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50. Business Director - October/November 2013 businessdi rectormagazi ne.com

EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW 

Diagnosing the

With a determined ocus on the patient and a strong history o innovation and leading technology,

Cook Medical is shaping the uture o medicine in the Asia–Pacifc region.

One o the world’s best known and

most respected names in medical

devices and supplies, Cook Group,

has operations spanning rom the

United States to Europe, Asia, and

Australia. As Asia embraces Western medicine

and emerging markets grow exponentially,

Cook Medical is providing doctors with

cutting-edge technology and tailor-made

medical devices.

Since 2009, Managing Director o Cook

Australia and Director o Cook Asia–Pacic

Barry Thomas has upheld the company’s long-

lasting commitment to healthcare. Business

Director Magazine recently sat down with

Barry to discuss the shiting state o the Asia–

Pacic region and Cook Medical’s role in the

uture o its healthcare.

 Business Director Magazine: What initiatives

have you implemented to ensure Cook

Medical remains at the oreront o medical

research and equipment?

Barry: In Australia and in the Asia–Pacic,

we’ve been looking at raising our prole

within the biotech industry and the med-tech

industry. We’re looking or inventors and

people who have ideas, and we encourage

them to work with us. We’re also more

generally looking or opportunities or

the industry.

We believe that Australia should be able tocapitalise on this, especially because it has so

much experience in this area. We have the

research and development tax incentive in

place, and over the past six or so months, we

have been looking at how we can extend that

into manuacturing.

We are campaigning or an Australian

innovation and manuacturing incentive

[AIM]. This would reward companies that

come up with a product and go on to

manuacture it in Australia, rather than having

it assembled overseas.

What’s involved in the incentive?

Having consulted with and secured the buy-

in o the Export Council o Australia, we’ve

started to take the idea to policymakers.

Rather than a direct subsidy, the AIM

incentive would provide tax relie based on

the retention o IP and manuacturing in

Australia. Organisations would receive an

inducement equivalent to 2 per cent o sales

on locally manuactured products or which

they hold patents or licences. The incentive

would be oset against a company’s tax bill,

thereby linking it directly to commercial

success and resulting in no upront

government costs.

This is not a unique idea. Other countries

are already doing this, and the United

Kingdom has a version o it. That’s what

we’re proposing.

The United Kingdom has a tax incentive

on manuacturing products developed in the

UK. From the income that manuacturers

make on their product, they only pay 10 per

cent in company taxes rather than 26 per cent.

One leading manuacturer which has

reduced their ootprint in Australia recently

announced that it’s going to spend hal a

billion pounds in the UK setting upmanuacturing acilities over there so it can

take advantage o this tax incentive.

Do you have other partners or industry

 bodies who are supporting you and

the campaign?

AusBiotech have been discussing it with us,

and they’re looking at supporting the proposal.

The National Tax and Accountants’

Association are also looking at it. We’ve had

responses rom both major political parties,

and Sophie Mirabella, the ederal member or

Indi, Victoria, has reached out and said she

wants to come and talk to us about it. We’ve

also had Greg Combet [ormer Minister or

Industry and Innovation] here to talk to us

about it.

The sad part is when some o the public

sector and government send people here who

suggest that we could move our manuacturing

overseas, and that attitude simply isn’t good

or the country.

While we’ve got money at the moment,

we all know that mining is nite and subjectto everything else that’s happening in the

world. What are we going to do or

employment going orward? Ford has

announced they’re closing their actory

because Australia can’t compete in car

manuacturing. We think there is an

opportunity in this high-tech industry and

the health industry or Australia, and that’s

what we’re committed to.

“We are campaigning or an

 Australian innovation and

manuacturing incentive. This

would reward companies that

come up with a product and go

on to manuacture it in Australia,

rather than having it assembled

overseas.” - Barry Thomas

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As eatured inBusiness Director Magazine

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October /November2013

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COMMUNITY CORNERSTONE

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businessdirectormagazine.com Business Director - Octo

EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW 

How do you ensure consistent sta 

engagement and efciency?

It’s got to be a philosophical part o the

company abric. Globally, we’re still

manuacturing in the US, and we’ve just

opened a new plant there to support the local

community. We also manuacture in Ireland

and Denmark.

We’re structuring our business to ocus on

continuing to support the local communities

as well as how we can do that on a global

basis. We have a huge opportunity with

China, India, Vietnam, and other developing

markets, and we’re looking at how we cannd products and ideas that are specic

or those markets and develop them and

work cooperatively and collectively so we can

all benet.

Philosophically, you’ve got to keep

employees interested. You must keep the skill

levels up. You can’t open and close actories

on a whim, and you’ve got to retain those

skills. It’s about the cultural abric o the

company—that’s what’s really important—as

well as communicating that through the sta 

across the region.

We look ater everything rom Japan to

India out o our Australian oce, so that

includes China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore,

Vietnam, Hong Kong, and many others. It’s a

huge opportunity or Australia i we work out

how to capitalise it.

How would you describe the culture across

Cook Medical? What values are important

to you?

We’re still a private company and we still do

things based on the values o a private, amily

company. One o the great advantages we have

is that we don’t have the pressure o Wall Street

or shareholders, particularly the large corporate

shareholders. We’re able to take that money

and invest it in development, sta, and our

initiatives. That’s a distinct advantage or us,

and it’s also a part o our culture.

We have a fat management structure, and

we’re very much ocused on the amily. We

provide private health insurance to our

employees, we have a subsidised canteen, and

an enterprise agreement.

The last enterprise agreement

negotiations took a very short period of 

time, and to be perfectly honest with you, I

was involved in very little of it. It’s really

people sitting down and discussing their

futures together in a cooperative fashion and

not in a competitive manner. We’re quite

open and honest about things. We tell people,

“This is the pressure we’re under, the

Australian dollar is creating a lot of pressure,

and here are some of the decisions we’re

going to have to make .”

Having said that, we’ve just bought a new

needle-grinding machine rom Japan and

invested hundreds o thousands o dollars

installing that in Brisbane. It really is a very

committed and open company.

How have you continued to develop strong

relationships with suppliers and other

strategic partners?

We’re very much in the middle o things

because we’ve got people supplying us with

products and then we’re also supplying right

across the world and managing the Asia–

Pacic. We manuacture here and export

around the world, so we have global

suppliers. We value the relationships we have

with those people.

We preer to continue to work with them

and would rather have discussions that

support the relationship and build on things.

We have some unique structures that we’ve

used including using a Cincinnati company

that does our meetings and events

inrastructure. Rather than opening an oce

in Hong Kong and employing people, we said,

“We will give you our oce space, we will

employ someone, and you pay us this

amount o money on a monthly basis, but it’s

your employee.”

Thereore, the individual is employed by us

and answers to me, but they take all their

instructions rom the company in Cincinnati. It

means that our suppliers don’t need to go

through the pain o setting up their own oces

and busines in Asia. Setting up a payroll system

and paying taxes in a oreign country is a bighassle, so we do all that stu or them. Quite

rankly, we don’t charge them or that service

because one person sitting in our oce is such

a minor addition. It saves them the hassle and

gives us a service working very, very quickly.

That has been an incredibly successul

situation or us over the past 18 months or so.

We’ve done similar things with our public-

relations company. These are unique, but they

create a really close worki

where you’re not just talking ab

you are a partner.

What are your plans or the u

Cook Medical?

I get asked this question a lo

trick question. In the next sev

the business in this part o the

to two-and-a-hal times or thr

is now. The major growth a

India, Vietnam, and Indonesia

smaller growth areas. We

opportunity in Japan. Althou

developed market, their medic

behind the rest o the worl

opportunities or us there.

The whole region is embhealth, and we see that cont

next 10 to 15 years. At the sa

starting to see lots o idea

technologies coming out o t

region, so we’re looking at h

and work with them to com

globally. We’re also looking at

or addressing unique medi

needs out o the region.

“We’re starting to see

ideas and dierent te

coming out o the Asi

region, so we’re looki

we can help and work

them to commercialis

globally.” - Barry Thomas

EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW 

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