Smith & Nephew plc (NYSE:SNN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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In terms of cost, it’s a bit dependent on how quickly execute on the G&A actions and whether it’s the market exits or the sales and marketing kind of adjustments that we need to make. So that’s a little bit in our hands and symptoms, how to quickly we execute. But that is more of a near to medium term lever that fuel that. Some of it, as I said, in ’23, and you’ll see, of course, the annualized impact of that in 2024. So that’s more near term. In terms of the manufacturing and Francois just answered, the network optimization, look, we’re sitting on excess capacity in Orthopaedics, right? And so we need to go through steps in order to put that into balance from a network standpoint. And that will take time to fully deliver into a P&L. So that you should expect more in the ’25 time frame to fully benefit.

But having said that, as I mentioned, there are — in our — under the umbrella of rewiring orthopaedics as we look to improve logistics, improve how we do demand planning how we do supply planning and how we schedule things in the factory, you should expect some benefit also in the ’23 and ’24 timeframe. So most of those benefits will come in the form of improved LIFR and therefore, improved availability into the market and in terms of product ability into the market that will get reflected in the operating leverage part of it, particularly in orthopaedics, right? Over time, as we talk about inventory is a topic for us, particularly in Orthopaedics, we started off not in a great place in ’21. We further added to it for understandable factors in 2022, but we’ve got to take steps as we rewire the business to better utilize capital in orthopaedics, right?

And that is one of the key elements of our work 12-point plan under the bucket of improved kind of commercial execution. So that will pay dividends ultimately in lower inventory lower days of inventory, which is a key metric, we’ll come back and report on how we’re doing in that in due time.

Anne-Francoise Nesmes: And the final question was on inflation. So clearly, we had to make assumptions. We don’t have a crystal ball, as you heard me say some at times. We assume a continued inflation in ’23 in part of the discussion we are just having earlier that it continues to flow from the cost we’ve seen in ’22. So higher inflation in ’23 and then ’24, ’25 in assumes and beyond that the inflation more direct. What do I mean by that? I’m not going to give a precise number. But clearly, that would be still higher than what we had experienced in the pre-COVID world, but moderate inflation is our assumption as we put out the guidance.

Deepak Nath: Being told, we do have more time for one more question back in the room. I thought Veronika was going to be the last one. One more question in the room.

Deepak Nath: Okay. So I think we’ll leave it at that. So thank you very much for your interest and attention, and look forward to seeing you back here next quarter. So thank you.

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