Vivian Lee - From Traditional to Digital: Charting a New Course in Pharmacy Careers

Vivian Lee is a Senior Consultant at IQVIA, as part of the Strategic Insights and Analytics team.

Her expertise is in leading and executing projects in the management consulting and commercial effectiveness area of practice for Consumer Health and Pharmaceutical clients, where she brings her in-depth industry knowledge of the retail pharmacy landscape, categories and consumer behavioural trends.

Vivian’s background is a registered Pharmacist with 15 years of experience working in various roles within the industry, including ownership of multiple pharmacies, Digital Marketing Manager, Examiner for the Pharmacy Council of NSW and Pharmacist Advisor to the aviation health industry.

You can find Vivian Lee on LinkedIn.

Do you have questions about your pharmacy career? Then contact us or meet our team.

Transcript

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Your Pharmacy Career podcast proudly brought to you by Raven's Recruitment Australia's Pharmacy recruitment agency

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spotlights the Myriad of career options available to pharmacists your host Kristi Lee Patterson and here esteemed

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guests will be sharing invaluable career advice that you can Implement at any stage of your career

0:26

Journey welcome to another episode of Your Pharmacy Career podcast I'm your

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host Kristi Lee Patterson and today we have a special guest whose career Journey encapsulates the versatility of

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the pharmacy profession joining us is Vivian Lee a seasoned pharmacist and senior consultant at IQVIA consumer health

0:45

Kristi Lee it's really my pleasure to be here uh today and share this with you and uh you know with the wider audience

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as well yeah so just a little bit of background and introduction on on myself

0:57

so yeah I'm a senior consultant at IQVIA and for those who don't know IQVIA is a

1:04

molecule to Market our company um so we are at the Forefront of uh health and

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data and we do anything from digital clinical trials where there's um houses

1:16

a lot of data um to helping um launch products to Market um Salesforce

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Effectiveness so could you tell us about your early experiences in owning um

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those Community pharmacies your intern year has to be a good year because if

1:35

you have a bad one it takes a long time to catch up so you really want to be having a really strong uh mentorship and

1:41

support in terms of key learnings the first one is your staff are your biggest

1:48

assets they are your allies you yeah you need to have good support you need to be

1:56

have the same vision you need to invest in training them up um and having that

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shared Vision um so and and you know leadership comes from the top so I

2:07

always believe that you need to lead by example you cannot you know talk the

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talk but not walk the walk yourself I think the second one is I think you cannot be everything for everyone you

2:19

need to pick your model are you going to be service based or are you going to be discount based uh and if you are going

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down the service based route you need to bit you need to make sure you are delivering on those value propositions

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that you you claim you are and also be charging appropriately or being

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financially renumerated because those Services all cost money or are you going to go down the

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path of Discounters um and and that's that's also fine but that's a volume based game

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and you if you're going to do it well um you know I can tell you you know it it can be a race to the bottom as well I

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just wanted to pick up on a couple of things that you mentioned um especially with your internship and getting that

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really valuable um mentorship from your preceptor I think that's really important and I know that was something

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that was really important for me when I did my internship was to find someone that was willing to give me

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the time to to learn as much as possible and so for those that are listening that

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are phac students I definitely would say start thinking about your internship now

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doesn't matter whether in your first second third or fourth year start thinking about what type of Pharmacy you

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want to be in um and if you don't know that's okay so maybe even start getting some uh jobs in um different types of

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pharmacies during your um during your uh University days um and kind of see what

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do you like and what you don't like um the other two learnings I just wanted to

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recap for people's you people being number one I think it sounds almost like common sense

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and people and I think people really are your your business right and we're in

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the business of um making people feel better about themselves and if your staff don't feel good then they're not

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going to give that experience to um the customers that are walking in so I think that's really important but that links

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into what you said about the you can't be everything to everyone so

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understanding what your that vision is and if you don't have that how can you articulate that to your staff I guess

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now I'd like to chat about that transition from the traditional Pharmacy setup to moving into online pharmacy so

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I I came to a point where um I've just had my first child I've sold up the pharmacy so essentially I was

4:53

unemployed and uh I had uh I I began looking for work and I I was successful

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in actually securing a job but then I was also approached about a partnership

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or a potential partnership on an online pharmacy so the two opportunities that were presented on in front of me was one

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was actually a sales rep role and that was you know for the industry and it was

5:18

marketing to uh doctors on Radiology Ser

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services and and and I think some things that you know pharmacists have to recognize is how much skill sets are

5:30

transferable uh you know we are we are a service-based industry we are a people person uh we understand you know um

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medical terms and you know we have ability to grasp Concepts so all of those are transferable so it means that

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you're very highly employable as well in other industry but I couldn't quite commit to

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the amount of travel that was required for a sales role at that time so the other opportunity that was presented in

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front of me was through the my business relationship um I was offered um a

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partnership um on online pharmacy and at it's called Pharmacy direct and it's

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actually Australia's first online pharmacy and at that time the the uh we

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bought it off uh Terry White uh kemot who had owned it and managed it for for

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for a few years so I had to learn very very quickly and the way that I did that

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was I had to prioritize because I as I said I I you can't be everything for everyone and that also applies to your

6:34

own business because you'll burn out very quickly so I had to reass I had to assess where I would be the most

6:41

impactful where I found that it would have been the most impactful was actually in digital marketing um and

6:49

Merchandising and then through that journey I actually really realize the

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power of data because when you're online you everything is trackable you're one

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click away from the competitor you need to understand consumer Behavior online

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you know how long are they on the website where have the where has traffic came from uh where how long are they staying

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on your site what is their path to purchase and journey what's their clickthrough rate conversion rate what

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is the cart abandonment rate where are you falling over in this in this journey

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and and path to purchase and how can you improve so that you can improve your

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revenue and and you know of course that that comes from people shopping on your website or or or through your

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store it it sounds like it certainly opened your eyes to um that consumer

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Behavior piece but we as pharmacists whether you're a um a small business

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owner or yeah managing a large online pharmacy business

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uh we have to recognize that they are people and they behave like consumers

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that's what they are and understanding that can really give you that leverage I also loved what you you said

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about where you can be the most impactful I think that's a really good

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take-home message for people because as pharmacists we I'm

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allowed to say we're a little bit of um control freaks like to do everything ourselves and that can lead to burnout

8:33

so it's recognizing what skills do you have um and then what skills that you don't have and those skills that you

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don't have hiring the right people so that they can do that those things really well um and it sounds like you

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did that at Pharmacy direct because yeah otherwise you can burn out and professional burnout is

8:56

something that is quite rampant in our industry at the moment and just any industry and so I just wanted to

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highlight that point as well that's um yeah really important but I wondered

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with your journey did you go and do any further study or did you like how did

9:16

you learn about that digital marketing prior to actually you know through uh through um

9:24

acquiring a business there is time to settlement you know so by the time you do your due diligence and settlement

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there's there's a couple of uh weeks at lag you know lag time right so in that time I actually took up a digital

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marketing course it was an online course but it was basically a six weeks it was a digital marketing 101 but it it's just

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gives gave me an you know insights into what what I need to know in order to

9:50

manage it I don't necessarily need to do the work but I need to understand conceptually so I can manage it and then

9:58

throughout my journey as well you when when you run an online

10:04

database there H when you sorry when you run an online business there is always a CRM and which is a database and so most

10:12

of them work on a you know relation relational um SQL database in the back end and so I actually went and did a

10:21

technical skill to understand SQL so you know and and it's

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all you know in I didn't need look I think some people also make the mistake

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and even in my journey now as a Senor consultant at IIA and through my mentorship with my manager I I I I said

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to him I have a lot of um analysts who who work for you know with me colleagues

10:49

of mine and they have extremely good technical skills and I sometimes I feel

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inadequate in terms you know of technical skills and I ask my manager do you think this is something I need to up

11:00

skill on and I said well you can but you're going head-to-head with someone who's fresh out of uni who's done a you

11:07

know five years computer science engineering degree who's going to be extremely good at technical skills

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you're a time poror you know Mom who's juggling your career and that so why don't you think where your real skill

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sets are and you're impactful and learn conceptually um I highly recommend that

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you know do do these short courses so you can understand it in order to manage it you don't need to be the one sitting

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there doing the coding you don't need to be the one sitting there doing the graphics but you need to understand so

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that you can manage the process you know from end to end and any business that

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you go into and any job I always recommend that when you first take up either a business or a job that you

11:52

spend the first you know period of time observing in business we have a rule

11:58

which is you know it's maybe it's a bit unspoken but that in the first you don't make changes you sit there and You

12:04

observe you learn everything you need to know about the business then you identify where the gaps are where the

12:11

challenges are where the pain points are then you start prioritizing them and

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creating some sort of framework and what you're going to address first and then you then start coning them off a lot

12:24

some well some people go in making the mistake and go I'm going to go in and I'm going to make such an impact I'm going to make this change you end up

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losing your best people and you can end up not taking the

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good things away from like taking the not taking the good things from a business um because you you want to keep

12:42

that you want to keep what's good in a business but you want to work on what's not working well and really Drive improvements there so whether it applies

12:49

to being an employee or applies to being a business I still think that that bit

12:54

of just observing and that Grace that you give yourself is really really important

13:00

oh that is fantastic advice I think that's I was kind of having I don't know

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if it was a bit of a PTSD or something from when I was first pharmacist in charge and I um I guess you could say

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when in guns blazing and wanting to make change and changed the world overnight and did it too fast and some things

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worked but some things didn't and we didn't bring the team on board um we

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definitely made changes too quickly and so I think that's yeah whether you

13:32

you're buying a business acquiring a business or just stepping up in a

13:37

leadership role or moving into a new Pharmacy I think that's really great advice

13:42

to yeah observe and really get involved in in I guess the

13:49

nitty-gritty or all the detail of the business and understand yeah what's

13:54

happening and then you can see those gaps and then make that prioritization I think that's great advice really really

14:00

good advice that's a really good point as well having yeah people around you

14:06

that are also supporting you to make those mistakes I think that's also when

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I look at yes some of my past career I've been very grateful that the owners have

14:19

given me that I guess freedom to make mistakes and I think that can can be

14:26

really great learning and I think if you you're not making mistakes you're not growing but then at the same time if

14:32

you're making that same mistake over and over again you're not learning so realizing okay maybe that wasn't the the

14:39

best idea let's learn from it and move on and try something else so as we've been chatting I can definitely hear your

14:47

passion in data and how to use that data and I think in Pharmacy there is so much

14:56

data out there even just from a just the data that's

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sitting in your dispensary software and I would almost say that 90%

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of it people don't know what to do with it it's just sitting there they pull reports but if you just like if you're

15:16

not doing anything with it it's almost you're wasting time

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so yeah let's move on now to your role at

15:26

IQVIA yeah I'd love to understand how you think you the pharmacy industry can can

15:33

utilize this data to to to ultimately make better health outcomes yeah and

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it's so impactful and so powerful data and we just don't realize you know the

15:44

power of it and sometimes you know for for pharmacists I think sometimes it's um it's um it's not having the time to

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explore the data as well that you have you know that that you have access to um

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and and you know being B to draw those meaningful insights but yeah from from

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like even a within the pharmacy itself you know the the data that you actually have like you have dispensary data so

16:10

you have all your consumers you have sales data you even have dispensary data which is Al actually a longitudinal

16:17

tracking of consum like you know consumer health behavior patient initi

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doctor initiation switching and and and you know source of

16:27

business so like all of those uh fall you know within sort of you know our um

16:33

analytics and we actually look at that data as a as a data and agency but yeah in terms of uh for the

16:42

industry uh or or for pharmacist how you can relate to that look I think we we

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you need to recognize how powerful data is making those data driven decisions

16:56

and not really on that that gut feeli you know like for for example you know you you know that for

17:03

example doing vaccinations is going to increase your

17:09

business but how how much how much incremental how much uplift are you going to get are you are you really

17:15

measuring that are you measuring whether it's increasing to your average basket size are you measuring whether it's it's

17:23

actually impactful in terms of you know your customer reach or your traffic are P are patients more loyal um it's so

17:31

there are a lot of metrics that you can think about in terms of how you track

17:36

all of these you know all of these things so what we saw was what we're

17:41

seeing is that this incorporating it these digital Health Services as a as

17:48

part of a a journey for the patients so that you take them on board you hold

17:54

them accountable you Empower their Journey uh and you help them along the

17:59

way then we're also seeing digital a digital therapy and digitalization

18:06

incorporated into treatment itself so you know I noticed things like VR being

18:13

incorporated into like back pain management or migraine management so

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these are all part of you know um things that are you know coming for our industry and can you imagine all the

18:26

data that all of this is C in and if our ability to analyze all of these patients

18:33

and behaviors and how this can be impactful to drive better outcome so I

18:38

think yeah it's something that I'm extremely passionate about um I think

18:43

there's a lot of gaps in the market and I think that you know

18:49

knowledge is you know extremely important to be aware of you know you

18:55

know what it can actually do for you and and what what what next what what else

19:01

and I think too yeah maybe with the with the data for a pharmacy

19:09

it's almost goes back to what you were saying about what's your vision and your strategy for your business because data

19:16

is so big and you can sometimes get lost a little bit in um and go off on little

19:21

tangents but if you H if you've got that solid vision and strategy about where you're headed in your business then then

19:28

you can actually map out yeah what are your existing capabilities where you want to go and

19:36

then how can I guess digital transformation help you get

19:42

there and I kind of want to comment a little bit about digital transformation as well it's kind of a bit of a buzzword

19:49

and but I would love for our listeners to understand that it's not just

19:55

about like a a I guess a a digital version of a

20:00

manual process because you're kind of seeing that transition in pharmacy at the moment where okay we're recording

20:06

something on paper so we're going to record it onto a a form on the computer

20:11

that's not quite what we're talking about with that transformation and it's actually about how do we make it easier

20:18

to streamline those PR processes so that pharmacists ultimately can spend more

20:25

time doing what they want to do with the the patient and not I guess wasting valuable time

20:32

doing all these sort of administration processes and things like that so yeah

20:37

you got me very excited about the when you know what you called out is really um relevant I I guess for an audience

20:44

and I think maybe we need to take a little bit of a step back and talk about what does this mean for the average

20:49

Community Pharmacy knowing what I know now and how I would have applied that you know when I maybe first went into

20:55

Community Pharmacy you know are you pulling your your sales data uh from your from your point of sales do you

21:03

know who your top customers are so who is driving 80% of your business and how

21:09

much value does the average you know customer contribute to these are you

21:14

know just really simple metrics what are your peak hours do you understand that what's the category that's that's giving

21:21

you contributing most to your business and then which one is growing the

21:26

fastest you know and when we talk about growth rate it's easy to be caught up at

21:31

the at a percentage but you know off of what base right so you know I think even

21:37

just taking that little step back and how it's relevant to your normal Community Pharmacy setting I think even

21:45

you know you've got a CRM all of us do we have a point of dispense a point of

21:50

sale system unless you still have the um the fruit market cash

21:56

registers the then p the data out export it into a spreadsheet play around with

22:02

it have a look what's your peak hour what days what days uh you know do you

22:08

have the most customers then have a look at what you're paying in terms of wages does that actually line up look at your

22:15

what your profit margin is for every hour and look at your Staffing level is there times where you're actually under

22:22

staffed is an opportunity where you actually should be increasing your staff

22:27

and hence you know services in that time and is there times where you could be cutting back what's what's the

22:34

most valuable category for you as a business and are you giving the right

22:41

amount of space for that category are you giving enough time in order to make

22:46

it presentable have you got the right range for that category because you've

22:51

identified that it's an important category yes so I think look that taking that step back I hope that you know is a

22:58

little bit and resonates a little bit with uh you know Community pharmacist then you talked about Chris

23:06

Le digital transformation and data for the sake of data or you know entering things for the sake of entering things

23:12

yeah I I I I do 100% agree with it so you in even in I I remember you know in

23:18

my practice you know in Community Pharmacy we we moved to um instead of the manual DD book we did the Ed book

23:28

and that was really great because we you know we we didn't have to write and we

23:34

were able to actually pick up invoices digitally so you could receive and you

23:40

could record what was going out against what's already um dispense and that was

23:45

a lot of efficiencies gained and then I know that you know something

23:53

close to you know out Hearts is like all of the administration work behind vaccination

23:59

are you leveraging digital capability that can do the screening for you that

24:04

can do the recording the uploading to you know to air as per you know your requirements who who can actually then

24:12

claim what your entitlements are either it's you know through the through the

24:17

government or patient pay where you can create digital invoices are you leveraging these technology that gives

24:24

you more time to do more vaccinations or in incorporate or introduce more services into your Pharmacy so yeah I

24:32

think there is a lot of you know definitely would not encourage you know data for the sake of

24:39

data and digital for the sake of digital it has to make sense definitely for your business and it has to drive

24:46

efficiencies for you so that it frees you up to do more of the things that we

24:51

should be doing which is clinical practice being in the Forefront you know we've got full scope of practice to look

24:57

forward to yeah oh I love that I think that's a really great great

25:04

advice now we've talked for quite some time already I think I could talk to you

25:10

about this all day but I think as we wrap up I'd love

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to understand what advice you would give to say early career pharmacist or um

25:24

maybe students that are maybe thinking oh this is something really deciding maybe I want to to explore these maybe

25:31

unconventional career paths but I think what's really important is that like in

25:38

your career path you've had you had that really good grounding Community Pharmacy

25:45

first and you did that for quite some time and so yeah I'd love to hear yeah

25:52

what advice you would give to those early career Pharmacists and um yeah for those pharmacists that are

25:59

considering those career transitions yeah what do they maybe need to to think about I think you know the

26:06

the the advice and I think you know you and I both connected on on on something

26:11

and it's about finding the right uh mentorship and receiving that sort of

26:18

advice and I think that in no part of my career Journey have I not had very very

26:25

strong uh mentors that have guided me whether it's um being the best pharmacist that I could be being the

26:33

best business owner that you know that that I could be or you know even giving

26:38

my best uh you know you know in terms of even my role as um at a at as an advisor

26:47

to quantis Medical you know having that strong mentorship someone to

26:55

just to guide you and to to to call out the rights and the

27:00

wrongs so that you know so that you you don't make as much mistakes because

27:06

we're all going to make mistakes and mistakes are part of your journey and that

27:11

self-reflection and the ability to learn from your mistakes is really really important so I I strongly encourage

27:18

early pharmacists to try different things and to find the right people be

27:26

and pillars that you can lean on into and really work out you know what is for

27:31

you and what is not for you and yeah but definitely you know I think seeking that

27:38

advice early on I think is really really important now in terms of career

27:45

transitions they can that can be tricky I'm not going to lie it it can be tricky you know we talked about upskilling we

27:51

talked about but I you know one thing I didn't talk about is starting from the bottom you know I i' I've had jobs where

27:59

actually based on where I am in terms of my career you know like you know 10 15

28:05

years at that time you know in the industry that that should qualify me for a role in senior leadership and that was

28:12

in my digital marketing as a sales and marketing manager luxury marketing luxury handbags online selling Chanel

28:19

handbags online so my role there was actually sales and marketing uh manager

28:26

and next in line to the austral Alan general manager so if they were ever

28:31

away I was essentially responsible for the whole business and I think that that was

28:38

really great and I really really appreciated uh you know the the their faith in me but there's a

28:45

lot that comes with not starting from the bottom so when you're put into a

28:51

role where you're expected but you have gaps in your

28:56

knowledge you you you're no longer given the grace that you should because you're

29:03

put in a position where you're expected to know so I I found that quite

29:10

challenging to be honest with you I I I found that because you know I I I had you know

29:17

people who reported into me who were extremely good at public

29:22

relations and and but yet I was expected to lead them and not really having any

29:29

foundation I I felt like I couldn't I I wasn't the best version of myself and

29:36

didn't give them the appropriate guidance and Leadership that I could so

29:41

when I transitioned into the role at IIA I actually started from the bottom and I

29:47

started as an analyst and I wanted to be taught I was open to learning and I was

29:54

open to receiving feedback to advice and because I was able to apply my you

30:01

know my my skill sets to it I progressed extremely quickly in my role I think

30:08

jumping you know three three steps within you know two years is not really you know a normal career progression but

30:16

but yeah but because I started at the bottom people almost treat you a little

30:21

bit differently they give you the grace and they teach you but when you kind of expect to come at the top you're not

30:30

given that great so really think about that when you make your career transition whether you should be you

30:37

know having maybe a bridging sort of way in sometimes a bridging role is your

30:43

entry into a new role so for example if you were you know working Community

30:49

Pharmacy and that was your background and you wanted to come into industry there are entry points that are easier

30:56

uh I know a lot of Pharmacists working Regulatory Affairs within you know farma companies but that is not really an

31:02

entrylevel role a lot of people actually start as you know even sales reps to get

31:08

their foot into the door leveraging our people skills our clinical knowledge

31:13

that we already have and an ability to Market these products because we're already marketing them to our patients

31:21

so you know that is a really good entry point or even an analyst role within

31:26

within you know within um a a company I I do highly recommend some sort of bridging to get to where you want to be

31:35

and yes and it does sometimes involve you know self-learning that may fall outside of outside work hours so there

31:42

will have to be commitment on your your part as well so I hope that

31:50

that Absol I hope that answers your question no that definitely helped yes

31:58

did answer the question and I think that's fantastic advice for people that are wanting to make that career

32:05

transition and that not being afraid to I guess take that entry level role which

32:13

absolutely would mean taking potentially a pay cut but seeing it as that

32:18

long-term investment in yourself and also that self- learning as well so investing in

32:24

yourself and yeah essentially yeah using your own money to invest in

32:31

yourself um because if you can't do that why on Earth would anyone else um want to invest in you so I think that's

32:38

really really great advice it's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you today

32:43

Vivan been such a pleasure to you know connect with you and to be you know a

32:49

part of this I really enjoyed this experience and you know been able to um talk with you you know so naturally and

32:58

you know sharing this with our audience but you know one thing also

33:03

that I say is the power of networking you know like how you and I connected I think don't be afraid to reach out to

33:09

people you know most people want to meet and and hear what other people do and

33:16

yeah I think it's yeah it's been a wonderful uh experience for me and and definitely connecting with you um as

33:23

well Chris so thank you very much for inviting me on the show no problem thank you so much and for

33:29

those that are listening and you're wondering how we did meet I actually um listened to Vivian speak at a pharmacy

33:36

connect conference and then I hit her up in her DMS on LinkedIn

33:42

so don't be afraid to reach out to people that you think are interesting or

33:48

that you want to connect with so that's I guess my pting message on for maybe

33:53

those younger pharmacists that don't know how to make those connections and Network

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go to these events reach out to people and you don't be afraid to um walk over

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say hi or or message them on LinkedIn uh we all started somewhere um and most of

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us yeah remember what it was like to um yeah to be early in your careers so thank you so much

34:17

Vivian you've been listening to Your Pharmacy Career podcast brought to you by Raven's Recruitment don't miss our next

34:24

episode where we continue to explore the multifaceted world of Pharmacy careers make sure to subscribe and share

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[Music]