Tuesday, August 12, 2008
RBC Life Sciences, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the marketing and distribution of nutritional supplements and personal care products in the United States and international markets. It operates through two segments, nutritional products and medical products.
RBC is a small company that has been growing at a rapid clip; last year, it grew almost 25%. AMR Research had a chance to chat with John Price, RBC’s new president, to discuss the areas he feels the company must focus on to increase profitability in the multibillion-dollar nutritional and healthcare market.
Q: What are your views on the current healthcare environment in the United States?
Mr. Price: Health and wellness domestically and internationally are on the cusp of one of the most momentous changes in history. Critically acclaimed economist Paul Zane Pilsner states that health and wellness will become the next trillion-dollar industry. Why? Simply put: Healthcare begins with taking care of one’s health. People increasingly are realizing the importance of adapting a healthy lifestyle that includes exercise and a proper diet. But how does one define a proper diet today? News reports show that fruits and vegetables are increasingly deficient of the nutrients our bodies need. A 2002 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, for example, stated that it was “prudent” for American adults to take dietary supplements because most do not receive from diet alone the vitamins and minerals their bodies need. Okay, so we need to supplement our diets. But not all nutritional supplements are created equally.
Q: What differentiates RBC from its competition?
Mr. Price: RBC Life Sciences stands alone in its legacy of providing the highest quality products based on clinical, validated science, proprietary technologies, and the most efficacious ingredients. RBC is a true pioneer. Take the aloe vera plant, for example. For centuries, scribes have sung the praises of this lowly plant, yet none were able to pinpoint why it was so beneficial to health. That all changed when RBC founder Clinton Howard initiated tests to isolate the active ingredient in aloe vera. Mr. Howard solved a centuries-old mystery in discovering acemannan, the long-chain polysaccharide found in aloe vera gel that held the key to the plant’s medicinal properties. It’s this dedication to science that has led RBC to develop not only some of the most efficacious aloe-based products on the market, but also some of the industry’s most innovative multivitamin/mineral and antioxidant nutritional products.
Q: Where do you see your major growth coming from: local or international markets?
Mr. Price: Since RBC Life Sciences comprises both a medical products company and a nutritional supplements provider, we see tremendous growth both domestically and internationally. The medical devices company, MPM Medical, recently witnessed an amazing 32% growth, quarter over quarter. Meanwhile, the nutritional supplements division, RBC Life Sciences, experienced 14% growth at a time when many of our competitors were recording dramatic declines. We believe this growth in both our medical devices and nutritional supplements companies is indicative of the uniqueness both company’s products bring to the market. MPM has initiated a number of exclusive agreements recently, including the vibrant markets of Brazil and Costa Rica. RBC is doing especially well in Russia and the Eastern Bloc countries, and plans to reinitiate its focus in the North American market.
Q: What are your main focus areas as president?
Mr. Price: My goal is twofold: The first is to use our supply chain to increase sales and, secondly, to determine how we can better serve our consumers—in both the medical and nutritional supplements fields. We need to continually examine how we distribute products and be faster and quicker, with less of a cost structure. Essentially it comes down to: Are we doing something to add customer value? For example, I recently spent a day and a half with a physician in a wound-care unit to understand the nuances of his work and what it takes to support him.
Q: You mentioned using your supply chain as a competitive weapon. Can you elaborate on your thinking?
Mr. Price: Supply chain, marketing, and sales are coming together by going green. As we’ve entered the green movement, we’ve had an enormous amount of customers respond favorably. We put a little card in the product package that informs our customers about the benefits of us going green.
Another example is when we heard our customers say, “You have interesting products, but I’m a little old lady and I can’t carry the large bottles.” Supply chain and marketing redesigned the package to make it easier to handle.
Also, we manufacture our key ingredients in-house. This gives us total quality control and increases our ability to meet the growing supply chain demand for our products. For our international markets, we’re also “designing for markets” to ensure acceptance.
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