Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 263 No 7068 p686
October 23, 1999 Forum

The biennial Numark conference, October 11 to 15 1999, Penang, Malaysia

Business is good, says Numark managing director

Numark business is good, Mr Terry Norris (managing director, Numark) told the conference during its main session on October 13. The half year rebate, at £1.705m, was the highest ever and meant that the average Numark shareholder had generated £1,365 per pharmacy. The results were so good, Mr Norris said, because key things were happening. More pharmacists were joining Numark each year. Those pharmacists were beginning to realise that Numark was their company exclusively, so it made sense to support it. Existing suppliers and new suppliers were keen to develop exclusive programmes because the results were good and represented value for money. Also, said Mr Norris, his colleagues at Numark central office were working on and launching new programmes and marketing initiatives which increased sales and profits.

Terry Norris: new programmes and marketing initiatives

He added that shareholders were investing more in Numark by investing in their businesses, the pharmacy refit programme and the sales assistants' courses. These were all encouraging and real signals of growing confidence in the future, said Mr Norris, as individual shareholders were making capital and revenue investments at "a particularly challenging time for pharmacy".
That was the good news. But there had been some problems, largely if not entirely due to rapid growth. Mr Norris said that the executive directors and the board had been keen to ensure that Numark's central office was a lean organisation, However, it had to be able to provide the service required by individual shareholders, every supplier and every wholesale partner. In that, said Mr Norris, central office had faltered, but the problems were being addressed. Four measures were planned.
There would be more central office accountability to shareholders, suppliers and wholesale partners.
Individual training needs for personnel would be identified and Numark would invest in training on a regular and ongoing basis.
A new management group would be created which would include a number of senior managers in addition to the executive directors. The objective of this was to develop individuals' potential and increase the management resource to guide the business.
A specialist human resources consultancy would be appointed to spend time with each manager.
"All of these measures have, as a key objective, unlocking the full potential of all those involved and applying additional intellectual capacity to the business," Mr Norris said.

In a press release issued in association with the conference, Numark announced that the January to June half year rebate of £1.705m represented a 49 per cent increase on the same period for 1998. The press release added that Numark was the fastest growing independent retail group with a membership increase of 12 per cent since January, 1999, to 1,310 shareholders.