Executive Speech to National Customer Conference

Good morning and welcome to Toronto!

It's always great to see so many familiar faces and old friends at the customer conference, as well as all the QS/1 staff who are here with us today.

You can see that we left a lot of empty desks back at the office. That's the real importance of conferences, isn't it? To see just how many people a company can operate without?

Conferences are important in other ways, too. They give us an opportunity to look back on our recent accomplishments, and look ahead to our plans for the future.

As I know I don't need to tell you, the past couple of years have been stressful ones for the pharmacy industry. We all put a lot of energy into preparing for Y2K, which was then a non-event, and then we began dealing with HIPAA. There have been a lot of changes.

A hockey player who our friends here in Canada might have heard of, Wayne Gretzky, said that the secret of his success was, quote, "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been."

This is a challenge though, isn't it? How do we lead, how do we provide what customers want and need--how do you provide what your customers need--when it's not always clear what those needs are going to be?

I believe that what QS/1 has done--and will continue to do--to be a leader in the pharmacy software field is to do 3 things: make good products, maintain good relationships, and listen.

Let me tell you a bit about a hobby of mine. I play trumpet in several community groups, including a big band. In a big band those three objectives--producing quality work, maintaining good relationships, and listening--are crucial to the success of our performance, and the same is true in our business.

Making good music when you're up on the stage results from doing a lot of work off the stage--from practicing, to rehearsing with the group, to listening to recordings of other groups playing the tunes.

It's the same with QS/1's products. When we put a new product or new enhancement out there on stage--which means it's in your practice--we've worked hard behind the scenes on training our people, running tests of the products, doing quality assurance, and so on, to make sure that the performance is top-notch.

But the second element--maintaining good relationships--is also important.

In the big band, we really enjoy each other's company. We play different instruments, we have different skill levels, but we respect each other's contributions.

At QS/1, we also work hard to maintain good relationships with our coworkers, to respect their professional experience as well as their personal lives outside of work.

We work hard to maintain good relationships with you, too. Which is why these customer conferences are so important. We get the opportunity to remind ourselves of how professional, successful, hard-working, and just plain nice our customers are.

The final element in a successful big band performance is listening. It's surprising, that when you're producing music, you also have to listen so hard to what's going on around you. But I have to pay attention. Are the saxophones a little louder in this section than usual? Is the trumpet player next to me slowing down? Is the director signaling for us to play the [header] once again? I have to listen, to pay attention.

We have to listen in our industry, too. We have to listen to governmental bodies, to stay current on the latest happenings with HIPAA and other regulations so that our products can meet customer needs. We have to listen to technology, to the new tools, like IVR and automated dispensing machines, for example, which can make pharmacists' jobs easier. We have to listen to industry trends.

And most important, we have to listen to you. We're lucky to have innovative customers. And we're lucky to have opportunities like this, in a beautiful setting like Toronto, to hear more about your practices and your technology needs. And for you to hear some of the exciting tools we're creating for you.

As I look to the future for QS/1, I know that there will always be challenges for our business. But QS/1, as the flagship company for J M Smith Corporation, is well positioned to continue as an industry leader. The company is financially solid, and our shareholders, of which I am one, are committed to continued growth over the long run. We have 24 years of experience, and we look forward to at least 24 more.

Before I ask Tammy to come up and introduce all the staff we have here, I'd like to thank her, and all the other QS/1 staff who have worked so hard to put this conference together. They've planned an excellent program.

Finally, thank you all for coming. I hope you have a chance to see some of the sights in Toronto, and I look forward to talking with you over the next few days.

Thank you.