Thread regarding Walgreens layoffs

Retail pharmacy dispensing (putting pills in bottles) is seen as a commodity activity, which pricing and reimbursement is reflecting. How are commodity services handled in any other business - through low-cost channels, efficiency, automation, and logistics. So, what could that look like for Walgreens?

• Fewer physical stores and more smaller format stores in the remaining smaller footprint. On the remaining front-end - focus on OTC, H&W, and Beauty (in some markets).
• Greater automation in the dispensing operations, with fewer pharmacy and retail staff. This was part of the theory behind micro-fulfillment. But current leadership doesn't know how to execute.
• Efficient supply chain logistics to bring prescriptions to people's homes (driving 5 miles to a store and/or waiting in a drive through line is not convenient for consumers - it's actually very inconvenient)

In the end, Walgreens infrastructure is too capital intensive to service a commodity activity like putting pills in bottles. Too many physical stores, too much pharmacy labor.
You don't need to pay a pharmacist to do this stuff when much of it should be automated. Pharmacists should be focused on more value-add clinical pharmacy activities, like MTM, adherence, reconciliation. Which means employing fewer pharmacists and only really having a smaller number of clinical / ambulatory pharmacists - not retail pharmacists. And in the end, the infrastructure is just too inconvenient for consumers by making them have to come to the stores or wait in the drive thru line.