Today our class visited the head quarters of the Laboratory Corporation of America or Labcorp and in my opinion Labcorp was a very interesting company with an impressive past and a bright future. However, I’m not sure if I see myself in a couple of years trying to apply for a job at Labcorp. During our visit the manager of the corporate head quarters of Labcorp, Mike Roberts who has been with the company for over thirty years, started our visit off with a presentation informing our class of all the impressive statistics about Labcorp, the company’s mission, and what the company and it’s employees do on a day-to-day basis.

According to Mr. Roberts and the Labcorp website the mission of the largest medical testing laboratory in the Unites States is “to provide leading-edge medical laboratory tests and services through a national network of primary clinical laboratories and specialty testing laboratories.” Or in my words to try and offer patients the highest quality laboratory testing in the country while making sure to give credible and helpful feedback to every patient. Labcorp also contains a strategic plan for their company which includes a “Five Pillar Strategy.” The five pillars include deploying cash to enhance their footprint, enhance IT capabilities, continue to improve efficiency, scientific innovation with appropriate pricing, and alternative delivery models. Mr. Roberts mentioned how Labcorp tries to go out and buy smaller laboratory testing companies around the country to increase the expansion of the company around the country. Currently the company has twenty-three facilities around the United States. Mr. Roberts also mentioned in the presentation of how Labcorp is not just a laboratory testing company but a logistical company. In fact, Labcorp is one of the largest delivery companies in the United States behind UPS, Fedex, and the United States Postal Service. Labcorp delivers most of their samples and information around the country by plane. Labcorp owns thirteen company planes and also delivers samples by commercial flights.

During the presentation Mr. Roberts mentioned that one of the reasons why the company had been so succesful because the entire organization is run on one system. All twenty-three laboratories in the United States owned by Labcorp are on one network. Labcorp performs more than a million tests a day on numerous types of samples which include urine, blood, stool, and bone marrow.

Labcorp seemed like a very well ran company who seem to put a lot of emphasis on efficiency while making sure to never forget about quality. Mike Roberts in his presentation stressed that the quality of the company’s test would never be over-looked by efficiency. Also in my opinion it seems that one of the reasons why the company is so successful in efficiency with great quality is the companies new and improved  technology that helped Labcorp test and organize their samples. The technology allowed the company to have low costs with quality testing which has led to more business for Labcorp. Labcorp is a very impressive company with a brilliant future a head of them and I am interested to see how they do in the future.

Follow

LabCorp main mission is “to offer the highest- quality laboratory testing and most compelling value to our customers.” LabCorp was first started after the merger of Roche Biomedical Laboratories and National Health Laboratories in 1995. LabCorp comes from a 100 years of experience giving them a trustworthy relationship to the medical testing industry. LabCorp provides scientific expertise in esoteric testing, genomics, and clinical and anatomic pathology. LabCorp processes tests on approximately 470,000 specimens each day, applying advances in medicine and science to laboratory testing. LabCorp operates with low-cost and efficient and accurate services. What makes LabCorp so efficient is their centralized computer, which forms the infrastructure of their entire business.

The corporate headquarters are in Burlington, NC, and they employ more than 34,000 employees nationwide and hold a network of 220,000 clients include physician offices, hospitals, managed care organizations, and biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. LabCorp operates on a “five pillar” strategy of management. The five pillar strategy consists of deploying capital first to acquisitions that enhance their footprint and test menu, then to repurchase shares, enhancing their IT capabilities to improve the physician and patient experience, improving efficiency to remain the most efficient and highest- value provider of laboratory services, continuing scientific innovation to offer new tests at reasonable and appropriate pricing and participating in the development of alternative delivery models to improve patient outcomes and reduce the cost of care.

LabCorp has a customer base of 220,000 clients that include physician offices, hospitals, managed care organizations, and biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Customers value their expert services provided at low cost with quick turn-around time. LabCorp delivers pre-analytic and analytical tests to healthcare providers; LabCorp is first on the supply chain. LabCorp is the supplier of excellent clinical testing with efficiency and accuracy. The only thing that holds back LabCorp industry is its market competitor, Quest Diagnostics and the U.S. government’s integration of Obama Care. It’s hard for the company to foresee their future stock forecast. LabCorp is above the competition because of the robotic technology that they have created for their laboratories. In result, LabCorp provides quick service to all their clients. In result, LabCorp yields more test samples than all their competitors. LabCorp operates with an aggressive and risky mentality and uses it large profits to expand their corporation. LabCorp responds to changes in its environment by improving its services and participating in outside clinical research to further their name and influence in the current market.

Follow

For the first field trip we went to Laboratory Corporation of America in Burlington, North Carolina or better known as LapCorp. It was a chance to better understand the business that happens behind the scene in the health care business. LabCorp tests thousands of samples everyday for different reasons. LapCorp is one of the largest clinical laboratories in America. The corporate headquarters for LapCorp is located in downtown Burlington, North Carolina. We did not visit the corporate headquarters but instead an actual laboratory located in the Powell Building. LapCorp has 23 laboratories around the United States and employees over 35,000 people. In fact, LabCorp is the leading employee in Alamance County, North Carolina.
In my opinion LapCorp’s customers are the patients who send their samples to the laboratories. People need the results of the medical tests as fast as possible. LapCorp is invested in getting the most accurate reading as fast as possible. That is why LapCorp bought a robotic company in order to help atomize the laboratory process. The robotic company has given LapCorp an advantage to the newest technology against their rivalry. LapCorp’s mission is to offer the most accurate and quality results to their customers. Quality is extremely important to LabCorp. The fact that 90% of the labs are on one technology system; which increases the quality and accuracy in all the labs. This means that the results wont differ between labs across America. The customers also values quality and accuracy in the results. What customers value and the mission of LabCorp go hand and hand, which is ultimately good for the company. LabCorp has a plan to expanded the company by buying a couple smaller labs turning them into LabCorp labs. Also LabCorp is always continuing to test new technology to increase the quality and accuracy of test results.

Follow

The Laboratory Corporation of America, LabCorp, has evolved into one of the largest medical testing laboratories in the United States.  One of the more interesting things that Mike Roberts shared with us is that LabCorp has almost all of the corporation running on one computer system so that no matter where somebody has a test run it should match up if the same test was run at a different facility.  LabCorp through the series of acquisitions that they perform each year, was able to acquire a robotics company which has allowed them to increase the automation of what they do thus cutting down on costs while still completing tests as fast if not faster than before.  Another piece of information that Mike Roberts talked to us about was LabCorp’s five pillar strategy.  This is to deploy cash to enhance their footprint, enhance IT capabilities, continue to improve efficiency, scientific innovation at affordable pricing, and alternative delivery models.  Mr. Roberts also talked about because of how large the company is and also because of the need to get lab samples to different labs and also back to the physicians who need them, LabCorp has become one of the largest logistical companies behind Fedex, USP, and USPS.  Going into the presentation I knew what LabCorp does as a business, but I wasn’t sure what its business model was.  Though coming out of the presentation I understood that LabCorp’s goal is to be a less expensive alternative for medical tests that are otherwise performed at hospitals for a higher price.  It was also interesting how Mr. Roberts talked about how they battled their way into the bidding war with their main competitor Quest over the DoD contract, which they ultimately were able to win.  One of the main goals of LabCorp is to always be increasing their effective and efficiency with their testing results, but also with every aspect of their company.  It was obvious by everything Mr. Roberts was talking to us about that they want to do this by expanding their technology.

Follow

Today we took our first field trip to the Powell Building at a regional branch of the Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings Inc., commonly known as LabCorp. LabCorp is a publicly held company and low cost provider that employs more than 34,000 employees worldwide. Being in the lab industry of business, they perform medical testing for all parts of the body and work with healthcare providers to ensure the highest quality of laboratory testing and most compelling value to their customers. This testing includes pre-analytic, analytic, and post-analytic processes, which invoke the steps of prevention and wellness, risk assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring. Furthermore, the business serves as a courier service. LabCorp’s 220,000 clients include physician offices, hospitals, managed care organizations, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Thus, their services extend to much of the everyday population and even to their own employees. LabCorp’s customers value efficient and quality testing at a reasonable price, and their results show that they succeed in doing that as they have continually trumped their primary competitor, Quest Diagnostics. Other competitors include Bio-Reference Labs and Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories. LabCorp foresees 2014 to be a tougher year than usual because of government cuts in payment for medical testing services and hospitals doing more testing at their own facilities. To ensure their mission is fulfilled, LabCorp’s plan is executed through their 5 Pillar Strategy: Deploy cash to enhance footprint, Enhance I.T. capabilities, Continue to improve efficiency, Scientific innovation at appropriate pricing, and Alternative delivery methods. This trip was particularly intriguing for me because it revealed how we, as a society, are reliant on technology  for medical diagnosis and treatment. More so, it showed me more how business entangles with healthcare to benefit the economy.

Follow

LabCorp today gave me and interesting insight into the world medicine beyond the doctors office. It was very interesting to see how a company like that operated. With a company such as LabCorp it is not surprising that they are publicly traded, what I found most interesting about LabCorp though was their takeover mentality. The company sets aside money just for the sake of buying out smaller/failing operations when it is possible. This shows how competitive of a company LabCorp is and how cut throat the real world can be. From a business perspective this was the most interesting thing that I heard. On a more personal level our tour guide made a very interesting statement about what it is like looking at cell’s. He said that every scientist wants to find unique and interesting cells, and when they find them it is very exciting at first but they then discover that the cells mean a death sentence for a person. It was a different perspective into the results that come from the labs and what they mean to a doctor. LabCorp’s mission statement is basically to provide cutting edge laboratory tests and services nationwide. They are either the 1st or 2nd most prevalent company at what they do in the country so I would say they are carrying out their mission statement pretty well. They have become this big by selling to different healthcare providers around the country, who all value getting inexpensive but also highly accurate tests done. Over the years LabCorp has been able to provide their service cheaper than practically anybody else and still provide a quality product. LabCorp uses a 5 pillar plan to decide on what their future will be and has set aside money just for the sake of buying out their competition.

Follow

Growing up just thirty minutes from this business, I found it strange that I had no clue how large LabCorp truly is. I went into this tour knowing that the company specializes in scientific activities, however, I did not know exactly which field they were in.  As it turns out, LabCorp is a worldwide company with a lab in just about every highly developed state across America.

A few years back LabCorp entered the New York Stock Market and has grown significantly ever since.  The company is set up to mainly cater to health care providers such as hospitals and and doctors offices.  This means that every time a doctor draws blood or takes any human sample, there is  a pretty good chance that sample will find its way to one of LabCorps labs.  The Elon Lab is responsible for twenty percent of the testing that goes on within the company.

Being an international company, LabCorp decided that it would benefit them to start a logistic company to ship all of their test samples across the county and even the world.  This means buying a fleet of trucks and planes that are capable of flying thousands of samples into the lab at night and picking them up for delivery by the next morning due to the importance of time when dealing with bodily fluids.  LabCorp now owns a fleet of ten planes that each make around three trips a night to carry samples to and from the warehouse.

LabCorp decided that one way to stay ahead of their competitors and changing market conditions was to create a robotics company that created robots that could help them be more efficient.  This allowed them to cut the amount of workers working on one factory floor from sixty to just six.  They claim that the workers that they no longer need are working on jobs in which actual humans are needed.  I found this to be good because it would be a shame if all of those workers were laid off of their position  due to the robots.

LabCorps greatest competitor is Quest which is now the number two ranked lab in the world, leaving LabCorp at number one.   Our tour guide mentioned that he only expects the size of LabCorp to increase in the near future, seeing as how Obamacare is projected to run many of the 5,000 small labs across the country out of business within the next few years.  Everyone there seemed to be excited about the growth of the company.

LabCorp prides itself in its hierarchal  structure where people can move up the corporate ladder so to speak.  Our tour guide mentioned how experience and achievements were the major determining factor in deciding who does what at the lab and who is placed on each project.  This allows them to be as efficient as possible and pass the savings on the the customer in the form of lower pieces for lab work.  It is reasons like this that make me think that if I were in the science field, I would like to work for this company or one with a similar business model.  They seem to make very ethical and profitable decisions.

It is easy to tell that the mission of LabCorp is to expand as much as possible while becoming more efficient than ever before.  It is still very important to the company to make sure that the efficiency does not hurt the quality of their work.  They understand that their customer or in this case, patients of health care providers, value their low prices and trusted results and diagnoses.  The result of this is a happy customer base that keeps expanding while the company plans to keep growing and being an innovator in the health care field. Without companies like LabCorp, people would have to pay at least eight times more for a standard test due to it being done at a hospital and not a low cost facility.

Follow

LabCorp is a company that has everything going for it and has found a way to be as efficient as possible and still produce the highest quality of work. Today for Field Experience in Business we visited LabCorp and learned exactly what the company does from Mike Roberts, who was incredibly well versed in all the aspects of the company and this showed that he has a great passion for what he does. LabCorp is a clinical lab that has test facilities all over the country, but the headquarters are located right here in Burlington, North Carolina. They are the head of the lab industry and are publicly traded on the New York stock exchange. They also purchase other smaller companies and purchased their own technology company that has led to them having the best technological systems in the labs that save time and allow for employees to work on other tasks. One aspect of this is the way they have been able to have 90% of the company on one computer system, which makes it much easier for other LabCorps all over the country to use the same data and get more accurate results and analysis. LabCorp does medical testing for anything in the body, such as cancers, STDs, kidney stones, etc. When it comes to medical testing they have six focal points; prevention and wellness monitoring, preliminary risk assessment, diagnosis, secondary assessment of progress, clinical decision regarding treatment path, and monitoring and management of condition. LabCorp tests clinical pathology, anatomic pathology, and genomics/esoteric which all have there own labs within the whole “college campus” layout facility. They also have a clear layout of Peter Drucker’s five questions and that can hint at to why they are such a well run and flourishing company.

The mission of LabCorp from what Mike Roberts spoke about is an emphasis on quality. They are focused on analyzing samples and providing the customer with the best results they can. They have a focus on detail that you do not really see much in today’s working world. Roberts’ also said that even though there are many other labs all over the country, none of them try to do things that will only benefit their lab, but instead work to better the entire company that is all of the labs together as one.  This goal of quality over everything else and a focus on the company as a whole is a major proponent in the success of LabCorp.

There are both direct customers and indirect customers that LabCorp works with. The direct customers are hospitals, insurers, healthcare providers and other smaller groups. Then there are the indirect customers who are the patients that go to these hospitals and healthcare providers who send these people’s blood or other tests to LabCorp to get analyzed. Through this customer base, there can be cases where the people who do not get treated properly or the treatment does not work try and start a lawsuit with a hospital or healthcare provider and then in turn come after LabCorp, because they are a multi-billion dollar company. LabCorp understand this, so they have their own legal team that makes sure none of these cases actually carry out and this team keeps the company safe.

The next question, “what does the customer value,” kind of runs off the end of the previous questions. The customer values the best possible results of their test so that they can obtain the right treatment and medicines so that they can get better or avoid a future problem. This is incredibly important, because some of the tests, such as looking for cancer or an STD can result in life or death for a person who is counting on LabCorp to get the most accurate results from their tests.

The results from LabCorp are the best in their field, and this is evident by it’s ranking as the number one clinical lab in the country, ahead of the next closest pursuer, Quest. Another way to validate the results is the fact that there has yet to be a major lawsuit against them that would show that LabCorp made a mistake in a test analysis and caused a terrible situation.

The plan of LabCorp is clear, to be the best at what they do and to deliver the highest quality results. This an be seen through their 5 pillar strategy that the company follows. 1. Deploy cash to enhance footprint 2. Enhance IT capabilities 3. Continue to improve efficiency 4. Scientific innovation at appropriate pricing 5. Alternative delivery models. With these five pillars one can clearly see that LabCorp has everything going for it and knows exactly what they have to do to continue to be the leaders in clinical lab work and be the pioneers in new testings and works.

Follow

LabCorp is a laboratory testing facility, in which clinical testing on parts of the body and its substances takes place. It has twenty-three testing lab locations, 6 divisions, and employs over 34,000 people nationwide. LabCorp’s mission is to provide accurate medical laboratory tests and services. Its customers are physician offices, hospitals, managed care organizations, and biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. LabCorp’s major competitor is Quest. In this field, the customer values fast and accurate test results, which LabCorp is very successful at providing. The company constantly has transportation such as aircraft flying in samples that need to be tested. Usually the samples are tested and the results are sent back within hours. The million dollar machines at LabCorp have the ability to measure a substance in a sample down to thirteen decimal points, proving their accuracy. It is crucial that these tests yield accurate results because the people being tested on could be facing some life or death news and they need to know the proper actions to take based on the results. LabCorp also tests cells for prevention and wellness monitoring, which is equally as important information to a customer.

LabCorp’s results are that millions of people receive accurate test results for diseases such as cancer, STD’s, and more. LabCorp has over 220,000 clients and processes tests on about 470,000 samples a day. Therefore, it is imperative for LabCorp to produce fast and accurate test results in order to give its customers the information they need. LabCorp’s plan is to follow their five pillar strategy, which is to deploy cash to enhance their footprint, enhance IT capabilities, continue to improve efficiency, scientific innovation at appropriate pricing, and alternative delivery models. Plus, the company will continue to conduct tests and procure accurate results for its customers. LabCorp also is looking to expand into international markets since some samples are currently being sent from outside of the U.S.

Follow

LabCorp is a very impressive organization and there is a lot of technology, engineering and hard work that goes into the work and business. The hours that are put into the testing by individuals is how the company stays sustainable along with building off what has been successful in the past. An example of their sustainability is that they have 1 computer system for 90% of the companies nationwide. The computer system was also created from scratch and they have been expanding on it ever since its foundation was created. LabCorp’s mission statement is to offer the highest quality laboratory testing and most compelling value to our customers and it is executed through their five pillar strategy. The five pillar strategy of LabCorp is to deploy cash to enhance their footprint, enhance IT capabilities, continue to improve efficiency, scientific innovation at appropriate pricing, and alternative delivery models. During the presentation, the LabCorp representative stressed the importance of following the five pillars strategy and how it leads the company to success.

LabCorp’s customer is all businesses and organizations that are hospital and health care related. The representative said that their two main biggest clients are managed care and the government. The government is one of their main clients because they administer drug testing for jobs, blood tests, DNA samples, etc. It is obvious as to why managed care is their other main customer because they send testing results of blood work, kidney stones, disease testing, cancer testing, diabetes, etc.

The customers of LabCorp value high quality, accurate testing and results. This is why there is so much hard work and timeless hours put into the organization and its sustainability. They are trying to exceed their customers expectations so they will keep sending samples to be tested and continue to generate a steady income. An example of LabCorp’s dedication to accuracy and great results is that they have technology that can measure if a substance is in a sample down to 13 negative decimal points. They try to make their results and tests as precise as possible. The customers also value the speed of the test results. Patients want to know if they have cancer or however many days, months, years, etc. they have to live as soon as possible. So, in order to meet this customer demand, they have to be working around the clock. In one of the labs, our tour guide said that it is most busy at 1 A.M. because all of the samples will be getting in from the previous day at the hospital around that time and they are expected to get the results back by the next day. There is a lot of demand from the customers and LabCorp is efficient enough to meet the expectations.

The results of LabCorp’s work are meeting customer expectations and needs in a timely manner. Efficiency and sustainability are a huge priority for LabCorp since they are the leading laboratory testing in the nation. They want to continue to beat out their competitors and stay at the top of their industry. It provides a great amount of profit and satisfaction for the hard work that they are putting in. The results that they are looking for are also as precise as technology can get them. Also, since they sometimes get samples from outside the United States, they may also be looking to have more of a international approach. They already have a very well known and prominent place in their industry in the United States, and if they were to expand and continue to be successful, sustainable, and efficient then their profit would be even greater along with their standing in their industry.

LabCorp’s plan is to continue to be the best laboratory testing company in the United States and to provide efficient results for their clients and customers. Also, to keep expanding on their technological advancements and continue to make technology that gives more precise and more efficient results. They also plan to continue sticking to their five pillar strategy since it works and has gotten them to where they are today.

Follow