WBA Technology Corner, Vol. 4

We’re just about two months into the 2022 fiscal year for Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), and things could not be more exciting! On Oct. 14, our CEO, Roz Brewer, laid out WBA’s new consumer-centric healthcare strategy to drive sustainable, long-term profitable growth for the company at our virtual investor conference.

To me, this is such important work as we continue to deliver services and solutions within community healthcare. For the CTO organization specifically, we have such an opportunity to continue to modernize, transform and disrupt as we work to build the pharmacy of the future.

People at the Center

The work we have completed to date across cloud, data and analytics, engineering and enterprise architecture will continue, and will be hyper-focused on developing the best tech-enabled healthcare solutions and products – with the best people.

In fact, one of the new core pillars for WBA is building a high-performance culture and a winning team and attracting and retaining best-in-class talent. Shortly after the Oct. 14 investor conference, we held our first all-WBA team member gathering, Ignite, to celebrate our team members and unveil our new purpose and vision for the future. Roz's words at the event, “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” really resonated with me as we continue to build an innovative culture within WBA IT. You can see my commitment to the purpose in the graphic above. Ignite was quickly followed last week by Team Member Appreciation Week. It goes without saying I appreciate my entire global team and all they do – every day – so thank you again!

CTO Momentum and FY22 Enablers

It’s no secret that the work we are about to embark on to support our healthcare strategy wouldn’t be possible without the work we’ve already begun to modernize IT, transform our products and services and begin to disrupt the industry.

In FY21, we made a lot of progress to transform WBA’s core capabilities and platforms by moving more to the cloud and making huge strides with key partnerships to drive innovation across our ecosystem.

Here are some recent FY21 successes and FY22 enablers I’d like to highlight as we mature the foundation to become a data-driven and digitally enabled CTO organization:

• Cloud: As we evolve to “cloud-smart” ways of working, we're creating the platforms and strategic partnerships needed to deliver richer capabilities at greater speed. We migrated more than 200 applications to the cloud in FY21 as we further aligned our cloud strategy with WBA’s business strategy. We also began our partnership with ServiceNow to modernize our IT function globally. Looking forward, we’re excited about further enabling our MarTech and Data and Analytics platforms with cloud automation to deliver even more to customers.
• D&A: Speaking of Data and Analytics, we’ve now layered and standardized DnA throughout all aspects of WBA to fuel mass personalization. DnA is the life blood of any digital business, including our own. With our Data Lynx platform now live, we'll have more agility to power innovation to personalize healthcare choices for patients.
• Engineering: As we accelerate digitalization of the “core” by improving engineering excellence, we can bring more innovation to our products and customers. In FY21, we completed more than 150 enterprise engineering projects to strengthen our omnichannel offerings. We're now focused on building scale and resilience to improve omnichannel and healthcare experiences for all customers and patients.
• Architecture: WBA will always be an architecture-led organization with a focus on platforms. In FY21, we further streamlined our business architecture discipline to a platform-centric operating model to enhance how IT moves at digital speed. We have provided roadmap support across Supply Chain, Walgreens.com and Boots.com, MarTech, and our Retail Finance Transformation. There's a lot to do to create more global consistency in our intake process and publishing to ensure the best outcomes this fiscal year, and I know we have the right teams to do so.

Lastly, I recently presented WBA’s digital transformation story at Pluralsight Live, where I accepted a Best in Tech Award on behalf of WBA. I’m so proud of our entire IT team’s ability and commitment when it comes to technology skill development and creating a well-rounded global community.

Looking Around

While it’s been busier than ever, I’m always looking across the tech and leadership landscape to see what’s happening to learn from others. Here are a few articles that caught my attention:

• Forbes: We're moving from cloud first to cloud smart, and there’s no better time given the potential for the cloud to offer greater flexibility and performance to our healthcare strategy and to meet the changing needs of the U.S. healthcare system.
• Total Retail: In a recent survey of nearly 600 shoppers, data showed the omnichannel associate is the ideal associate. We’ve seen this shift happening in the retail space and have made significant strides to deliver personalized, omnichannel experiences for our customers.
• Harvard Business Review: While this is from HBR’s archives, the lessons on “cross-silo” leadership are still true today. Within our four walls, we are truly “One WBA” and have established multi-functional operational teams with a combination of different skills and viewpoints aligned on a single outcome of creating the best and safest customer experiences globally.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to drop me a comment or question to keep the conversation going. Stay safe and watch this space!

Mike