How we ran an optimal supply chain within the pharma industry
Summary
Leveraging the supply chain to deliver top pharma talent
With the ever-changing pharma industry – new product launches, mergers and acquisitions, digital transformation, and changing consumer buying behaviours – talent plays an even more critical role than in other industries.
A majority of pharma executives say talent plays a top role in the success or failure of their business and products to the market.
Our customer, a multinational pharmaceutical holding company, had recently gone through several key mergers and acquisitions which increased the suppliers within their talent supply chain.
The challenge
A clear supply chain strategy to engage both the customer and suppliers
The management of this supply chain was becoming burdensome to the organisation and its teams.
We stepped in and proposed our MSP solution to the customer.
This would give them visibility and cost control across their growing supply chain, and deliver the high-level skill sets they needed to drive the organisation forward.
How we helped
Discovering varying cost and performance through in-depth analysis
When we implemented the first generation MSP in October 2013 with our customer, there were 80 suppliers filling the talent needs across the business.
After an in-depth analysis by the team, it was quickly realised that there were varying levels of cost and performance across the supply chain.
Over the next two years, our team of supply chain experts worked closely with the customer to bring them along the supply chain transformation journey and optimisation.
Key differentiators of the implementation
Our teams implementation included key pieces such as:
- A tiering structure across the supply chain, broken down into different competency areas and based on levels of performance
- A blue-collar Master Vendor solution where our sister brand, Adecco General Staffing, was brought in to manage and fill all blue-collar roles at the customer
- A new talent pool of freelancers brought in by two suppliers that focused on Independent Contractors and filled talent and skills gaps across the customer programme
- A programme-wide rate card, benchmarked against the pharma market
- Standard supplier scorecards and QBR’s as well as supplier summits to continuously engage and create efficiencies across the supplier ecosystem
Impact
An engaged supply chain delivers results
Our efforts and transformation of the supply chain have allowed for 100% fill-rate of requisitions coming from the customer – including once hard-to-fill roles.
We were able to optimise the once 80 suppliers down to 50 fully engaged and performing suppliers.
To ensure we keep our supply chain ahead of market changes, our team “pulse-checks” the market and brings in specialty suppliers within the engineering and pharma space to fill the gaps that might appear across the programme’s supply chain.
