50. Business Director - October/November 2013 businessdi rectormagazi ne.com EXECUTIVE INTERVIEWDiagnosing the With a determined ocus on the patient and a strong history oinnovation and leading technology, Cook Medical is shaping the uture omedicine in the Asia– Pacifc region. O ne othe world’s best known and most respected names in medical devices and supplies, Cook Group, has operations spanning rom the United States to Europe, Asia, and Australia. As Asia embraces Western medicine and emerging markets grow exponentially, Cook Medical is providing doctors with cutting-edge technology and tailor-made medical devices. Since 2009, Managing Director oCook Australia and Director oCook Asia–Pacic Barry Thomas has upheld the company’s long- lasting commitment to healthcare. Business Director Magazine recently sat down with Barry to discuss the shiting state othe Asia– Pacic region and Cook Medical’s role in the uture oits healthcare. Business Director Magazine: What initiatives have you implemented to ensure Cook Medical remains at the oreront omedical research and equipment? Barry: In Australia and in the Asia–Pacic, we’ve been looking at raising our prole within the biotech industry and the med-tech industry. We’re looking or inventors and people who have ideas, and we encourage them to work with us. We’re also more generally looking or opportunities or the industry. We believe that Australia should be able to capitalise on this, especially because it has so much experience in this area. We have the research and development tax incentive in place, and over the past six or so months, we have been looking at how we can extend that into manuacturing. We are campaigning or an Australian innovation and manuacturing incentive [AIM]. This would reward companies that come up with a product and go on to manuacture it in Australia, rather than having it assembled overseas. What’s involved in the incentive? Having consulted with and secured the buy- in othe Export Council oAustralia, we’ve started to take the idea to policymakers. Rather than a direct subsidy, the AIM incentive would provide tax reliebased on the retention oIP and manuacturing in Australia. Organisations would receive an inducement equivalent to 2 per cent osales on locally manuactured products or which they hold patents or licences. The incentive would be oset against a company’s tax bill, thereby linking it directly to commercial success and resulting in no upront government costs. This is not a unique idea. Other countries are already doing this, and the United Kingdom has a version oit. That’s what we’re proposing. The United Kingdom has a tax incentive on manuacturing products developed in the UK. From the income that manuacturers make on their product, they only pay 10 per cent in company taxes rather than 26 per cent. One leading manuacturer which has reduced their ootprint in Australia recently announced that it’s going to spend hala billion pounds in the UK setting up manuacturing acilities over there so it can take advantage othis tax incentive. Do you have other partners or industry bodies who are suppo rting you and the campaign? AusBiotech have been discussing it with us, and they’re looking at supporting the proposal. The National Tax and Accountants’ Association are also looking at it. We’ve had responses rom both major political parties, and Sophie Mirabella, the ederal member or Indi, Victoria, has reached out and said she wants to come and talk to us about it. We’ve also had Greg Combet [ormer Minister or Industry and Innovation] here to talk to us about it. The sad part is when some othe public sector and government send people here who suggest that we could move our manuacturing overseas, and that attitude simply isn’t good or the country. While we’ve got money at the moment, we all know that mining is nite and subject to everything else that’s happening in the world. What are we going to do or employment going orward? Ford has announced they’re closing their actory because Australia can’t compete in car manuacturing. We think there is an opportunity in this high-tech industry and the health industry or Australia, and that’s what we’re committed to. “We are campaigning or an Australian i nnovation a nd manuacturin g incentive. This would reward companies that come up with a product and go on to manuacture it in Australia, rather than having it assembled overseas.” - Barry Thomas Market Images by Fullrame As eatured in Business Director Magazine For more ino visit businessdir ectormagazine.com COMMUNITYCORNERSTONE
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EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW
How do you ensure consistent sta
engagement and efciency?
It’s got to be a philosophical part o the
company abric. Globally, we’re still
manuacturing in the US, and we’ve just
opened a new plant there to support the local
community. We also manuacture in Ireland
and Denmark.
We’re structuring our business to ocus on
continuing to support the local communities
as well as how we can do that on a global
basis. We have a huge opportunity with
China, India, Vietnam, and other developing
markets, and we’re looking at how we cannd products and ideas that are specic
or those markets and develop them and
work cooperatively and collectively so we can
all benet.
Philosophically, you’ve got to keep
employees interested. You must keep the skill
levels up. You can’t open and close actories
on a whim, and you’ve got to retain those
skills. It’s about the cultural abric o the
company—that’s what’s really important—as
well as communicating that through the sta
across the region.
We look ater everything rom Japan to
India out o our Australian oce, so that
includes China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore,
Vietnam, Hong Kong, and many others. It’s a
huge opportunity or Australia i we work out
how to capitalise it.
How would you describe the culture across
Cook Medical? What values are important
to you?
We’re still a private company and we still do
things based on the values o a private, amily
company. One o the great advantages we have
is that we don’t have the pressure o Wall Street
or shareholders, particularly the large corporate
shareholders. We’re able to take that money
and invest it in development, sta, and our
initiatives. That’s a distinct advantage or us,
and it’s also a part o our culture.
We have a fat management structure, and
we’re very much ocused on the amily. We
provide private health insurance to our
employees, we have a subsidised canteen, and
an enterprise agreement.
The last enterprise agreement
negotiations took a very short period of
time, and to be perfectly honest with you, I
was involved in very little of it. It’s really
people sitting down and discussing their
futures together in a cooperative fashion and
not in a competitive manner. We’re quite
open and honest about things. We tell people,
“This is the pressure we’re under, the
Australian dollar is creating a lot of pressure,
and here are some of the decisions we’re
going to have to make .”
Having said that, we’ve just bought a new
needle-grinding machine rom Japan and
invested hundreds o thousands o dollars
installing that in Brisbane. It really is a very
committed and open company.
How have you continued to develop strong
relationships with suppliers and other
strategic partners?
We’re very much in the middle o things
because we’ve got people supplying us with
products and then we’re also supplying right
across the world and managing the Asia–
Pacic. We manuacture here and export
around the world, so we have global
suppliers. We value the relationships we have
with those people.
We preer to continue to work with them
and would rather have discussions that
support the relationship and build on things.
We have some unique structures that we’ve
used including using a Cincinnati company
that does our meetings and events
inrastructure. Rather than opening an oce
in Hong Kong and employing people, we said,
“We will give you our oce space, we will
employ someone, and you pay us this
amount o money on a monthly basis, but it’s
your employee.”
Thereore, the individual is employed by us
and answers to me, but they take all their
instructions rom the company in Cincinnati. It
means that our suppliers don’t need to go
through the pain o setting up their own oces
and busines in Asia. Setting up a payroll system
and paying taxes in a oreign country is a bighassle, so we do all that stu or them. Quite
rankly, we don’t charge them or that service
because one person sitting in our oce is such
a minor addition. It saves them the hassle and
gives us a service working very, very quickly.
That has been an incredibly successul
situation or us over the past 18 months or so.
We’ve done similar things with our public-
relations company. These are unique, but they
create a really close worki
where you’re not just talking ab
you are a partner.
What are your plans or the u
Cook Medical?
I get asked this question a lo
trick question. In the next sev
the business in this part o the
to two-and-a-hal times or thr
is now. The major growth a
India, Vietnam, and Indonesia
smaller growth areas. We
opportunity in Japan. Althou
developed market, their medic
behind the rest o the worl
opportunities or us there.
The whole region is embhealth, and we see that cont
next 10 to 15 years. At the sa
starting to see lots o idea
technologies coming out o t
region, so we’re looking at h
and work with them to com
globally. We’re also looking at
or addressing unique medi
needs out o the region.
“We’re starting to see
ideas and dierent te
coming out o the Asi
region, so we’re looki
we can help and work
them to commercialis
globally.” - Barry Thomas
EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW
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