Pharma-Distribution - a multi-disciplinary business … and a costly one too …

#Pharmaceuticals #Pharma #Transport #Distribution #Logistics

There are plenty of challenges on the table. Most commonly “that part with the vehicles going around” is something that is handled by Logistics and IT, but when you zoom out from the Route Planning, the Warehouse Procedures, the Driver challenges etc., you quickly realise that distribution costs are determined by so much more than “classic logistics” and Last Mile challenges. Pharma Distribution perhaps especially so.

At the end of the day, it is all about:

1.        What you promise your customer

2.        The conditions under which you are compelled to operate

3.        How you go about these parameters

You know the conditions only too well:

• Price discount campaigns at the end of a month or quarter disrupts an otherwise carefully calculated route planning
• Tightened legislation on the cold chain dictates new software, hardware, documentation and procedures
• Disparate rules from different pharma producers complicates IT and drivers’ learning curve
• An ageing driver force paints a gloomy picture, and that future is not a linear decline
• The mandate to violate cut-off time is often illusory
• Rush hours are getting longer & parking places fewer
• The list goes on and on…

So how do you digitalise something like that?

The cohesion that IT dept. is – often valiantly - trying to attain does perhaps not always mirror cohesive, well described or straight forward business processes. With a “traditional” subject-by-subject digitalisation you risk ending up with a multitude of software applications, often in a patchwork of bespoke in-house plus one or more standardised solutions. Separately they all, of course, make good sense, but the totality often leaves even large corporations with a staggering >2% of Revenue in IT costs alone; and then still a lot to be desired… it would seem.