Bus369: Field Experience in Business

LabCorp is an organization that is certainly thriving in today’s economy. Even though its stock value has decreased over the past year, it has still been a very successful company. It was an honor to be able to sit down with the Vice President of the headquarters. His presentation was detailed and informative. When we went around and introduced ourselves and said what we hoped to learn from the visit, it seemed as if most of our class did not really have an understanding of LabCorp’s mission. After the presentation, I had much better understanding of what the company does as well as the history of LabCorp. It was interesting to hear about how the company came to be. The layout of the headquarters is like that of a college campus. The different types of labs are spread out throughout multiple buildings, with a warehouse containing all of the supplies located across the street. The tests LabCorp conducts are very important, if not essential, to the success of other companies and the economy. Because LabCorp is a national company employed by the government, they have to meet the highest standards of performance. It is important that they remain ahead of their opposition, Quest, so that they continue to be the best at what they do. After touring the building and hearing about some of the equipment, I see no signs of Quest passing LabCorp in the near future.

The tour was very informative. It was great to hear about the company and then go see day to day tasks with my own eyes right after. I was blown away by the size of the building as well as the amount of equipment within the headquarters. One thing that stood out for me was the importance of automated machines. These machines increase efficiency, as well as lower the cost of supplies and human labor. Members of LabCorp designed these machines themselves, and they cannot be found anywhere else in the country. Once LabCorp distributes similar machines to other labs around the country, it will experience much more success. I was also amazed by the power of one the machines. Apparently, if I were to take a shot of my favorite alcohol and throw it into a pond and stir it all up, this machine would be able to tell me the concentration of the alcohol as well as what type with just one sample. At the end of the tour, our group was reminded of a harsh reality that the employees can face on a day to day basis. When talking about kidney stones, we were reminded that LabCorp employees are the ones that discover that someone may only have six months to live.

LabCorp is a company with a lot of moving parts, and it was a privilege to tour the headquarters of such a successful organization.

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LabCorp is a global corporation that focuses its industry around medical testing. Their mission as a large corporation is to execute the behind the scenes work that doctors rely on for medical tests. They have a large roll in full continuum of health care delivery and they focus on prevention and wellness monitoring. LabCorp also assists the diagnosis process for doctors and help monitor and manage certain conditions. For example today when we toured the facility we were fortunate enough to see the actual testing areas that  the employees worked in. They were testing urine and blood for drug tests and disease purposes. Their plan as a company as we saw can be broken down into their five pillars. 1. Deploy cash to enhance footprint 2. Enhance IT capabilities 3. Continue to improve efficiency 4. Scientific innovation at appropriate pricing 5. Alternate delivery models. Their customers are mainly related to the medical industry and testing. They pride themselves on affordability and quality. They strive to remain number one over their main competitor Quest. The clients that they have value this affordability and quality and this is reflected by their current rank.

LabCorp like many large companies has its ups and downs and is effected by forces beyond their control. For one example they were discussing today that Obamacare will effect their industry significantly. They are going to try to use this to their advantage. With Obamacare promising healthcare to everyone the government will need to find a supplier for the exact work that LabCorp does. They are hoping to partner up with the government due to their affordability and start receiving more government checks. This instance will actually benefit them vastly and help improve the image of the company even more.

LabCorp is continuing to advance as technology improves. They are staying up to speed and finding new ways to be efficient and productive. With the purchase of a robotics company they are able to implement custom robots to do the job that would be trivial for a person. We saw today some of the machines that are improving productivity and saving LabCorp money.

Another interesting fact that we heard today was the thriving local community due to LabCorp. This company employs over 4500 people in the surrounding Alamance county area. With Burlington being the corporate headquarters LabCorp is helping the Alamance area significantly. They are providing jobs in an area where it is much needed. This also brings the community closer with a common interest and occupation. LabCorp is doing great things on a global and local scale. Their affordable services are allowing people to get the testing they need at a price they can afford and they are supplying many communities with employment in the process.

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Labcorp’s companies’ headquarters are located in Burlington North Carolina, as one of the largest laboratory networks in the world. They operate a sophisticated laboratory network that processes approximately 470,000 specimens every day, making huge advances in medicine and science due to the testing. The company works with esoteric testing and performs its largest volume of specialty testing at headquarters center in Burlington which we visited today. Labcorp is a national network but takes specimens internationally such as places like Dubai.

Today we had the opportunity to visit Labcorp and take a tour of the large facility, gaining insight into how the company operates, what its mission is, and its financial operations. We focused on Peter F. Druckers five most imporant questions you will ever ask about your organizations in trying to learn about Labcorps mission, customer, customer value, results, and plan. Labcorps mission is to provide top quality laboratory facilities and testing centers at a reasonable price to their patients with the innovation in recent technology. Their goal is to provide accurate test results to their customers and patients in the most efficient and cost worthy way. They provide results to the patients from healthcare providers. The customers of labcorp are any person that is in need of medical testing, regardless of their age, ethnicity, gender, or income. These customers go through businesses with lab testing such as doctors offices, hospitals, and providers of healthcare such as the government. Labcorps customers have access to the same technology no matter what facility they use. It was very interesting that Labcorp operates on one computer system so that every test will yield the same results if it is the same specimen. The customer seriously values accurate and speedy results and the company strives to provide these results efficiently. The accuracy of the results is extremely important to both labcorp and the customers, as the testing results go down to 13 negative decimal points. The company follows a five pillar strategy to: deploy cash to enhance their footprint, enhance IT capabilities, and continue to improve efficiency, scientific innovation, and alternative delivery models. The company follows this five pillar strategy religiously in order to continue following its motto of “Innovation, Quality. Convenience”. The goal of the company is to be the best clinical laboratory in their field. Their plan is to remain one of the best ranking testing facilities in the nation. They want to continue to utilize their innovation in technology, maintain and improve efficiency, expand by deploying cash, and continue to meet customers expectations.

Labcorps mission was pretty obvious according to the presentation given to us by Mike Roberts. Their five pillar strategy lays out their goals and desire to continue operating profitably and ethically. Their mission of expansion was clear but with a desire to maintain high quality while trying to improve efficiency. Labcorp needs to continue on its avenue of success with companies like Quest expanding under Obamacare over the next few years.

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Today, our class traveled to LabCorp, a prestigious and successful medical testing corporation that is active worldwide. We were given a tour of the Powell building in Burlington, NC, which is the corporate headquarters for Lab Corp and employs 4500 residents of Alamance County, making it the largest employer in Alamance County. Originally, Lab Corp was called Roche Biomedical Laboratories and originally focused on diagnosing disease. However, in 1994, a merger with National Health Laboratories created LabCorp, a now public medical testing facility with a mission to provide a full continuum of healthcare delivery.

LabCorp structures itself around a Five Pillar Startegy that keeps them successful and above their top competitor, Quest Laboratories. The first of these pillars is to deploy cash to enhance their footprint across the nation. In order to do this, LabCorp seeks out smaller, local labs, and acquires these labs to decrease competition. As well as buying smaller labs, LabCorp was able to stay ahead of other companies by acquiring a robotics company to create automated systems to make a more efficient workplace. The second pillar of this strategy is to enhance IT capabilities, which plays a major role in LabCorp’s success.  The third pillar is to continue to improve efficiency, as they did with the acquisition of the robotics company as well as creating a large Logistical Branch of the company which owns 12 planes, and other modes of transportation to deliver results as quickly and efficiently as possible. The fourth pillar is providing scientific innovation at appropriate pricing. The final pillar is providing alternative delivery model, which is shown in the logistical branch.

LabCorp’s success also is due to uniformity of their laboratories across the United States. With this uniformity, LabCorp can order supplies by the bulk to provide to all 23 laboratories across the United States. This lessens the cost of supplies and also creates a good relationship with the supply salesman. Another success of LabCorp is their mentality of putting the patient first. What impresses me is that they stick with this mentality even though they have no direct contanct with the patient. Their actual customers are healthcare providers such as doctors, hospitals, and clinical labs.

As impressed as I was with LabCorp’s success and efficiency, I could never see myself working there. As a student in the science field, I was interested in the aspect of medical testing but I was not a huge fan of the work environment. Even though it was surrounded with amazing technology, it seemed like a very secluded atmosphere with little communication with people. Overall, LabCorp is an extremely impressive corporation with a clear goal and a great understanding of how to be a successful national testing facility.

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Today we had the opportunity to visit LabCorp and gain a better understanding of the company in addition to a tour of the building. Having gone to Elon University for the past year and a half I have passed by LabCorp multiple times but did not know exactly what it was. LabCorp is a provider of top of the line medical laboratory test and services.

The first question that Drucker address is “What is your mission?”. After learning more in depth about what exactly LabCorp is, it was very clear that LabCorp strives to provide the best quality laboratory tests to their patients at a reasonable price. LabCorp prides themselves on being one of the best, if not the best, in the medical market with high quality technology they created themselves. The Second question Drucker addresses is “Who is their customer?”. LabCorp performs a variety of tests, including biopsies, blood tests, urine tests, etc., and is one of the top providers in their business. Their testing methods and results allows LabCorp to provide their patients with insight on blood counts, cholesterol tests to  any diagnosing genetic conditions, cancers, and rare disease. The third question “What does the customer value?”. It is very clear that a customer of LabCorp values their mission, providing fast,accurate test results to their patients at a low cost.  During the presentation, the speaker mentioned that they are trying to return test results to their patients the same day, pleasing their customers. The fourth question from Drucker’s books asks, “What are our results?”. LabCorp is the best at what they do, and work hard to achieve that title. Thus their result, is being one of the most trusted laboratory centers that patients want to take advantage of because LabCorp ensures the best results.  Lastly, Drucker asks the question “What is out plan”. Like I addressed before, LabCorp hopes to return test results faster to their patients and to continue providing their services to their patients using the best technology. After visiting LabCorp I believe LabCorp has the opportunity to stay at the top of what they do and to keep excelling in the future.

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Today we visited LabCorp; prior to the visit I did not know anything about the company.  Laboratory Corporation of America is a clinical testing facility that deals with medical testing, healthcare providers, and different types of labs. One of the goals for this visit was to learn the answers to Peter F. Drucker’s The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization.  The mission of this company is to provide accurate test results in the most efficient way. LabCorp provides results to the patients from certain healthcare providers.  The patients value LabCorp’s efficient ways to provide them with accurate test results. LabCorp is a very successful company that has a bright future. Their plan to achieve excellence in the future is by following their five-pillar strategy. The first strategy is to Deploy cash to enhance footprint. This means that they are trying to buy other small labs that are struggling so that they grow in size. The next strategy is to enhance IT capabilities. This is extremely important to the success of the company because it relies on IT to make their testing efficient and accurate, speedy turn around in receiving and sending the results, and billing. The third strategy is to improve efficiency by making the company mores automated. The next strategy is scientific innovation at appropriate pricing. This way they will be able to stay competitive and stay afloat in this economy. The last strategy is alternative delivery models. They hope to speed up the delivery process to please their customers.

In addition to learning the answers to Peter F. Drucker’s The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization, I left the company knowing a lot more about the company. I was very impressed by the facilities, especially the lab where part of the testing was done complete by a machine that used conveyer belts to move the test tubes through different stages. I personally could not see myself working in this type of industry due to the fact that I am not a very scientific person. The management was very well structured and worked well which was nice to see. Overall I would say that it was a successful visit and I learned a lot about LabCorp.

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LabCorp is a widely recognized medical resource found throughout the nation. Its services can be broken down into two segments: testing and analyzing. The particular location we visited today served as an analyzing facility. This corporation does not focus on any particular medical testing; it provides its customers the ability to check for cancer, genetic conditions, diseases, and several other medical conditions, such as taking an MRI or undergoing a biopsy. LabCorp’s target market is any individual with the need or desire to access a medical testing clinic, regardless of age, gender, and more or less income.

LabCorp’s mission is to help all of its patients with addressing any health concern they might have. Their motto is “Innovation. Quality. Convenience” which emphasizes their drive for staying at the top of their market in terms of technology and equipment, a genuine interest in accurate and time-efficient test results, and convenience by sending back lab results the morning after they are received, and having several testing locations. This mission coincides with meeting what the customer values, which is getting an accurate lab analysis in a timely manner. The Senior Vice President of the facility we visited today mentioned that at times they discover lab results which uncover that a person may only have a few months to live; what LabCorp does is vital to every patient and for this reason timing is absolutely everything on both the patient’s and the corporation’s sides.

Based off of the presentation today, I would say LabCorp’s results are extremely successful. In order to have positive results, your mission and what customers value must correlate. LabCorp’s strives to be the best at what they do by being a high-tech, well-run, and reliable company. Speaking from experience with getting blood work and an MRI done by LabCorp, I was pleased with how fast my results were returned to me.

As far as LabCorp having a plan, they are currently doing everything they can to stay at the top and compete with similar companies such as Quest Diagnostics. However, with ObamaCare in effect and most likely making big changes in the medical care field in the near future, LabCorp may have to restructure a bit of their business infrastructure in order to accommodate to any changes in demand or pricing.

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