy chains in Europe, with a stronger focus on sharing expertise in marketing OTC products in health and beauty.
The company will also restructure its wholesale division to offer services across the entire distribution chain. The new structure aims to save pharmacists' time by offering "comprehensive logistics expertise from the manufacturer through to the pharmacist", said Celesio.
"Many of our customers complain that administrative tasks within pharmacy management take up too much time," said Celesio chief executive officer Markus Pinger. "Pharmacy customers will be offered professional warehouse management and ordering as an innovative service, which should contribute to the success of the partner pharmacies."
"We want to help pharmacists find more time to advise their customers in the pharmacy," he added.
Celesio also said it was developing new shop concepts for pharmacies and wanted to focus on collaboration across Europe. "In Germany and all our markets we want to be the partner of first choice for our customers, the pharmacists," Mr Pinger explained. "We will focus all our strengths on this and establish a Europe-wide partnership of pharmacies. As a result, everyone can benefit from an exchange of best-practice experiences."
Mr Pinger added this strategy could help drive profit for pharmacies. "We are focusing very clearly here on collaboration and partnership, which will bring higher profit for our customers, the pharmacists," he stressed.
The new strategy will also focus on providing ‘managed care' services, which will see pharmacies offering support to patients with chronic conditions. This would "open up new business prospects and also relieve pressure on the healthcare system", Celesio said.
But the company warned the costs of restructuring would hit its profits for 2011. Mr Pinger stressed that the measures would "secure the future" of the company, and said that turnover would increase in 2012.