Stores get 'what they need to operate'

Chain Drug Review, July 25, 2005

WARWICK, R.I. -- With 40 years as a Brooks Pharmacy associate under his belt, Don Kinney knows what it takes to operate a drug store.

As vice president of store operations at Brooks prior to the chain's acquisition of 1,549 Eckerd Corp. outlets last year, Kinney had pretty much the same responsibilities for the company's stores in New England and upstate New York as he has now, but he has since assumed a new title--group vice president of New England.

Under the old Brooks he oversaw 333 stores, and under the new company he is responsible for 405, adding 65 former Eckerd units north of New York City and seven in Connecticut.

That would keep most men extremely busy, but Kinney says overseeing more than 400 units across seven states is a manageable task. The main reason for that, he says, is that he has ample help--two regional managers and a regional operations manager who oversees the stores' pharmacies.

Still, incorporating those 72 former Eckerd units into Brooks network has not been without challenges. "The greatest challenge has been understanding the stores and how they operate," he remarks. "The second-greatest challenge we've had is getting the Eckerd stores to operate the way we operate."

The problems Eckerd faced with inventory and replenishment, Kinney notes, caused a lot of headaches. Too often, he says, Eckerd stores were low on inventory, especially at the front end.

While the company was using a sophisticated autoreplenishment system, Kinney notes that such a system is only as good as the people operating it. "Any autoreplenishment system needs store staff to intervene," he explains. "There wasn't enough of that intervention."

While Kinney says some of the blame for that situation belonged to store managers and their associates, the main problem was a lack of direction and guidance by middle and upper management--a situation that has quickly been reversed by Brooks.

"We're getting much better results from the same stores with the same people," he comments. "That tells us that the fault was not with the store staff but with management."

Despite the improved results in the former Eckerd stores under Kinney's purview, the units are not yet performing at the level he would like.

"The sales aren't quite where we want them to be yet," he says. "We expect them to be there by the middle of the fiscal year."

As further evidence of the trust Kinney has in the store personnel at the Eckerd outlets and the confidence those workers have that the new owner has set their stores on a new path, there has been very little turnover after the acquisition.

"We didn't lose any managers, and the only pharmacists we've lost have been through normal turnover," he notes.

Brooks' management style has helped the personnel at the Eckerd stores realize that executives at headquarters care about them.

"People were very pleased that we bought the stores," says Kinney. "They like the fact that they are getting regular visits from me and my regional managers."

A Brooks associate since 1965, when he worked as a stock boy at a store on North Main street in Providence, R.I., Kinney has seen the company grow from a small regional player into the nation's fourth-largest drug chain. For most of those 40 years little changed at the company, he recalls. But when the Jean Coutu Group purchased the chain in 1994, the differences began to be quite noticeable.

"Prior to Coutu acquiring the company, management had never invested in the stores as it should have," Kinney says. "Since that acquisition they have made investments every year. They give the stores what they need to operate."

And, he notes, the Brooks' culture--sort of one big happy family where everyone is encouraged to speak his or her mind--has not gone away, despite the company becoming one of the industry's largest and most powerful players.

"We get a lot of good feedback from the store people," Kinney says. "We never come back from the field without at least one good idea from the people in the stores."

Store Operations

Brooks Eckerd's four group vice presidents are intent on enhancing store operations from the field. With regional and district managers, they are helping rebrand Eckerd up and down the East Coast as a pharmacy-centered drug store.