Administering healthy dose of optimism

THE FRIDAY INTERVIEW: Debbie Smith managing director Boots Ireland:THE VIEW from the Irish headquarters of Boots in Dublin's Park West isn't exactly pretty – the office looks out on an abandoned building site littered with unused machinery and potholes. It could be a metaphor for the Irish economy but Debbie Smith, newly minted Boots Ireland managing director, isn't the type to let it get to her.

Her career to date has been positively rocket-fuelled, propelled in the main by a combination of self-belief and enthusiasm.

Smith joined Boots as a trainee pharmacist as soon as she completed her pharmacy degree at the University of Sunderland, becoming a shop manager in her early 20s.

By the time she was 28, she was a district manager, overseeing 25 shops. Now, at the grand old age of 45, she has arrived to head Boots’s Irish business.

“I found the ideal career for myself very early on,” she says.

There was no hesitation on her part when it came to the move to a new country, while the support of her husband and three children made the decision even easier

Settling in has gone smoothly, with Smith now long enough in the role to observe some key differences between the business of pharmacy in England and Ireland.

In Ireland, she says, the relationship between the patient and their pharmacist is much more important, a fact which makes her particularly keep to develop Boots’s Irish pharmacy brand.

As it stands, she says, the chain of 56 stores in the Republic has an “incredibly loyal customer base” for its beauty and toiletry lines, whereas in England, Boots would be better known as a “chemist”.

One of her goals in the Republic is to merge the two models, one leveraging off the other as the operating climate toughens in both.

The first step in this strategy came earlier this month when Boots began offering the ’flu vaccine to their patients for a fee of €30. The service, which allows patients to avoid a visit to the GP, will soon be expanded to include other offerings, although Smith is too coy to say what they will be.

It could, however, see pharmacists administer prescription-only medicines such as treatments for minor infections.

Smith denies that it’s just about generating another revenue stream for Boots, preferring the idea of helping customers “feel good”. Helping to “build the brand” is a pleasing side-effect, she acknowledges.

“The future of Boots in Ireland is about building a much stronger pharmacy brand.”

The brand, pharmacy or otherwise, is undeniably healthy as it stands, although the company has traded through the same difficult times as everybody else in Ireland.

Last year, like-for-like revenues declined by 3.9 per cent to €235 million, with the company’s results citing “the fragile state of the Irish economy”. Irish profit figures were not released and Smith is cautious on giving too much away about this year’s performance.

“Within the climate we’re in, I feel we’re doing very well. I’m confident we’ll continue to grow our business,” she says, adding that she is “very optimistic”, whatever the economic backdrop.

Whatever about being optimistic and wanting to make customers happy, the very fact of Boots’s ownership by private equity suggests there might be a greater emphasis on the bottom line than Smith might admit.

The business, which is part of wider UK pharmaceutical group Alliance Boots, was taken over in 2007 by US private equity giant KKR, in conjunction with the company’s executive chairman Stefano Pessina.

The arrangement involves a heavy debt burden – of the multi-billion pound sterling – that often places profit above all other considerations.

No, says Smith, the climate in Boots is not like that. In fact, she adds, she has never known the company to be “more focused on customers”.

This fits well with her personal belief that, to get customers to return to your store, your service levels need to be tip-top. Customers should, she says, feel like they’re the only one in the shop, while staff should be able to recognise whether a patient is in a hurry or would prefer a longer conversation.

She is hands-on in her approach, spending between two and three days every week on the shop floor, usually on unannounced visits and always taking the time to speak to customers.

Boots has in the past signalled that it would like to add to its portfolio of 56 Irish stores (the most recent opening came this week in Limerick), with Smith herself quoted as hoping for 25 new stores in the short term. Now she concedes this is not as easy as it sounds, with planning, site values and other factors often intervening to scupper projects.

Certain geographical areas remain at the top of the target list despite the difficulties, with small outlets in Dublin suburbs and a larger outlet in addition to the existing Grafton Street store of particular interest.

Acquisitions are also possible, although Boots has shied away from large-scale deals since its purchase of the 15-strong Hayes Conyngham Robinson chain in 1998.

Few have the practical resources of Smith when it comes to testing the retail mood of the economy and, happily, she reports there were some “green shoots” a few months ago.

That was before talk began of four-year plans and €50 billion bailouts however, with the upcoming Christmas period being eyed closely.

The hoped-for festive boom will see Boots expand its 1,800 Irish workforce, with Smith viewing the treatment of employees as a priority.

Her stance is informed by a period of her career spent in human resources, with the role involving leadership development.

“It was an incredibly important time for me in my career, because it helped me to learn a lot more about myself.”

One lesson taken to heart is that happy staff mean happy customers, with the result that Smith is a “massive advocate” of work/life balance.

“As a leader, you have to lead by example. If I need to be somewhere, or something is more important in my home life, then I’ll make a big deal of that,” she says, acknowledging that she was not always prepared to do this.

“It’s only when you get the true balance that you can be great at both,” she adds, living proof, apparently, that her philosophy works.

On the record

Age: 45.

Family: Married with three children.

Hobbies: Walking, tennis, reading crime novels, holidaying in Mexico.

Something we might expect:She knows her beauty products.

Something that might surprise: She is confident about the future of the Irish economy.