GUEST COLUMN

The Power of Supplier Relationships

Enabling better collaboration opportunities with CPG partners helps retailers deliver impactful offers to their customers

By Charisse Jacques

Charisse Jacques, GM and chief customer centric retailing officer, customer centric retailing officer, SymphonyAI Retail CPG SymphonyAI Retail CPG

Like many retail businesses, Like many retail businesses, drug stores are not immune to economic downturn, inflation and supply chain challenges. Drug stores also have a small window of opportunity to capture shoppers’ attention when they are in the store or on the website compared to other retail businesses.

That’s why they need to make the most out of existing loyalty data, which allows them to achieve two things: target shoppers with hyper-personalized offers and build more collaborative relationships with partners. However, most legacy platforms aren’t built to make the most out of loyalty data. That’s why the modern drug store needs modern tools to help deliver targeted, impactful offers.

One way to achieve the right mix of offers is by enabling better collaboration opportunities with CPG partners as well as supplementing current loyalty efforts with AI-enabled insights that drive speed to value and prescriptive insights.

How to Create Irresistible Offers

The relationship between retailers and suppliers takes time to build, but the challenge now is that the economy isn’t giving anyone much time. And impatient shoppers are quick to find alternative retailers if the right product at the right price isn’t available from the first store they check.

To accelerate this relationship-building process, drug stores need to look at AI/ML to analyze data to uncover insights more quickly, make decisions and execute customer-centric retailing tactics. AI/ML also has the added benefit of learning from the data they ingest to increase confidence in the suggestions and data. For instance, that data can be used to guide personalized omnichannel

“The relationship between retailers and CPG partners was once a onesided affair, with most vendors looking at collaboration programs as revenuegenerating initiatives instead of true collaborations.”

What Should Collaboration Look Like?

The answer to collaboration frequently revolves around technology. It does add immense value, but there is more to it than delivering computer capacity to crunch millions of lines of data in the fastest time possible. After all, if two competing retailers use the same data analytics solution, then it could be argued they should reach the same answers. However, we know this isn’t the case because myriad other variables influence outcomes.

It’d be easy to simply say that people are that variable, but the reality is more nuanced: people can be either a good variable or a bad one. Obviously, collaboration requires the involvement of people, but for it to be a good variable, CPGs and retailers also need to know how to use that same data to make mutually beneficial decisions.

Think of it this way: You and a friend both decide to learn the same foreign language using a learning app. If after a couple of months, you both have only done the lessons but not practiced speaking the language, you won’t make the most out of the experience. This collaborative process is no different: Retailers and CPGs both may have access to similar data, but if they don’t “practice” with each other, all they have is data that may or may not make sense. marketing campaigns, which are increasingly difficult to get right due to shoppers’ dynamic channel preferences. A drug store can also collaborate with its vendor partners to create customer-centric planograms with tailored assortments.

The Win-win-win Model

Without AI, data can be a liability. Every drug store has more than enough of it, but if they can’t use it to get to know customers better, then competitors will swoop in. Retailers must be able to customize messages and offers to each customer by incorporating a 360-degree view of shopper attributes with predictive analytics.

The relationship between retailers and CPG partners was once a one-sided affair, with most vendors looking at collaboration programs as revenue-generating initiatives instead of true collaborations.

Modernizing the definition of collaboration in retail sets up the foundation for a win-win-win collaborative model that leads to an increase in incremental sales and profit for both suppliers and retailers by taking a more deliberate approach to driving more trips and growing baskets while rewarding shoppers for their loyalty. dsn

AN OPEN LETTER TO PHARMACISTS

As a fellow pharmacist, I’m thrilled to see how the profession has embraced clinical services in the retail space. Going beyond immunizations into areas such as Test-to-Treat for infectious disease and prescribing hormonal contraceptives is reaching a scale never seen in our industry. This rapid growth has caused other stakeholders, such as payers, to ask how pharmacists should be reimbursed for clinical services. Ultimately, the “pharmacist-as-provider” movement has always been simple: treat pharmacists like other providers. The practical application of this movement means that pharmacists may be subject to credentialling and payer enrollment. Additionally, the process of determining patient benefit coverage and clinical eligibility, and performing medical billing using pharmacist-level NPIs poses new challenges within the typical pharmacy workflow. Pharmacists should be able to provide patient care without focusing heavily on clinical documentation or medical billing. That means the claims process—whether medical or pharmacy—should have similar “clean claim rates” and require the same or less operational time as pharmacy benefit claims. For pharmacists to adopt clinical services at scale, key capabilities must be addressed and made available within the pharmacy workflow including 1) patient financial and clinical clearance integrated into patient scheduling and pharmacy workflow; 2) provider credentialing and eligibility; 3) simplified clinical documentation that informs the claim; and 4) compliant and timely billing. As the payer and regulatory landscapes evolve to encompass pharmacy-based clinical services, pharmacy organizations that choose to offer clinical services will be better able to respond quickly if they have revenue cycle functionality fully integrated into their clinical care delivery solution and have access to both pharmacy and medical billing pathways embedded within the pharmacist’s workflow. I’m excited to say nearly half the pharmacy market is currently implementing an EHR purpose-built for the pharmacy that simplifies the complexities of medical billing (and related clinical documentation) and can handle both the medical- and pharmacy pathway—all within the pharmacy workflow. After decades of proof points and lobbying, pharmacists have a seat at the table for delivering new clinical services. Pharmacists have evolved to become the tip of the spear for healthcare delivery today. Are you and your organization ready? Whether clinical claims are reimbursed through the pharmacy or the medical benefit, OmniSYS can help. Go to www.omnisys.com to learn more or to schedule a meeting. David Pope, PharmD, CDE, Chief Pharmacy Officer, OmniSYS, a XIFIN Company

Drug Stores’ Expanding Role in Consumer Wellness

Leana Salamah, vice president of marketing, International Housewares Association

What does wellness mean in a post-acute COVID world?

Circumstances that consumers experienced over the last two and a half years — the overall anxiety that COVID-19 caused, coupled with associated lockdowns, changes in work and schooling, separation from family and friends and overall isolation — did a number on our collective well-being.

In January of 2020, the International Housewares Association fielded a consumer survey that asked, in part, what type of wellness (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, etc.) was most important to consumers. It was the height of the omicron variant and yet consumers chose…

Mental wellness. Including restfulness, calmness and mental acuity.

Furthermore, those who selected physical wellness were far more concerned with nutrition, energy level and cardiovascular health than they were with weight loss.

Drug stores have always been a purveyor of curative wellness for consumers. For as long as we can remember, we have relied on drug stores to provide the remedy that treats whatever ails us — from prescription and over-the-counter medications to first-aid supplies and orthopedic aids.

Over the last two years, drug stores have played an enhanced role in preventative wellness — most notably in the form of providing vaccines. Granted, drug stores were already providing flu shots and various other inoculations, but many consumers continued to rely on their doctor for those. Then the distribution methods for the COVID-19 vaccines demanded that we view drug stores as a preventative medicine source — and flu, shingles and other vaccines have grown exponentially in these locations as a result.

Preventative wellness is big business. And now drug stores are universally seen as a resource. This concept naturally expands beyond medications and vitamins and into various home + housewares products that are designed to encourage the kind of restfulness, mental calmness and acuity, and sophisticated monitoring of physical markers to encourage healthy habits. Drug stores that embrace a holistic view of preventative wellness across physical AND mental concerns and offer products to that end are likely to increase consumer engagement and, over time, enhance loyalty.

Finally, there is an aspect of wellness that is more socially oriented and that creates challenges of its own to be addressed. We’ll call this supportive wellness.

The consequences of illness have changed — in particular the expectations for how we manage illness in public. We all recall a time before March of 2020 when it was commonplace for kids to go to school with runny noses, and for co-workers to show up for work with violent coughs. Staying home sick was reserved for only the most extreme situations. And even then, anything beyond two days felt extreme.

The mood is different now. As a society we have recalibrated our tolerance for bringing illness into a public setting downward. This is probably a positive development for our collective physical health, but it places new stressors on families when it creates child-care challenges or unpaid leave from work. If drug stores are to truly treat wellness from start to finish, is there an opportunity to meet this need? The home + housewares industry has been solving these challenges for decades — developing products that make home life more convenient — easier, faster, etc.

Could wellness displays include products that make it easier or faster to cook up that tomato soup and grilled cheese (my 11-year-old son’s meal of choice when he’s sick) or the in-home smart cameras that make me feel more at ease in leaving my kids alone while I go to work? Seems like a complete integrated solution that, as a mom, I would embrace.

Someone will recognize and address these needs. Drug stores are in a unique position to take the last two years of positive goodwill and increased traffic to position themselves as the definitive solution.

The best way to find the home + housewares products that can help you meet these evolving consumer needs is to join us in Chicago this March at The Inspired Home Show. You can learn more about the Show at TheInspiredHomeShow. com and you can browse exhibitors, brands and products at Connect 365. dsn