We recognise that our team and those that join us on the journey will be the key driving force towards success for us and our clients. To celebrate our team, those in the driving seat every day, we’d like to introduce you to our Covetrus™ People – asking them what do they do? And why do they do it?
Meet Andrew Hardie, our Development Manager for Covetrus in EMEA.
What attracted you to Covetrus?
As a dog owner, the focus on animal health and being able to play a part in empowering veterinarians to provide better care for animals was a major draw. It helped that the projects being worked on when I applied were interesting and fit in to a wider global strategy.
What are you passionate about professionally?
Technology and problem solving are my two main passions, inside and outside of work. Even better when advances in technology can improve quality of life. Your fridge telling you when you’re out of milk might seem trivial in the grand scheme of things, but when you can apply that same technology to wearable devices that can track vital signs, or having a fridge order life-saving medicine automatically when it has run out, then suddenly a whole new world of possibilities has opened up.
What does a typical day at work look like for you?
I’d love to be able to say that my day is filled with long hours of looking at 8 monitors filled with code, furiously tapping on a keyboard, and shouting things like, “I’ve hacked the mainframe” or “I’ll build a GUI interface using Visual Basic to track IP addresses”, but the reality is slightly more mundane. I spend around 50% of my time solving problems and 50% attempting to stop problems from ever appearing. I work closely with the Product Managers in the team so that they have the necessary technical detail to move their vision forward, as well as working with my team to deliver new features and functionality to our products.
What are you currently working on?
A wide variety of projects, but I mainly try to look to the future and the possibilities that it will bring. Advances in AI, machine learning, and shiny new things like quantum computing are avenues to explore and see how we can better simplify workflows for our customers.
What are your objectives?
My one main objective in life is to continually challenge myself and the world around me.
Tell us about your team
A great mix of people with a variety of skillsets and interests. Fitting in with team culture is one of the most important qualities we look for, so being able to relax, playing some mini-basketball, movies, hiking, video games, baking, you name it we’ve probably made up a game around it to compete. With work, we encourage open communication, failing fast, and learning by doing.
Fitting with team culture is one of the most important qualities we look for, so being able to relax, playing some mini-basketball, movies, hiking, video games, baking, you name it.
Tell us how your team fits into/supports the wider organisation
Locally, my team works closely with the product team to support RoboVet and Rx Works in the UK. We deliver the vision of the product team, who in turn work closely with stakeholders and customers to capture their needs.
Internationally, in the very near future, the team will be involved in delivering several global projects to the entire EMEA region. We’ll also be releasing an internal project to the North American and APAC regions with the aim of better supporting our products around the globe.
What challenges are your team facing currently?
Too many cool things to do and little time to do them all. Being the best team in business is also a heavy weight to carry around every day.
What’s happening in the industry/how are things changing?
Corporatisation of veterinary practices provides an interesting challenge. On one hand, the homogeneity of practices means in theory better standards for captured data, which means a faster turn-around time in using that data. However, with this there’s a risk that one or two voices dictate the direction of a product, which could potentially stifle creativity and innovation.
Technology-wise, I can see machine learning and AI bringing several important changes in workflows for veterinary practices, with analytics and manually intensive tasks being automated.
What projects are coming next?
Covetrus Mobile App launching in the UK is the next big project our customers will see. We’re always trying to innovate internally and add those innovations to our regularly scheduled releases of RoboVet™ and Rx Works™.
What will be key to success?
Listening to our customers, innovation, and the courage to implement those innovations.
Explore what’s possible at Covetrus Global Software Services. Sound good to you? Join us.