Corum's current range of products (following the release of its Cloud based architecture and Corum Safeguard Plus) now has pretty well the same all round functionality as Fred NXT. Its backup systems and robustness are probably better. The new reporting and analytical features of Corum Clear will be far superior to current reporting in Fred NXT and I think Corum Clear could be be very appealing to group pharmacy management. I suspect the Fred team will be also working on improvements though.
The communication with patients from pharmacies using LOTS however, is still via third party programs such as MedAdvisor and others which are compatible with LOTS but are under separate licences. I think with the new Government E-health platform and connectivity coming the whole face of pharmacy/patient interactions will change significantly and be an opportunity for Corum to include this in their Corum Clear bundle.
Potentially Fred, Minfos and Corum could remain the three main players having the resources to step up their offerings. Although I think, Symbion must be thinking is it worth it from a cost perspective (given their market share must be under threat too). In some respect it surprises me that Symbion with the backing of their owner EBOS Group Ltd ($6 billion turnover) haven't taken out Corum to give Minfos more economy of scale.
The emergence of group alliances has been the big issue for Corum so they need to have a superior product that is attractive to group members. Even though we have seen more and more groups or consolidation, we still have pharmacist owners (thank goodness) who have their individual preferences for software and various requirement for compliance/compatibility with the groups recommended program.
Interesting Times!
COO Price at posting:
4.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
