Importance of Supply Chain Management
One of the key factors driving an organization’s operational value is the presence of an efficient and consistent supply source. Supply chain management has become indispensable for organizations to survive in today’s competitive market and ensure minimal production downtime. Supply management helps organizations to streamline their operational structure starting from inventory management to dealing with any possible incidents of disaster management. A supply chain management process involves designing, planning, executing, controlling, and monitoring of supply chain activities. This helps the organization develop a competitive infrastructure, create market net value, support worldwide logistics, synchronize demand and supply, and measure performance globally.
Pharmaceutical Drugs Industry Overview
The pharmaceutical drugs industry is undoubtedly one of the world’s most thriving and ever-growing markets. Growing population, their rising need for health care and the lack of available health care services, and innovations are some of the factors that have been driving the pharmaceutical drugs industry. 
In addition, the rising occurrence of chronic diseases has prompted the development of various pharmaceutical drugs, which subsequently results in business growth. However, recent market trends are indicating a sluggish growth rate for the pharmaceuticals drugs industry. Factors like the introduction of patient-centric healthcare and changing rules and regulations are slimming demand scopes for the pharmaceutical drugs manufacturers since the patients are more actively involved in the healthcare process and cannot be blindly prescribed with a series of pharmaceutical drugs. Moreover, the insurgence of biosimilar drugs, which are the cheaper versions of the otherwise complex and more expensive drugs, are affecting the competency of some of the eminent pharmaceutical drugs companies.
Continue reading to know how the supply chain management strategy helped a leading pharmaceutical drugs manufacturer tackle the supply management complexities.
About the Client
The client is one of the leading pharmaceutical drugs manufacturers in the world today.
The Client’s Challenge
Lack of supply assurance, identifying capable suppliers from a vast pool of resources, and inflating supply chain costs were some of the major challenges that were hindering the brand integrity of the pharmaceutical drugs manufacturer. Moreover, frequent discontinuity of the supply source was negatively impacting the manufacturing process and resulting in immense customer dissatisfaction due to the non-availability of critical products.
The Outcome
SpendEdge’s experts conducted a step-by-step supply chain management best practices analysis and their approach involved:
Strategic planning: This stage determined the exact requirement of the pharmaceutical drugs manufacturer. SpendEdge’s supply chain management experts identified key components of the client’s operational infrastructure, which were plant location and size, warehouse designing, delivery models, IT solutions’ selection, etc.
Supply source: The next step in the supply chain management processes was to strategically select suppliers who can act as a reliable supply source for raw materials. The sourcing of the raw materials was done based on the specific types of pharmaceutical drugs manufactured by the client.
Execution: This step was a metric-intensive unit of the supply chain management process that involved the manufacturing of various types of pharmaceutical drugs. The aim of the supply chain management experts was to improve the output of all manufacturing processes, which included processes that involve quality analysis, production output, and worker productivity.
Delivery: Also referred to as logistics, this is the stage when the different types of pharmaceuticals drugs that are manufactured at the client’s location are delivered to the customers at the right quantity and at right time. SpendEdge’s supply chain management experts referred to a set of IT tools that were specific to the operational infrastructure and helped them keep a track of the warehousing networks, inventory models, as well as invoicing and payment receipts.
Return: This is regarded as the critical stage of the supply chain management process and involves returning of damaged or defective pharmaceutical drugs. To ensure a smooth product returning process, SpendEdge’s supply chain management experts devised a responsive and a tangible model, which facilitated smooth returning and acceptance of the faulty products.
The supply chain management process conducted by SpendEdge benefitted the pharmaceutical drugs manufacturer by helping them improve their inventory system, while minimizing cost effects during emergency market scenarios.
To know more about the other benefits of a supply chain management strategy for pharmaceutical drugs manufacturers
