Quick thoughts on Swisslog acquisition of Talyst

I’m a little slow getting to my thoughts on this deal.

A couple of weeks ago it was announced that Talyst had been acquired by Swisslog Healthcare. I’ve known about this acquisition for a while so I wasn’t surprised when it finally went through. Since the announcement, I’ve reached out to some friends and colleagues on both sides of the fence to get their thoughts and opinions on what’s in store for the future.

My contacts at Talyst have been quite helpful and informative. Swisslog, not so much. In fact, they’ve provided me with no additional information or insight. All they’ve done is sic their marketing department on me, who in turn sent me a bunch of marketing hype that I can find online. Useless. I hope this isn’t a primer on what we can expect from the “new Talyst” moving forward. That would be unfortunate. I suppose this is the difference between a small company and a large company. I’ve always had trouble getting good information from large companies. There are simply too many layers to get through. With small companies, I can often go directly to the CEO. In large companies, I’m met by an army of people designed to keep people like me away from the CEO.

Trying to figure out what Swisslog wants with Talyst has given me much to think about. Talyst is a market leader in certain acute care areas of pharmacy, such as carousels and inventory management software. They aren’t particularly creative or innovative, but rather steady. Talyst knows carousels but that market has kind of run its course unless you’re building a new pharmacy. The high-speed packaging market in acute care pharmacies is basically dead. The company doesn’t offer a competitive controlled-substance management system. They have a solid refrigeration strategy, but it’s not as innovative as something like Evolve. Talyst doesn’t do anything with RFID technology nor do they have a mobile strategy. Their software has good functionality but is antiquated in many ways. So what it is that Swisslog wants? Customer base? Name recognition?

Swisslog doesn’t have much of a footprint in acute care pharmacies except for their tube system, which is basically everywhere. However, Swisslog is creative and innovative. They have some robotic systems like BoxPicker, PillPick, and RoboCourier. They make use of RFID technologies. They have pretty decent integration within their systems and they’re really good at logistics. Honestly, I don’t know as much about Swisslog as I do Talyst. 

In general, I like products from both companies. However, it’s hard for me to imagine where Talyst products will fit into the Swisslog scheme. The items I think Swisslog needs from Talyst will likely be the most difficult to use, i.e. think square peg and round hole. I suppose the existing Talyst customer base is something that Swisslog can take advantage of. Customers using Talyst products could benefit from Swisslog products and better integration across the two platforms. That goes vice versa as well.

Only time will tell, but I’m betting that we won’t see anything significant from this deal for quite some time.