Episode 2 === [00:00:00] Chris: Looking for interesting business and patient success stories. Our Alphanumeric podcast Make Your Mark is all about the ways our company, partners, customers, patients, and services navigate the complicated healthcare landscape. Join me your host, Chris Spohr, Senior Director of marketing at Alphanumeric, to hear inspiring stories directly from patients and their care. [00:00:27] Learn valuable insights from subject matter experts and hear from some of the brightest on what patient care looks like now and well into the future. Listen now and be inspired to make your mark. [00:00:47] Hello and welcome to this episode of Make Your Mark an Alphanumeric podcast. Joining us today is CEO of Alphanumeric Randy Trice. Randy has been instrumental in the vision and growth of Alphanumeric since he joined in [00:01:00] 2017. He comes to us today to offer insights into Alphanumeric and the life sciences industry, past, present, and future. [00:01:08] So welcome, Randy, if you could start off and tell us a little bit about your. Your role here at Alphanumeric, what brought you to Alphanumeric in North Carolina? [00:01:17] Randy: Well, I'm the CEO of Alphanumeric, and I came to North Carolina through some contacts that I had in Texas in the private equity market and. [00:01:28] They had talked to me about coming in and looking at a company in North Carolina. Quite frankly, I had not spent much time in North Carolina prior to, but when I started to look at Alphanumeric and do my due diligence on er, what really struck me was the people. So what brought me here, the people, pure and simple. [00:01:48] The people. I like the bones of the organization. [00:01:51] Chris: Well, I think it's interesting too because what brought you to North Carolina is also one of the things that brought me to North Carolina is that just in the [00:02:00] RTP area, there seems to be a tremendous amount of opportunity, especially for those in the pharma industry. [00:02:05] Since you've joined the company in 2017, what are some of the challenges that you've seen that you've faced through Alphanumeric and how have you overcome? [00:02:15] Randy: Well, I think anytime you join and take over a company, you have to look at right sizing the company and getting people on board who really care and understand what their role is within the company. [00:02:25] And so first we had to really identify what we were going to be and how we were going to change. That was heavily focused on moving to a, a life sciences service model from a technology services model. Not that we don't do some technology and we're heavily steeped in technology background, but life sciences is the bread and butter of Alphanumeric for the future. [00:02:51] And we had to shift our service offering more and more to that. And we've continued to do that and I'm proud of the work that the team did.[00:03:00] [00:03:00] Chris: So obviously one of the big challenges that you did face too is the pandemic, and there was a lot of changes that had to be made in a very short amount of time, and much like all other companies went to the work from home model in a very quick fashion. [00:03:15] But Alphanumeric was already there and already a trend setter in terms of the work from home model. Talk to us a little bit about that. [00:03:21] Randy: Sure. You know, we went to the work from home or the virtual workforce mentality long before that. And the reason is if you're selling digital transformation, you have to be able to live that experience. [00:03:36] And so we had already gone virtual on our workforce. Doing that in the pandemic. We didn't miss a step in that as Alphanumeric really. [00:03:46] Chris: You know, as we continue to evolve as a company, and there's obviously lots of areas for growth, what are some of those key areas that you see Alphanumeric pursuing? [00:03:55] Randy: Well, if you look at life science services and you look at pred drug and [00:04:00] post drug, so patient engagement and then patient adherence, those are areas where we are going to focus very heavily. [00:04:08] On giving the patient a better experience in getting their drug faster and working with pharmaceuticals to help them with their services around that. And then once they have the drug, helping keep that customer on the drug. So those are two big focus areas. It's really about giving the customer a better experience. [00:04:29] Chris: And that's a great topic that you bring up too as well, because Adherence, which was one of our earlier podcasts with Scott Townsend, we talked a lot about patient adherence and how important that is, and we talked a lot about technology in the role that it plays as well. What do you think about technology in terms of patient engagement? [00:04:47] Does it play a vital role in connecting patients, making them more adherent, making them more empowered overall? [00:04:54] Randy: You know, you want to make it as easy for the patient as you possibly. They come in [00:05:00] every day, and if they have a sickness, it is all consuming. We need to bring technologies forward that help them negotiate through their daily rituals, whatever the sickness may be. [00:05:13] We need to bring technologies forward that help them get their drugs and stay on their drugs so that they have a better quality of life going forward. [00:05:23] And I think it's just interesting because I think there's this balance that I see Alphanumeric are trying to attain between technology and the empowerment, obviously, of our agents to make sure that they really are empathetic and that they, you know, really continue to learn and grow and become better at their jobs. [00:05:39] And it's that fine balance that I find so invigorating between technology and the human factor. That I think is ultimately gonna lead to a lot of success in our industry. And you know, I think that there's lots of challenges that we're going through and it's just great to see how we're embracing a little bit of old and a little bit of the new and [00:06:00] blending them together. [00:06:01] If you look at our services, everything starts and ends with empathy. You can't fake empathy either. You can use technologies to help you do a better job of servicing, but it's just a technology. It's not going to replace that good old fashioned caring for a person. We work very hard on making sure. That that patient gets the very best service they possibly can. [00:06:30] Whether it's a phone call or whether it's another form of omnichannel support, we need to make sure that they are getting taken care of as fast and expeditiously as possible. [00:06:43] Chris: So one of the interesting things I think, especially since I came on board, is defining Alphanumeric. You know, we've gone through a lot of changes, especially since you arrived in 2017. [00:06:53] We have evolved as a company pretty drastically in a very short amount of time. How would you [00:07:00] define Alphanumeric and really ultimately the role that it plays in the life sciences arena? [00:07:05] Randy: I think probably the best way of defining alpha numeric is we're here to service the. We use technology to help that process, but at the end of the day, if we are not empowering patients to a better lifestyle and a better quality of life in our offerings, we have failed in our mission. [00:07:24] Chris: So, I mean, I think that's a good segue into, obviously there's been a lot of change, a lot of challenges in the last few years, especially with the pandemic. Do you see any major changes or disruptions on the horizon that really will continue to evolve and change the pharma industry overall? Things that we kind of need to be looking out for or things that we're already looking out for and adjusting. [00:07:47] Randy: I think the life science companies and alpha numeric are very congruent in their feelings about how to treat patients. If you look at the technologies that are coming that can be disruptive, for example, [00:08:00] artificial intelligence, what does that really do for you? It gets you to the data faster so that you can make a quicker. [00:08:09] I think that is the true value of artificial intelligence. It allows you to get to the data faster. Therefore, you can then take those resources. That were very manual and move that to more of an analytic engineering [00:08:24] need. [00:08:25] The funny thing is, is that it's not an easy question to answer because I think just in general, you know, we talk a lot about adherence. [00:08:32] We talk a lot about empowering patients, but at the end of the day, what does that ultimately mean? And getting people to their medication quicker, obviously sometimes with some of. Different, uh, therapies and disease states, it could be the difference between living a healthy life or life and death sometimes if they don't get on their regimen of treatment soon enough. [00:08:53] So it's such a crucial component of what we do, and it's about getting information to patients [00:09:00] as quickly and as easy to understand as possible so that they can be. [00:09:05] If you look at the disruption that's happening in life Science services, it's all about getting to the patient and getting to them faster, giving them a better quality of life. [00:09:16] If we can use technology to help give them a better quality of life, then we've succeeded in our mission. What, [00:09:24] Chris: since you joined in 2017, what are you most proud of that you have done or been able to accomplish or that you're working on currently now at er? [00:09:32] Randy: First of all, we've shifted the revenue model from 80 20 technology life sciences and flipped it totally to 90 10 life sciences technology. [00:09:44] So we've really shifted hard into life science services. In doing that, we've also been able to be a part of helping with this deadly pandemic that hit, and we're now in 11 countries. And I would say that's what I'm most [00:10:00] proud of, is that we've been a part of helping rid this world of this pandemic and doing that we've been able to expand to countries that I never thought we'd be in this quickly in my. [00:10:13] So [00:10:14] Chris: five, 10, maybe even 15 years from now, where do you see alpha [00:10:18] Randy: numeric in five to 10 years? I think Alpha numeric will be continuing to lead the market in the use of technology to give the patient a better experience. We're going to be cutting edge, we're going to be leading with our chin, and we're gonna do it empathetically, but we're gonna do it with a very quick pace in. [00:10:41] Chris: So one of the things that we didn't have on our agenda, but I actually wanted to bring up is a recent award that Alpha America has just been awarded is our CEO Round Table on Cancer Award. So number one, congratulations, Randy, to you, to the team, certainly a great honor. Just wanted to see if [00:11:00] you wanted to add some more context to that award, why it's important to us. [00:11:04] And just to brag a little bit, let's talk. This [00:11:07] Randy: award is only awarded to companies that can demonstrate a commitment to providing their employees with comprehensive and holistic cancer support services. We believe that's important. Cancer is the big killer in the market today. If you look at much of the funding by life science companies, oncology leads the way, Well, this is our way of saying to our employees, we need to be part of that and helping cure. [00:11:33] So as we [00:11:34] Chris: start to wrap up a little bit, Randy, a couple, uh, questions left for you. Number one is obviously you're aware of our Make Our Mark campaign, and it's one of those things I think that is just great to kind of dig into the personal of how each individual makes their mark, whether it's from a professional or a personal or both standpoint. [00:11:52] So just curious. Last question kind of to you is, day to day, how do you go about making your mark? What do you focus? [00:11:59] Randy: I [00:12:00] focus every day on making people better, on making sure that we're doing the things that we said we were going to do. That's what service delivery is all about, and if you can deliver on services, everybody will come and have a conversation with you about your business. [00:12:17] So for the most part, it's being out in front of customers. But a big part of that is also making sure we are delivering on a daily basis on everything that we promise. So [00:12:30] Chris: number one, I just wanna thank you obviously for your time. I know it's tough to get even a few minutes sometimes from you, cuz you got a lot going on in general. [00:12:39] Do you have any final thoughts that you wanna leave us? You know, personal anecdotes about yourself or just in general how you see the business continuing to evolve? I, for one, I know that, you know, you put a lot of pride into the people and you know how hard our individuals on our team are working day in, day out, and also [00:13:00] two that we just have taken on so many challenges in the last couple of years and we just risen to the occasion day after day. [00:13:07] Just curious if you have any final thoughts that you wanna leave us. [00:13:10] Randy: Well, first of all, I want to thank everybody at Alpha Numeric. This is a team that, as you said, it's making its mark. It is moved at a very fast pace during this pandemic on a worldwide basis. I am so proud of everything that we've done and all of the credit goes to the people here at Alpha Nu. [00:13:32] We look forward to great things. I would ask people to follow us because we are constantly coming out, I believe, with new, innovative, transformational ideas that I think will set the industry on fire going forward. And [00:13:47] Chris: I know this year alone, I think we have, uh, about three different services that we're launching too as well. [00:13:53] So like you said, more to come, lots of great things happening at Alpha America. But thank you Randy. We appreciate your time. [00:13:59] Randy: Great. [00:14:00] Thank you. [00:14:03] Chris: Thank you for listening to this episode of Make Your Mark an Alpha America podcast. For more information on Alpha America, go to www.er.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Thank you, and remember to always strive to make your mark.