REPORT:
The scenario is that you have been made pharmacist-in-charge of an independent pharmacy (comprising 2 other pharmacists and 5 assistants), on a main road on the edge of the CBD. The nearest pharmacy is over 2 kms. away.100 m away there is a new student accommodation complex housing about 5,000 Chinese and Indian students who will stay 1-3 years.
a) Spend about 450- 500 words on each of the following topics
i. Accounting / Finance: Using specific examples, outline the information your accountant would need to prepare a budget/business plan for you. Think specifically about what you need to plan for in the first 6 months of operation.
ii. Teams: Explain how you would develop effective teamwork in the pharmacy.
iii. Leadership: Outline how you would apply the Servant Leadership model to lead the staff, comprising the 2 other pharmacists and 5 assistants, giving details.
iv. Marketing: How will you ensure that customers will choose your pharmacy rather than another? ( Ensure you refer to the scenario)
v. Motivation: Luke, one of the 5 pharmacy assistants, is in his mid-twenties, and has been at the pharmacy for 6 months. It is his fifth job, having worked in sales for a Telco, and behind the bar in pubs mainly in Bali and London. He enjoys chatting with customers on the shop floor, particularly the females around his age, but seems bored with the routine of assisting with the dispensary of scripts and managing stock. His knowledge of pharmacy products seems quite limited, as he often asks the other female assistants, or that is the reason he gives you for why he seems to spend so much time chatting with them. Since the store is open 7 days a week there needs to be some flexibility regarding availability, but Luke always has reasons to not work on Saturday and Sunday mornings. He tends to sometimes appear unshaven and says it is his “look”. In the time you have been there you note that he seems to have become more bored. He tends to go outside for a smoke every hour at least and some of the customers have complained to you that he reeks of tobacco, particularly later in the day. You wonder why he was employed by the owner in the first place, only to find out it is the owner’s stepson, and who, one day, may own the business. He is watching what you do since he is thinking of perhaps one day becoming a pharmacist too as he thinks it is an “easy” career. Use the expectancy model to motivate Luke.
vi. Stress. Assuming that the pharmacy may become quite busy at times, how will you manage any potential stress that may be faced by the staff?
b) Rank the 6 topics from 1 to 6 in terms of which skill/ ability / knowledge you consider most valuable for a pharmacist, giving reasons for each choice and why each one was ranked the position it was.
Writing the report:
• Use Headings.
• Type double-spaced for ease of reading and marking.
• Be clear in your explanations and try to be as specific as possible rather than giving generic explanations.
• Make sure the literature is integrated by supporting your comments with reference to the literature.
• Reference your material whenever you are stating something that is not generally known. (Check every sentence.) If you do not you will be penalised for plagiarism.
• Use the Harvard style of referencing: author (year).
• Include a reference list at the end.
A minimum of 15 different academic references is required, to be eligible to pass. (This means academic (peer reviewed/ refereed) journals and text-books, but excludes everything else, such as lectures, general web-sites such as consultancies’ promotional web-sites, government websites, company websites and sources like Wikipedia.)
Please understand this is a pharmacy based in AUSTRALIA – please consider this especially for the accounting section. Pharmacies in Australia provide medicines through the PBS (public funding) and do not run through private insurance.