The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 271 No 7259 p106
26 July 2003
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New UniChem service aims to help pharmacists cope with change
UniChem described how it plans to help community pharmacists meet the demands of the proposed new pharmacy contract at a press briefing on 16 July. Last summer, the company said it would be launching "Profile" but provided little detail about the scheme. Now it is able to expand on exactly what is involved. "My personal belief is that there are a lot of very concerned pharmacists looking for support," said Martyn Ward, sales and marketing director. "What we have done is added value: instead of fighting the discount war we will help our customers get through the changes." UniChem believes that the various packages of added value schemes it has offered in the past have been too complicated, at least in terms of the number of schemes. So it plans to bring them all together in one offering called "Portfolio". The Portfolio package allows added value services to be linked to discounts. An increased spend in a certain area will allow an incremental discount in another area. "We will tailor an individual package of services for every one of our independent pharmacists," Mr Ward explained. Pharmacists will be assigned to one of four "value zones" according to the amount they are prepared to spend. Each zone entitles customers to certain amounts of value-added services that can be obtained either free of charge or at a discounted price. Services can be purchased if the value zone the pharmacist is in does not provide it. "The more committed a customer is to UniChem, the more added value that customer can access free of charge," said Mr Ward. The added value services in each portfolio will be divided into three sections: retail, dispensary and business support. UniChem also plans to expand its range of training packages. The Portfolio package has been piloted in between 30 and 40 stores and the roll-out will start in August. |
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