Behind Every Package is a Patient featuring Jim Mullins

Great, Scott. Greg, nice to see you, and really appreciate being on with both of you today. So thank you. I always try to be hygienic, you know.

Yeah, so I was born and raised on Long Island. A great, great place to grow up. I still reside on Long Island. I'm actually, the Henry Schein worldwide corporate headquarters is on Long Island as well. So, you know, I think the joke is if you're born on Long Island, you're not allowed to leave. So, you know, I've been here pretty much my entire life. So, great restaurants, great beaches, and just really a great community to grow up in. So, again, great to be here this morning.

Oh, here we go. J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets. But please don't tell anybody.

Yeah, it's a great question, Greg. I'm not sure if it was a specific role. As you mentioned, I've been with the company for 34 years. And we had one distribution center here on Long Island, totally domestic business, telesales business, wasn't even a full-service business back in 1988. As we continued to grow and branch out, and what moved into, you know, outside of North America, we put initially into Europe. That's when I started to really understand a little bit more about international business, really understanding as the company kind of tapped into other parts of the world. That's where I really started to really understand a little bit more of the cultures, how businesses operated. So it wasn't a specific role, you know, as my career advanced, you know, I did have more, as of today, have more global roles. But really, it started as the company kind of expanded, I started to learn a little bit more and become a little bit more understanding on how the rest of the world operated.

Yeah, you know, I like to explain Henry Schein, we're a healthcare organization. And I think the simple way to think about it is if you walk into a dentist or a doctor's office, the chair you sit in, to the anesthetic that they use, to the gloves, the masks, the technology, the health support and run their business, that's what we sell. We have five major businesses. We have our North American distribution business, we have our international distribution business, we have our strategic business unit group which is manufacturing along with some other healthcare-related organizations, our global oral reconstruction group, which is, they make our dental implants, bone regeneration type products, and then our last, or fifth part of the business is our technology business. So as I mentioned earlier, the software, the technology that integrates all of the equipment and all of the technology to help a practice run more effectively and more efficiently.

Absolutely. So, you know, put together a startup order for the new customers, which we do on a daily basis, whether it's a large institutional customer or a single practitioner. And again, anything from, you know, setting up the business, the construction, the design of the office, all the way to getting the products to our customers. That's very, very...

Yeah, I think, you know, we, behind every package is a patient, that's the way we look at it, right? You know, our customers are the other physicians, of the dentists, but we know at the end of the day it's all about the patient and the patient care. So we help health happen, as one of our taglines and how we communicate for our customers. I think one of the things that we're seeing now, Greg, is sustainability is coming more to the forefront. Both, you know, well, from our suppliers, from our customers, and from our investment community as being part of a Fortune 500 organization, right? Our supplier partners, our customers, our larger customers, and our government customers, it's a prerequisite to have a sustainability program and to prove it. So, you know, sustainability isn't just good for the planet, which is critical, but it's good for business as well. And also, you know...

It really is. And the team has done a very good job on, you know, putting together a plan, a roadmap for our sustainability process. And it's a global, it's a global program. And absolutely important for both the planet and for business as well.

Yeah, I agree, Greg. I think it needs to be incorporated into the fabric of your organization. And like anything else, we can't do everything at once. It needs to be prioritized and what makes sense, you know, from a business perspective, how it's going to impact the customer, and obviously there's always budgets involved. So it's prioritization on creating that roadmap and getting to where we need to get to.

Yeah, I think, you know, besides sustainability, I think maybe what your listeners maybe want to know about, you know, the healthcare industry is that there's several aspects to supply chain. There's the cold chain process, there's pharmaceuticals, there's vaccines which we're heavily involved with, there's, you know, regulated type items whether it's medical devices, controlled substances. So it's a complex supply chain that has several different aspects that the team focuses in on. You know, we also, Scott, just started our three-year strategic plan. So, and part of that strategic plan, when it comes to supply chain, a lot of the focus is on technology. And, you know, incorporating technology into the supply chain, whether it's up front with software, with our purchasing systems being able to forecast better than we ever had, be able to make sure we're acquiring a product at the right time, at the right place, at the right price. So we're focusing on technology at the inventory management level as well as technology within our distribution and manufacturing facilities. We're not a total robotic distribution network, we balance our technology with our team. And with the war on talent and the challenges with, you know, recruiting within most industries, that balance between technology and, you know, your team, your employees is critical. And then finally, you know, the third aspect of technology is the visibility software to see, you know, your products throughout the entire supply chain. And I think many companies, along with us, trying to learn the hard way over the last couple of years that if you lose that visibility of the product throughout the supply chain, you know, your decision making becomes that more challenging and that more difficult. So, those are three areas. On the fourth area on the strategic plan is, you know, continuing to develop our team, our team Schein members as we call them, and both by training and building that succession plan to have a strong bench as we kind of move forward. So the technology part of it as well as the talent within our internal team.

I'm proud of you, Greg. Good job.

They're just as important as our other products, so.

Yeah, it's a good question, you know. We average about 12 to 15 acquisitions a year, and that's going back as far as I can remember. So our strategy, Scott, is to grow organically, of course, but also to grow through M&A, through our acquisitions. And, you know, we acquire whether it's organizations or products that help us differentiate with our customers and it strengthens our position in certain regions and certain categories. We've been successful with M&A in my mind is because we have a real solid approach starting with the due diligence process, all the way to, if we do, we have many standalone businesses after we acquire them or join partnerships with them, and there's others that if it makes sense to integrate into our core business when we have our core competency, we do that as well. So we have a good integration plan. The plan itself, it touches every aspect, whether it's communication to our customers, whether it's legal aspects, but also from a supply chain standpoint to understand where are these new customers located, how are we going to get the product to them the same way we get to our current customers. So day one of an integration or for a new customer, it's like they can even provide their old customer number or information and the due diligence that we did up front brings everything together. At the end of the day, it's all about the culture of the organization. Again, I've been part of many acquisitions, we have partnered, I've gone to partner with several businesses, it was the right business, it was the right location, it was the right thing for our customers, until we get to the point of understanding the values and the culture of that company. If that doesn't fit with ours, we walk away. We've walked away, and it's the right thing to do at the end of the day, because we know a lot of integrations fail because of that component. So, yeah, very proud of the way we handle that. And again, as it relates to the supply chain, a lot of diligence, a lot of legwork is done up front working with our carrier partners, working with our supplier partners to ensure that when we move forward with that acquisition, the I's are dotted and T's are crossed.

Looks like he retired two months ago, so.

Yeah, well, he's still connected.

Yeah, we have a special, it's what, well said, Greg. We have a special relationship with our business leaders. You know, it's, you know, we make it a point with our DC directors to reach out constantly to the business leaders within the regions that they support from a distribution standpoint. So it's not the first time they're talking with a regional or a zone manager when there's an issue, they're reaching out, how we doing, what are you hearing. So that connection creates that relationship and building the team. We do that at every level from a supply chain perspective, and that really showed during the pandemic when there was challenges with getting products, shipping product, you know, and the team knew who to go to. And the team knew that they had the trust in us knowing that we're going to be reaching out and telling them and updating them on how things are going, what's going well, what the challenges we're having, and what the plan is to correct those. So if you point that connection and that communication between the business leaders and supply chain is critical, it shouldn't only happen when there's issues, it should happen when things are going well and continue to build that relationship or those relationships.

Yeah, first I would say if you don't have one now, engage in a mentor. I think all successful people, whether within supply chain or outside of supply chain, really needs a mentor to bounce things off of, to get advice, sometimes some tough love there as well, kind of helps on how to make your decisions as you move forward. But also to be curious and to learn, to be part of a podcast as Supply Chain Now, so to learn, to read. As we know, supply chain, the changes in supply chain are happening faster than ever. And it's hard even as senior supply chain executives to keep up with all the changes, what's happening in the different industries. But, you know, I would also recommend to be part of cross-functional initiatives or projects within your organization. Again, supply chain, it goes across whether it's transportation, whether it's inventory management, whether it's distribution. When there's an opportunity to be part of a cross-functional initiative, I would highly recommend, and I kind of preach that to my team as well, to be part of it. And even if it's outside of the supply chain, to get those connections with other parts of your organization to actually promote and really help the rest of the organization understand what the supply chain team does and how it can benefit with those connections. So again, mentoring, be curious, and really get involved with some cross-functional initiatives, I think would be my recommendation.

Yeah, great question. It's certainly the ability to acquire personal protective equipment, the PPE that many of us on call were aware of. Again, being a healthcare company, you know, to acquire that product, to get it in-house, and then get it to the healthcare professionals that needed it to be able to deal and treat the patients over the last couple of years during the pandemic was critical. And I can say, Scott, that the team, beyond supply chain, but I'm so proud of the supply chain team, the sourcing team, they worked tirelessly from acquiring product to receiving the product to picking, packing, shipping the product and getting it to the right parts of the country, through the world, to ensure that we were being partners with the healthcare community. We were even shipping certain products, again, a lot of this was allocation as it was coming in, to non-customers to a certain extent, because we knew it was the right thing to do as an organization to get it to a group. We took care of our customers, of course, and at the end of the day, we did the right thing as an organization. And it goes back to our social responsibilities part of that as well. But that, without a doubt. And what it did do as well, I talked about relationships before, having strong relationships with your supplier partners, and knowing that as we're getting product, they know it's going to be received properly, get it to the right place, everybody was in this together. So how do those relationships help us acquire, you know, above our allocation in many cases, right? As well as the importance of the public-private partnership, working with the government. You know, they're great at a lot of things, but, you know, they came to the experts within the industries and said, how can you help us get products to certain places. So that was really, really important to have those relationships. And also, data, having data was just as important as having product, right? Having data of what we needed to get where we needed to go to was really important. So, that's, I think, the eureka moment for the supply chain organization over the last year or two.

I think the best way, Scott, is through LinkedIn, Henry Schein LinkedIn, or, you know, www.henryschein.com. A lot of great information whether it's about the organization, the leadership opportunities, and, you know, a little more, a bit more of information of how we operate and how we connect with society. So I think those are the two key areas.

Scott, Greg, thank you very much for having me today. And good luck to your success with Supply Chain Now, and love listening to you guys. So, all the best of luck.