0:05

You know , from a marketing , it's not

0:07

a lead anymore , it's a hook . So if

0:09

you can get them hooked , it says , okay , that's the service that's

0:12

going to enable me to make an informed decision . Start

0:14

simple , versus trying to look at the big , full

0:16

gamut and then , as the uniqueness

0:18

of whatever the customer experiences

0:21

for that industry , then start adding

0:23

on the Legos which you know I've talked about

0:25

to get that NSP to market .

0:27

Welcome to what If so what , the podcast

0:30

where we explore what's possible with digital and

0:32

discover how to make it real in your business

0:34

. I'm your host , jim Hertzfeld , and

0:36

we get shit done by asking digital leaders

0:38

the right questions what , if so

0:40

what ? And , most importantly now

0:42

, what ? So I'm really excited to

0:44

be here today . We're live , we're in person

0:47

for the first time , and with James Hannitz of Cardinal

0:49

Health . Thank you so much for joining us

0:51

here . Tell us a little bit about yourself

0:53

and what you do at Cardinal Health , especially for the

0:55

folks who may not know what Cardinal Health is .

0:58

I am the chief architect for

1:00

Cardinal Health , covering primarily

1:02

the customer engagement and corporate solutions

1:04

. Cardinal

1:11

is very much in the full spectrum of healthcare , and so there's

1:13

a lot more to it than just what one or two people can do . So I've got four or

1:15

five other peers that work in architecture as well for their

1:17

chief areas . In short , cardinal

1:19

is a pharmaceutical

1:21

distribution , it's medical product distribution

1:24

and there's a bunch of other services that are

1:26

offered , depending on their part

1:28

of health . I've been with Cardinal , for

1:30

I'll be coming up to my ninth year . The

1:33

focus prior to that was in retail

1:35

, and that was why I was brought into

1:37

Cardinal to sort of bring that retail and that

1:39

customer engagement thinking versus

1:41

the inside out being a distribution company .

1:44

Well , that's the part that really is interesting

1:46

to me about . You know your role here

1:48

at Cardinal , but you know you used to

1:50

do a lot of years in retail

1:53

, so how did that prepare you for what

1:55

you're doing today at Cardinal ?

1:56

I think at Cardinal , as health

1:58

is sort of changing from more

2:01

hospital more at the doctor . It's

2:03

becoming more to the person , to the patient

2:05

, to the caregiver , and so the

2:07

experiences that you're looking at in terms

2:10

of your buying power , your

2:12

knowledge how am I getting informed ? What can

2:14

I do for self-service ? That's becoming

2:16

a lot what Cardinal wants to be , as they try to get

2:19

to the full spectrum of what their customers

2:21

would be looking for , and so , instead

2:23

of being distribution , how can we empower

2:25

all of the different personas of healthcare

2:27

?

2:28

I think we were talking earlier today and you said

2:30

something like I think the number was something

2:32

like 600 permutations of

2:34

business , of buyer type of channel

2:36

. I mean it gets a little complicated .

2:38

It's definitely not dull , and what's nice

2:41

is each one of those has a different experience , so it's

2:43

not cookie cutter either way through any

2:45

one of those personas .

2:46

The thing I've always thought was funny about healthcare

2:49

we hear about personalization all the time . I mean

2:51

, it doesn't get more personal than healthcare . So

2:53

to your point about you're reaching the patient , the

2:55

caregiver , the provider , the pharmacist

2:57

right A lot of folks involved in our wellbeing

3:00

, yeah , yeah . So what's

3:02

really fascinating to me in this story is Cardinal

3:04

, this acknowledgement that we have to be customer

3:06

focused . We work with a lot of , I would

3:08

say , traditional companies and you

3:10

guys have been around for a while , but the

3:13

bulk's needed , so that's very traditional , I think . A

3:15

lot of traditional companies brick and

3:17

mortar manufacturing

3:30

companies that are making and selling and moving things . I'm

3:32

just gonna go off on a tangent here . Lloyd Dobler

3:34

from Say Anything , one of my favorite movies , said

3:36

I don't wanna buy anything processed or sold

3:38

, sell anything processed or bought , or buy anything

3:41

processed or sold Anyway , we can cut that

3:43

out later but a lot of traditional companies

3:45

out there who have hired retail

3:47

experts like yourselves . You unlock this

3:49

mystery capability . What

3:52

do you think those customers are really or those

3:54

organizations are really looking for from

3:56

this retail perspective ? Like when you really break

3:58

it down , what do they think they're looking for ?

4:00

Well , I think the first thing would be really

4:03

understanding the trends , what the customer's looking for . Well , I think the first thing would be

4:05

really understanding the trends , what

4:07

the customer's looking for . In a retail

4:09

, you're constantly looking at on a seasonal basis

4:12

Every six months or not even

4:14

within every six months , it's seasonal what

4:16

am I doing for back to school , what am I doing

4:18

for holiday ? What am I doing for spring break

4:20

or even holidays in terms of Easter

4:22

dresses , since we just had this past weekend

4:25

? The speed is what people are

4:27

looking for . The empowerment then

4:29

to the customer to get that info , because if

4:31

you miss the season , as in retail

4:33

, it really has a huge impact . So

4:35

how can you apply that ? And then

4:37

sort of the buying habits . Most people

4:40

are used to doing Christmas shopping on

4:42

major retailers . They want

4:44

that exact same experience with , whether

4:46

CPG or even with health . An

4:49

acute buyer has the same habits

4:51

, the same expectations , the same empowerment

4:53

that they would expect if they were doing their own holiday

4:55

shopping .

4:56

Yeah , yeah , at the individual basis

4:58

.

4:58

At the individual basis . Yes , yeah .

5:00

Essentially , they have their preferences . They have

5:03

preferences , they have their own pressures . The

5:05

clock is ticking , like you said

5:07

. That's interesting . You know Easter break , spring

5:09

break . I don't know Cinco de Mayo . I mean spring break

5:11

. I don't know Cinco de Mayo . I mean , you know , back to school

5:13

and if you're not available

5:16

for these buyers , then they'll find

5:18

someone who is and they may not come back .

5:26

And that's the big thing too is even , as I think you see , the disruption in retail there's

5:28

. So many digital fronts have gone down , but the purpose

5:30

of the store is less critical

5:33

versus the people being able to empower it on

5:35

the website before they actually get to the store

5:37

, if there is one within their vicinity .

5:39

I think Walmart once called stores like forward

5:42

deployed fulfillment centers

5:44

. Yeah , Right , which was ? I don't know

5:46

if you've heard that term . I may have . I may have gotten that wrong

5:48

, but I thought that , yeah , Rethinking what is

5:50

the purpose of a store ? What's the purpose of the point of

5:53

sale system ? It's not . Is it to take your

5:55

cash ? Is it to run the inventory in the store

5:57

? Right , I mean , these are different ways of

5:59

looking at things that you guys and I think you're bringing

6:01

that in to Cardinal .

6:03

Yeah , the many DCs with

6:05

the Walmart stuff , but at the same time , we

6:07

don't live in the 17 distribution centers

6:09

. It's getting into the house . They

6:11

expect it the same day , and what Cardinal

6:13

offers in terms of fulfilling our acute

6:16

customers or the hospitals and you know

6:18

, our pharmacies is the exact same expectations

6:21

of what they're looking for for their home .

6:23

That's great . You guys have fully embraced and I've seen that

6:25

, which is really cool . What are some

6:27

of those challenges that you're facing as

6:29

a you know , traditional business

6:31

and highly regulated , very

6:34

B2B focused . But what are you , what are some

6:36

of the hurdles you think you guys are getting over

6:38

to make that happen ?

6:39

Well , I think some of the habits from a customer

6:42

experience would fall into what I can

6:44

track . And so to

6:46

be able to say , I understand

6:48

what you're looking for , that's a no-no . Whether

6:51

you've got a health issue , I can't track

6:53

that . I would love to be able to promote and say , hey , you're looking for that's a no-no

6:55

. Whether you've got a health issue , I can't track that . I

6:57

would love to be able to promote and say , hey , you're an Ohio State fan , I'm going to send you some red

6:59

sweaters . Or you're a Michigan guy , I'm going to send you and get you some blue sweaters

7:01

. With a health condition , you

7:03

can't start looking into that . And then , when

7:05

you start looking at the tech stack in terms

7:08

of the number of people that actually look

7:10

at that whether we're looking at

7:12

services of your doctor validation

7:14

, your insurance validation how

7:17

much do you store the records ? Because

7:19

it's all health , so you've got to store it . But

7:21

you can't store and look at it , versus

7:24

in a retail , you're going hey , it's seasonal

7:26

, how do we do from Easter , from this year to Easter

7:28

to last year ? Or did Easter dresses

7:30

look good , or do we need to change the color

7:32

? We still have some of those attributes

7:35

as well , but the ability

7:37

to not track the specifics

7:39

of the person and so we say , okay , well , that's

7:41

patient , we'll look at it at a hospital

7:43

. If you were to look at who's in the hospital

7:46

that could be buying , it could be the pharmacist , it

7:48

could be a surgeon , it could be just a

7:50

physician itself , it could be

7:52

just the medical products person

7:54

that needs to refill surgical gowns

7:57

, latex , gloves , stuff like that . There

7:59

are so many people . So when you look at your local hospital

8:01

, who's the person on the other side of the

8:03

screen ? Can you actually get to the personalized

8:06

experience that they're looking for when

8:08

you're not able to track within the four

8:10

walls of the hospital ? Yeah , or influence

8:12

them .

8:12

You're not going to haunt their Instagram

8:15

for the next three days because they abandoned

8:17

the cart right Exactly

8:22

. Yeah , well , that's interesting , that's great . I love , I love that perspective and I think you guys are

8:24

doing an amazing job . What can the listeners , what can people listening to this podcast

8:27

? You know they're . They have no retail experience

8:30

. They haven't been down that road . You

8:33

know they . They don't have the perspective . What's advice you would give to somebody

8:35

who's thinking about the same kinds of challenges

8:37

?

8:38

I would look at the speed . So how can you actually

8:40

get to speed ? That's what the customers expect

8:42

. And so if you look at , how can I deploy

8:44

something that gets in front of the customer , whoever

8:46

the person on the other side of the screen is , people

8:49

still look for product , whether

8:51

it's a tangible or a service . What's

8:54

the info ? What's available ? How

8:56

can I search for it ? Those are simple

8:58

things . But if you could get that out there , you get connection

9:01

from a marketing . It's not a lead

9:03

anymore , it's a hook . So if

9:05

you can get them hooked , it says , okay , that's the service . That's

9:08

going to enable me to make an informed decision . Start

9:10

simple , versus trying to look at the big , the

9:13

full gamut , and then , as the uniqueness

9:15

of whatever the customer experience

9:17

is for that industry , then start

9:19

adding on the Legos which

9:21

I've talked about , to get that in a speed

9:24

to market , but not wait for everything

9:27

. But then it also enables you to be able

9:29

to swap the Legos out as well , so

9:31

it's not a big overhaul three , four

9:33

, five years down the line as well , right , paint it into

9:35

a corner , Exactly .

9:36

No , that's great . Speed is everything

9:38

. Time kills all deals .

9:40

Yeah Well you just don't want them to lose it . They will

9:42

find another provider for whatever services that

9:44

they're looking for , so you've got to be able to be quick

9:46

.

9:47

That's great . Well , speaking of quick , I think

9:49

we've reached our time here . I really appreciate

9:51

doing this . Glad we could do it live . Oh

9:53

yeah , it's a beautiful location , great table , beautiful

9:56

Dublin , ohio . I'll come back for more

9:58

.

9:58

Thanks , james , I appreciate you stopping by and saying

10:00

hi , take it easy . You've been listening

10:03

to what ? If so , what ? A digital

10:05

strategy podcast from Proficient with

10:07

Jim Hertzfeld . We

10:13

want to thank our Proicient colleagues jd norman and rick bauer for our music . Subscribe to the podcast

10:15

and don't miss a single episode . You

10:18

can find this season , along with show

10:20

notes , at proficientcom . Thanks

10:22

for listening .