17th Annual DSN Industry Issues Summit again delivers premium insights

NEW YORK — Attendees of the 17th Annual DSN Industry Issues Summit were treated both to critical insights into how to better succeed in the retail pharmacy space and real talk on the challenges and opportunities facing health and wellness merchants. The importance behind creating a personalized patient experience, employing technology to enable more interventions between pharmacist provider and patients and the value within localized product assortments were just a few of the insights trending througout the day. 

 

Attendance at the event — presented by Drug Store News — reached record levels, with 40 retailers and more than 240 supplier participants. Each of the all-star panels featured many of the top minds in pharmacy retailing as they candidly discussed the ins and outs of what's shaping the business and midway through Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, gave a colorful, no-holds-barred assessment of how companies are not optimizing their advertising spends through topically-relevant venues like social media. 

 

The all-day event was held at Manhattan’s historic New York Athletic Club, located directly across the street from Central Park.

 

“Thank you for making this event one of the most successful ones to date,” Wayne Bennett, group publisher of the Drug Store News Group, told attendees in closing the day's events. “Echoing some of the comments from the panel, why is this event successful? It's successful because most everyone in this room is very passionate about the industry and what they do," he said. "And it's the intellectual capacity [of everyone here] to want to learn more.”

 

The day started with the Health, Wellness and Technology panel discussion moderated by Chris Dimos of McKesson. Personalization of the consumer experience and investing in streamlining workflow were two hot topics for the morning. Retailer panelists included:

 

“What are the largest operational challenges that you're trying to solve for today?” asked Dimos.

 

Retailers are facing an ever-changing regulatory environment, an evolving health consumer dynamic and a heightened expectation of service all under the pressure of tighter margins, one panelist noted. Improving adherence and establishing an appointment-based pharmacy model, vs. transactional, represent opportunities going forward, another panelist noted. 

 

The second panel, this year renamed Chronic Care & Retail Health Retailers in recognition of the fact that retail pharmacy helps manage a number of medical conditions beyond diabetes, was moderated by Dave Wendland of Hamacher Resource Group. Panelists included:

 

 

“What is the magnitude of the task to manage chronic disease states?” asked Wendland.

 

"It's a daunting task that gets harder every year because of our aging population and diseases that haven't been mitigated," noted one panelist. "The industry needs to figure out a way to connect dots, because that's what our patients need and want. That's what I try to do everyday with great pharmacists, great opticians, great technicians."

 

And moderator Dan Mack of Elevation Forum wrapped up the panel discussions and capped off the day with the power-packed Industry Issues Summit. During this discussion, retailers discussed what they look for in supplier partners, and the ways in which suppliers can drive mutual value to that partnership. Retailer panelists included:

 

“The three things that block higher-level growth, is you're not picking the right partners,” said Mack, kicking off the discussion. “[You're] not building a culture that's very distinct [and] you're not hiring people with a growth mindset.”

 

Mack and his panel addressed several questions on how to maximize growth potential at retail, including balancing boomers with millennial merchandising strategies, optimizing value and premium product solutions and addressing localization challenges. 

 

Sponsors of the event included: AccentHealth, Ateb, BD Medical, Boehringer Ingelheim, Catalina, Emerson Group, GlaxoSmithKline, higi, Hyland's, i-Health, Johnson & Johnson, MD Labs, Menasha, Novo Nordisk, Perceptimed, Pfizer Consumer Healthcare, Pharmavite, Pioneer Rx, Takeda, Unilever, USNutrition and Workplace Impact.