Tag Archives: Supply Chain

Africa, Agriculture, News

Dynamic Partnership in place to Empower Ghanaian Farmers and Enhance Agricultural Traceability

UK-based Phlo Systems and Ghana-based Farmerline, both industry pioneers committed to revolutionising the agricultural landscape, proudly announce a new partnership today (14 December, 2023) that aims to transform the agricultural sector in Ghana and enhance traceability within the supply chain.

Farmerline, established in 2013, has been at the forefront of empowering farmers across Ghana. With operations initially reaching 800 farmers and a vision to revolutionise the entire sector, Farmerline has already left a significant mark. Through its own platform, it has reached 1.7M farmers by deploying its tools and services through 3,000+ strategic partners across 48 countries.

Phlo Systems, a leading provider of international supply chain management solutions, delivering innovative digital solutions for end-to-end physical goods and commodities supply chain operations, joins forces with Farmerline to amplify the impact of its collective efforts.

This partnership will enable the company to extend its reach to more originators and farmers across Africa, LatAm and South Asia, providing essential guidance and support to ensure compliance with EU DR standards and enhancing monitoring, traceability with the use of intelligence tools.

Alloysius Attah, Co-Founder and Group CEO at Farmerline, said, “Our goal has always been to catalyse lasting profits for farmers and bring about a positive impact in the agricultural sector. We began in 2013 with a vision to revolutionise the industry, and today, we’re empowering over 1.7 million farmers globally.

“Our partnership with Phlo Systems is a significant step towards achieving our vision and ensuring full traceability of commodities right back to the farmers.”

Saurabh Goyal, CEO of Phlo Systems, said: “We are thrilled to partner with Farmerline, an organisation that shares our dedication to transforming the agricultural sector. Together, we will leverage our expertise and resources to provide farmers, originators, traders and operators with the necessary tools and knowledge to comply with EU DR standards and achieve sustainable growth. The ability to trace commodities back to the farmers is a crucial step towards ensuring transparency and accountability within the supply chain.”

This partnership signifies a significant milestone in the efforts to empower farmers, enhance agricultural traceability, and ultimately drive sustainable growth and development in the agricultural sector. By combining strengths and expertise, Phlo Systems and Farmerline are set to create a lasting impact on the lives of farmers in Ghana and beyond.

News

Ivanti Wavelink Now Integrates Ivanti Neurons for MDM into Supply Chain Solutions

This cloud-based modern device management solution delivers Android Enterprise and simplified app deployment for rugged mobile devices across your supply chain

Ivanti Wavelink, the supply chain business unit of Ivanti, today announced the integration of Ivanti Neurons for MDM, a cloud-based modern device management solution that can secure and manage any device, any OS, anywhere across your supply chain operation throughout its lifecycle. With this launch Ivanti Neurons for MDM can now manage rugged mobile devices.

Recommended and integrated with Android Enterprise, Zebra LifeGuard, and StageNow, Ivanti Neurons for MDM detects, manages, and secures traditional, smart, and rugged devices in a single platform with automation AI that helps maximize technology and user uptime.

“Ivanti Neurons for MDM gives you visibility to know that your devices are updated and in operating condition, so your task workers are productive all shift long,” said Brandon Black, vice president and general manager, Ivanti Wavelink. “Additionally, software — including apps running on our Velocity platform — is easily deployed, updated, and configured, which helps reduce support tickets and technology failure-based downtime.”

Unlike alternative mobile device management solutions that support a limited set of device types and require “swivel-chair” management across multiple platforms to manage different endpoints, Ivanti Neurons for MDM consolidates all endpoint management into a single platform, making asset tracking, managing, and securing all devices across an organization easier with visibility and control from a single unified console. This includes traditional laptops, smart devices, rugged mobile computers, wearables, rugged smartphones and tablets.

Supply chain operations have no time for downtime. Ivanti Neurons for MDM supports simplified device staging and management of applications that power worker productivity. It also reduces risk through device firmware, operating system and application updates that aid vulnerability patching and reduce software-driven support requests. Organizations also have the option to add protection against known and unknown (zero-day) threats with Ivanti Neurons for MDM as part of the Ivanti Neurons platform. Additionally, Ivanti Neurons for MDM builds on the strength of Ivanti Neurons for UEM and enables a smooth upgrade from Avalanche or any other MDM solution.

“Supply chain security has become a target for threat actors, and manufacturers need to prepare against breaches. A lack of visibility of device and software update data can leave companies open to ransomware attacks,” Black said. “Ivanti Neurons for MDM helps reduce risks by managing updates across firmware, operating systems, and apps, and ensuring that devices are running at peak performance, giving workers the best opportunity to deliver for the business.”

About Ivanti Wavelink:

Ivanti Wavelink is a global leader in supply chain solutions that focus on task worker operational excellence in business-critical environments. Over 25,000 customers have deployed Ivanti Wavelink solutions to accelerate warehouse operations, reduce risks, and increase productivity through intelligent insights and automation. Our market-leading mobile enterprise platform, combined with our innovative mobile and IIoT solutions, can enhance task worker productivity at the edge and drive efficiency and profit to the bottom line. Ivanti Wavelink is part of Ivanti, a global technology company that enables and secures the Everywhere Workplace. Ivanti is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah and has offices all over the world.

Energy, News

Europe set to ration energy supplies this winter – The Smart Cube comments

Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia supplied gas to Europe at 100 per cent capacity, supporting around 40 per cent of the European natural imports. Following the start of the war, Russia reduced its gas supply – via its Nord Stream 1 pipeline – to Europe, accounting for only nine per cent of European natural gas imports. This has resulted in severe gas shortages across Europe, leading to high prices in the region.

With gas and electricity prices hitting all-time highs after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, governments in Europe are likely to ration energy supplies for this winter and future ones. In fact, earlier this month, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU commission, called for cuts to electricity use across the bloc and windfall taxes on energy firms in order to tackle high prices.

What’s more, European governments have already begun to call for an increase in domestic production and decrease in consumption of natural gas. In September 2022, the German government extended the life of two of its remaining nuclear power plants – which were planned to be shut down by the end of 2022 – until April 2023. Elsewhere, the Netherlands has removed production caps from all coal-fired power plants, while in Norway, the government approved plans to increase gas production in six offshore natural gas fields to raise the country’s output.

Himanshu Bajaj, energy procurement specialist at The Smart Cube, comments on how companies can proactively take steps to mitigate soaring energy prices, as well as how they can prevent supply chain disruptions during such macroeconomic events:

“A multipronged strategy to address supply chain disruptions is the need of the hour. Firstly, it is vital for firms to map their suppliers on a tiered basis, so they can get a clear picture of critical raw materials that are at risk. Businesses must also evaluate the health of suppliers, both from a financial and supply stability perspective.

“As well as this, firms should engage in renewable energy agreements. As energy prices continue to rise, these agreements will become more attractive. For example, corporate solar power purchase agreements have already proven effective in providing savings, budget certainty and energy independence.

“Companies must also consider reducing their energy consumption during such periods of time. This can be achieved through locating energy efficiency levers to reduce consumption through LEDs, VFDs, HVAC, or other facility-related upgrades. As a result of this, energy consumption will decrease, reducing overall costs.

“Finally, businesses should also continuously monitor the situation as it develops, keeping across the restrictions being implemented and the impact that Europe’s rationing plans and other geopolitical events are having on supply chains.”

News

Kinaxis Acquires MPO to Connect Supply Chain Planning and Real-Time Execution for Perfect Orders

Adding Multi-Enterprise Visibility, Order Management, and Transportation Management to extend Kinaxis’ vision for end-to-end concurrent planning

Kinaxis® Inc. (TSX: KXS), the authority in driving agility for fast, confident decision-making in an unpredictable world, announced today that it has acquired MPO, a European headquartered company that offers a unified global cloud-based SaaS platform for multi party orchestration of orders, inventory and transport. In a deal that closed on August 15, 2022, Kinaxis acquired all the shares of MPO for approximately $45 million, consisting of approximately 75 percent cash and 25 percent equity consideration. The exact amount of equity consideration will depend on the level of attainment of certain revenue and execution goals over the near term.

“Today’s more complex supply chain networks and higher customer expectations have shown the importance of outside-in thinking and improving the control of material in motion to accelerate and improve decision making. This acquisition will seamlessly activate supply chain concurrency from planning through last-mile execution,” said John Sicard, Kinaxis CEO. “We welcome the MPO team and their customers to the Kinaxis community. Uniting these two innovative platforms delivers end-to-end supply chain concurrency, visibility and knowledge across customers, suppliers, and the entire multienterprise business network.”

The combination of Kinaxis Rapid Response® planning and MPO’s Multi Party Orchestration execution will uniquely deliver a complete real-time picture of every order across the lifecycle – from planned commitment through ultimate delivery. Instead of treating these areas as separated teams, planners will be able to react to disruptions in transportation and dynamically respond, and logistics teams will be able to incorporate the strategic impacts of their execution activities. This full digitisation will unlock supply chain agility and resiliency to improve the end-to-end customer experience, sustainability and financial outcomes for manufacturers and brand owners as well as logistics service providers.

“MPO is to supply chain execution what Kinaxis is to supply chain planning – revolutionising the space by concurrently combining control and visibility of supply chain execution steps across business networks, into a unified cloud platform with one codebase, single user-interface and real-time optimisation in a way no other vendor in the market does,” said Martin Verwijmeren CEO, who co-founded MPO with Paul van Dongen, CTO.

MPO will continue to operate as a standalone company. Sampford Advisors acted as exclusive financial advisors to Kinaxis for this acquisition. Finch Corporate Strategy Services acted as exclusive advisors to MPO

 

About Kinaxis Inc.

Everyday volatility and uncertainty demand quick action. Kinaxis® delivers the agility to make fast, confident decisions across integrated business planning and the digital supply chain. People can plan better, live better and change the world. Trusted by innovative brands, we combine human intelligence with AI and concurrent planning to help companies plan for any future, monitor risks and opportunities and respond at the pace of change. Powered by an extensible, cloud-based platform, Kinaxis delivers industry-proven applications so everyone can know sooner, act faster and remove waste. For more Kinaxis news, visit Kinaxis.com

About MPO

MPO offers the world’s only natively unified cloud platform for Multi Party Orchestration. The platform complements existing enterprise systems with visibility and control, and optimises order, inventory, and transportation across dynamic, multi-party networks. MPO helps diverse brand owners and logistics service providers embrace the increasing complexity of their global, regional, and domestic supply chains to become more flexible, agile, efficient, reliable, compliant, and sustainable to their customers. For information, please contact info@mpo.com or visit www.mpo.com.

Construction, Construction News, News

Fabricators call for an alternative approach to pushing price rises down the home improvement supply chain

Six leading fabricators of products to the home improvement sector have called for a halt to the ongoing practice of pushing price rises at the top down the supply chain.

Central Window Systems, Conservatory Outlet, Listers, Roseview, Prefix Systems and SolarFrame have joined forces to urge firms in the sector to work together to find new efficiencies and to combat the unending barrage of price increases being introduced – especially at a time when consumer demand is down.

Recent publicly available data shows that household spending has reduced by up to 50% compared to the same period last year and bosses believe the last thing consumers and retailers need to contend with now is a further rise in the cost of products.

“We’ve seen prices increase at exponential rates over the last two years and this has continued through into 2022,” explained Greg Kane, CEO of Wakefield-based Conservatory Outlet.

“The determination has always been there to shield our customers from these price hikes, absorbing what we can through improved efficiencies, working creatively with our supply partners and passing on what we must. We’ve held the line and absorbed all incoming increases throughout 2022 but there obviously reaches a point when this becomes unsustainable.”

Gary Morton, Managing Director of Central Window Systems, continued: “This isn’t just affecting us, but our industry as a whole and we must be as transparent as possible to act in the best interest of the entire sector. If these price rises continue, and are again forced down the supply chain, consumers will simply not engage.

“Enforcing more price increases during a market slowdown is entirely counterproductive and will do more harm than good in both the short and long-term.”

The recent proposal of price increases from the very top of the chain are due to take place in September and would happen just as the energy cap is set to rise again, with manufacturers and retailers set to be stuck in the middle with pressure from both sides.

These changes could exacerbate a suppressed market and be counterintuitive to campaigns promoting the financial viability of purchasing new, energy-efficient windows and doors or extensions for their homes.

Employing thousands of staff and amassing more than £130m sales between them, the six companies believe their involvement in both manufacturing and retail gives them a unique insight into consumer pain points and a worrying dip in demand that some firms in the industry are failing to see coming.

Roy Frost, Managing Director of Listers, went on to add: “As an industry, we have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic to face countless challenges, but this barrage of price increases simply must stop.

“We’re not trying to single out particular suppliers, more a case of looking for a more sensible and collaborative approach that focuses on the all-important consumer at the end of the chain.”

Chris Cooke, Managing Director of Prefix Systems, concluded: “The industry needs those at the top of the supply chain to listen to the voice of consumer-led businesses and explore ways of absorbing some of the increases without passing them on.

“We are already doing this for our customers, using all the efficiency savings we’ve made to cushion the cost increases from above. However, this is only possible on the prices of the products Prefix has market control over.

“It is undeniably a tough trading environment, but this is a case of ensuring the longevity and long-term success of the sector.”

 

News

The Smart Cube releases latest version of Amplifi PRO

Brand new category insights dashboards including key supplier risks will support procurement teams to proactively respond to current and future volatility

The Smart Cube, a global provider of strategic research and analytics solutions, has released the latest version of Amplifi PRO, its on-demand digital procurement intelligence platform for the worldwide procurement community.

With procurement teams facing continued volatility in many of their key categories, The Smart Cube has introduced 40 brand new category insights dashboards, bringing together all its in-depth category intelligence into one easy to consume view.

The new category dashboards also feature the competitive landscape and risk profile for the top suppliers in each category, powered by Smart Risk – The Smart Cube’s proprietary risk monitoring platform, which leverages AI combined with human expertise to track suppliers’ risks on an ongoing basis.

The latest release also includes:

  • Procurement KPI/ benchmarking reports: These new reports collate key procurement performance metrics and industry benchmarks for three key sectors (Life Sciences, CPG and Industrials) plus one focused on Indirects categories.
  • Greater insights on categories, commodities, suppliers and inflation indices: Core intelligence has been strengthened, building on the developments introduced in the January 2022 release of Amplifi PRO – including supplier intelligence powered by Craft; broader and deeper commodity intelligence; integrated commodity intelligence dashboards; and new inflation monitors.
  • User journey enhancements: Based on user feedback and analytics, content has been re-structured to group related intelligence, creating a more seamless user journey. The route for existing customers to transition from Amplifi PRO to their custom workflow portals and solutions has also been reconfigured, helping procurement professionals get to the contextualised insights they need, faster.

Gaurav Kumar, Chief Operating Officer, The Smart Cube, commented: “Procurement teams had hoped 2022 would bring a period of greater stability, however a whole host of factors continue to disrupt key categories – from the Russia-Ukraine crisis and supply chain shortages to intense inflationary pressures. This release of Amplifi PRO will help our customers get the critical category intelligence they need, and support their decision-making processes.”

–  –

About The Smart Cube

For leading businesses around the world, The Smart Cube is a trusted partner for high performing intelligence that answers critical business questions. And we work with our clients to figure out how to implement the answers, faster.

Through custom research, advanced analytics and best of breed technology, we transform data into insights – enabling smart decision-making to improve business performance at the top and bottom line. We call it: Intelligence. Accelerated.

Our clients include a third of the companies in the FTSE and Fortune 100, primarily in the CPG, Life Sciences, Energy, Chemicals, Industrials, Financial Services, Professional Services and Retail sectors.

We serve our global client base from our offices in the UK, the USA, Switzerland, Romania and India.

Cybersecurity, News

Crossword Cybersecurity Plc announces new Supply Chain Cyber practice in response to increasing threat of supply chain cyber attacks

  • New integrated practice addresses 4x forecast growth in supply chain cyber attacks

28 June 2022 – London, UK – Crossword Cybersecurity Plc (AIM:CCS, “Crossword”, the “Company” or the “Group”), the cybersecurity solutions company focused on cyber strategy and risk, has today announced the creation of a new integrated Supply Chain Cyber practice.

In response to client demand and the substantial increase in supply chain cyber threat levels, the integrated practice provides a set of controls, processes and tools, along with a range of managed services, advice and training to massively reduce the risk of direct cyber-attacks as well as threats via third parties across a company’s supply chain.

The practice provides an end-to-end approach to supply chain cybersecurity and includes a standard operating model (SOM) and a substantially updated version of Rizikon Assurance, Crossword’s SaaS platform used by supplier management and cybersecurity teams and across an organisation to underpin the controls, tools and data needed to reduce supply chain risk.

Updated Rizikon features include automated assurance, flexible reporting and new dashboards that improve supply chain cyber assurance, risk and compliance strategy, policy and operations.

Experienced cybersecurity consultant, Ryan King, has been appointed as Practice Lead and is supported by a dedicated team of experts specialising in supply chain cyber risk.

Today’s cyber threat potential is huge and growing fast. The European Under Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) reported in 2021 that it expected supply chain attacks to quadruple over the following 12 months. As a result, industries including but not limited to banking, retail and manufacturing are under mounting financial, reputational and regulatory pressure to take control of cybersecurity risks.

For organisations of any size, the greatest threats to cybersecurity are suppliers, third parties and connected technologies because they are so hard to control. Recent research independently conducted for Crossword of over 200 Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) found that 83 per cent of CISOs viewed “ensuring that the entire supply chain is water-tight in its ability to defend and recover against threat actors” as a challenge.

Today’s solutions are failing – Crossword’s end-to-end approach addresses the fundamentals

Many organisations are still using internally focused ideas and solutions to try and address cybersecurity risks in the supply chain, but by definition these are not sufficient since they fail to holistically integrate the cyber risks originating from external third parties. Furthermore, the longer and more diverse a supply chain becomes, the faster the risks multiply in tandem with an organisation’s inability to monitor and manage those risks.

Crossword’s Supply Chain Cyber approach is dedicated to meeting any organisation’s cybersecurity and supply chain resilience obligations by providing an end-to-end solution. Crossword’s Supply Chain Cyber offering provides:

  • A team of cybersecurity industry experts, dedicated to defining and delivering risk management best practice
  • A comprehensive and flexible supply chain cybersecurity Standard Operating Model that defines processes, techniques and structures needed to manage supply chain assurance, compliance, and risk in any industry
  • An updated version of Rizikon Assurance – an automated, SaaS-based platform for managing supply chain cyber assurance, compliance and risk strategy, policy, and operations
  • Cost-effective supplier cyber audits and security testing
  • Consulting services including supply chain cyber benchmarking, maturity assessments and advisory consulting, and training
  • Complete managed services for supply chain cyber assurance, compliance, and risk management.

Stuart Jubb, Group Managing Director at Crossword Cybersecurity Plc, commented: “A whole new operating model and mindset is required to properly address supply chain cyber risks and attacks. Looking only inwards and relying on internally focussed controls, systems and thinking is not enough to protect organisations today. Crossword’s Supply Chain Cyber practice addresses the severity and fast-growing nature of risks present in supply chains. It gives our customers the tools and processes to securely and cost effectively manage these risks, benefiting not only the customer, but all members of their supply chain. The objective is to minimise collective risk and ensure cost-effective governance and adherence to regulations across all industries.”

Rizikon – elevate your supplier risk management

The supply chain cyber standard operating model (SCC SOM) is supported by Rizikon Assurance, a SaaS platform used by supplier management and cybersecurity teams and across an organisation to underpin the controls, tools and data needed to reduce supply chain cyber risk.

Rizikon automates processes such as designing supply chain cyber policy, grouping suppliers, creating detailed assurance plans, applying appropriate assurance methods to each group, and reporting on risk, compliance, and assurance coverage across the whole supply chain. Rizikon also integrates with existing tools and data sources.

Learn more about Crossword’s Supply Chain Cyber practice and standard operating model by visiting: https://www.crosswordcybersecurity.com/supply-chain-cyber

News

Manufacturers looking for long-term measures from the government (Authored by Kunal Sawhney, CEO, Kalkine)

The United Kingdom has a vast and vivid manufacturing sector, including various industries like electricity, water, mining, oil & gas, and many more. As per industry body Make UK, the current annual output of the UK’s manufacturing sector is about £183 billion, and it continues to maintain its position as the ninth-largest manufacturing country globally.

However, the industry has been going through a crisis due to rising inflation, and the businesses within it are facing growing pressures due to the rise of input costs and supply chain disruptions. Manufacturing is severely impacted by high energy and commodity costs. At the same time, finding talent has become a major challenge, with vacancies at record levels, at 4.1 vacancies per 100 jobs. According to ONS data, as on 10 June 2022 number of online job adverts was the weakest in the manufacturing sector when compared with three weeks ago, among all the major industries.

Pandemic and its impact on manufacturing

The COVID-19 pandemic had impacted almost all the sectors and manufacturing was among the severest hit with a significant reduction in the output in 2020. As per ONS data (Office for National Statistics), the total value of the UK’s manufacturing product sales declined by 10.8% to £358.7 billion in 2020 compared to £402.2 billion in the previous year.

While almost all the manufacturing divisions witnessed a decline in sales, the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and paper and paper products witnessed modest improvement during the period. However, once the restrictions started easing, the output value of the sector began returning to normal despite high prices and supply chain bottlenecks, and it was being expected that things would be back on track by the end of 2022.

All the high hopes to see a turnaround by the year-end were dashed amid a worsening cost-of-living crisis. Producers of consumer goods struggled to raise the demand as households face surging energy bills and there is a continuous decline in consumer confidence.

The latest data revealed that British manufacturing activity expansion was weakest in May 2022 since January 2021 at 54.6. It clearly shows the squeeze on household finances and the risk of recession weighing on the minds of consumers. For yet another month, costs paid by manufacturers and selling prices witnessed a rise in May.

What is the sector asking for?

The Q2 survey report of Make UK/ BDO has revealed that investment has taken a big hit, and companies have been deferring or shelving their plans to maintain their cash flow, amid weakening consumer confidence with growth and orders showing a sharp decline. Exports are still not showing any signs of sustainable recovery.

Rapidly rising input costs may not leave the manufacturers to continue till Autumn, when Chancellor Rishi Sunak had promised help during the Spring Statement. The prevailing situation calls for an immediate and urgent need for help for the manufacturers, keeping in view the grim outlook for the next six months.

As per Make UK, manufacturers are now not looking at any short-term measures and would rather expect the government to focus more on business and foreign investors, which could portray the country in a more serious manner with a long-term vision.

  • Manufacturers have been asking the government to either remove or reduce the business rates for the coming one year.
  • SMEs should be provided with a waiver of VAT, while large businesses can be given some deferrals.
  • There has been a demand for the extension of the super-deduction investment policy, a means that allowed the businesses to claim a much higher tax deduction in the tax year of purchase for qualifying equipment compared to what it could have been normally.
  • The climate change levy should be stopped for the time being, and if the energy cost continues its rising spree, it should be completely abolished.
  • There is also demand from the manufacturers to make the increase in AIA (Annual Investment Allowance) permanent. Late last year, the government had temporarily increased the AIA from £200,000 to £1,000,000 for a qualifying outlay on plant and machinery.
News

Logistics Skills – The Panacea the Pharma Sector Needs

Written by Leigh Anderson, Managing Director at Bis Henderson Recruitment

The pharmaceutical retail, wholesale, and distribution sector is ‘in play’, as they say on the markets. The group around Lloyds Pharmacy (retail) and AAH Pharmaceuticals (wholesale) has been acquired by Aurelius; Walden have bought Movianto, joining Eurotranspharma and Ciblex and so bolstering their claim to be ‘the European leader in transport and logistics for pharma’; and takeover rumors swirl around Walgreen-owned Boots/Alliance, along with other companies in the UK and Europe.

In parallel with this market activity, we are seeing a marked upswing in recruitment for senior and middle-ranking logistics and supply chain posts in the sector. And it’s hardly surprising, as wider skill sets from pertinent related sectors will be needed.

Changes in ownership invariably trigger reviews of business strategies and consequent reassessment of whether the right skills and expertise are in place to achieve the new goals. But this comes on top of more fundamental changes that have been triggered or accelerated by the Covid pandemic.

Restructuring, and pharmacy involvement in vaccine rollouts, has prompted significant and ongoing investment in new distribution centres, final mile delivery and automation – including robotic dispensing solutions. In addition, the pandemic has revealed critical dependencies, especially for packaging and drug delivery supplies, which has pushed supply chain resilience higher up on corporate agendas.

More fundamentally, the pandemic has accelerated the digitalisation of medicine, including pharmacology. Pressure on general practice has been met by ramping up the NHS Direct platform, and by a boom in private sector on-line medicine, through firms such as Babylon, PushDoctor, and Lloyds Pharmacy Clinical Homecare. And this is extending to the on-line ordering of drugs and therapies, particularly repeat prescriptions, for delivery Direct-to-Patient.

The processes are analogous to, but with significant differences from, consumer eCommerce. Direct-to-Patient promises to be more convenient, to reduce waste, to encourage better course adherence by patients, as well as helping to control the problem of parallel imports. Better visibility of demand can be fed into predictive analytics for further improvement. But exactly what this might mean for the role of wholesalers is still in question.

The vaccine development and roll-out process has also highlighted the importance of accurate logistics to clinical trials, where any supply failure risks negating months or years of development work and delaying the deployment of valuable therapies.

Healthcare is a data-rich environment and there is now a real emphasis on using sophisticated data analytics, to quote Walden, “to optimise logistics processes and streamline flows both within health entities (pharmacies, hospitals), and also directly to patients”. Digitalisation is rapidly being applied to a host of regulatory requirements, from real-time traceability to quality control, market authorisation, pharmaceutical release, Customs brokerage, and more.

Forward-looking companies are also beginning to plan for an era of individually tailored therapies, especially around cell and gene therapies. So-called ‘vein to vein’ supply chains will require needle-sharp logistics to move blood or tissue samples from the patient to the laboratory as well as delivering the resultant therapy back to the patient – all under critical time pressure. The trend, already evident, is forever wider product ranges, in smaller volumes and with high demand volatility, with very short shelf lives, requiring differing temperature regimes, dealt with in part by increasing use of postponement strategies. And, needless to say, all this has to be conducted with the highest ethical and customer-centric focus.

So, what are the skills companies are looking for to meet this complex agenda? Clearly, experience of significant change management will be valuable. There are specific technical skills in demand also – in robotics and automation, in the application of big data analytics to supply chain and distribution activities, and in building effective direct to user distribution channels taking appropriate learnings from consumer eCommerce. Experience in time-critical sectors (short life products and stringent delivery time requirements), and in reducing fulfilment times is in demand, as is experience in using procurement and supplier relations processes to improve supply chain resilience.

Managers at all levels will also need an understanding of how heavily regulated industries have to operate – especially as some innovations in, for example, Direct-to-Patient supply may, in some countries, require legal or regulatory change.

Partly because of this, there has been an unspoken assumption in parts of the sector that senior staff really need a medical, pharmacological or life science background. But it is now appreciated that this isn’t necessarily the case, and that there are lessons to be learned and knowledge to be transferred from other sectors – consumer eCommerce, temperature-controlled food distribution chains, even the data analytics used in high volume, but high variance, industries such as fashion.

Bis Henderson has extensive experience of helping managers with these high value skills transition into different industrial and commercial sectors, enhancing their careers and facilitating knowledge transfer to new employers. As a natural port of call for logistics and supply chain professionals seeking to develop, we have access to a deep pool of the skills and talent that the pharmaceutical distribution sector will need to meet the coming challenges.

Awards, News

Aquanima Grupo Santander wins Prestigious El Diamante de la Compra Award for transforming the way it buys B2B services using Artificial Intelligence

Aquanima Grupo Santander, a global procurement company that provides value solutions to Santander Group and other clients from different sectors around the world, has won the renowned AERCE El Diamante de la Compra® Award in the Innovation category for the way Santander is using Globality’s AI-powered Platform and Marketplace to transform how the bank sources B2B services.

The AERCE El Diamante de la Compra® Awards – organised by the Spanish Association of Purchasing, Contracting and Procurement Professionals (AERCE) –recognize outstanding work from procurement teams, and highlight the increasingly important function they play within their organisations, showcasing best practices and strategically valuable projects over the past 12 months.

The Innovation category recognizes a project, action or initiative that has demonstrated true innovation. The award is given to the procurement team that can demonstrate a radical new method or approach to one of the most challenging aspects of the sourcing process.

As a result of the partnership with Globality, Aquanima Grupo Santander is enjoying improved demand management and increased sourcing competition, and able to make more effective decisions, realise significant time and cost efficiencies, and foster greater collaboration between business stakeholders, procurement, and suppliers.

“We are delighted to receive this award, which is testament to our shared vision for the Future of Procurement,” said Jorge de la Vega, CEO of Aquanima. “That future, based on self-serve sourcing, is a competitive advantage for Aquanima Grupo Santander, helping us to continually evolve and boost our capabilities to give the best service to our clients.”

Aquanima’s project realised significant results within 90 days of adopting Globality’s Platform. In particular, Santander Bank realised substantial efficiencies by scoping their requirements in days instead of weeks, and awarding work in less than a month, drastically increasing speed to market and also saw average cost savings of 15% across projects awarded on the Platform.

“Globality is proud to partner with Aquanima Grupo Santander in revolutionising the way Fortune 500 and global 2000 companies buy services,” said Joel Hyatt, Chairman, Co-Founder and CEO, Globality. “For the first time, sophisticated, AI-powered technology exists to enable fair, competitive, sustainable self-serve sourcing for all indirect spend – unlocking a huge, new opportunity for procurement to create strategic business value and help meet the challenges of today’s volatile global economy.”