Healthcare Blog

The beginning of a year is always a good time to think about what you want to address in the coming month. For us in the healthcare business at Arvato Supply Chain Solutions, it's specifically about implementing new customers, launching our operations in the U.S. in Memphis, TN, and, of course, supporting the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
But we're also working on issues that are relevant to many other supply chain companies, especially in healthcare. I've summarized these action items in the Healthcare Supply Chain Agenda 2021.

When setting an agenda, it is advisable to have a look at the mega or at least current dominating trends. For supply chains, for healthcare supply chains in our case, the relevant trends are

• Digitalization and automation
• COVID-19 
• Climate change and the need of green initiatives

These trends are impacting the supply chain agenda 2021 not only by determining specific initiatives, but also on a meta level. The meta level gets clear, if we see what these trends have in common: they do both, enable us on the one side but also enforce us on the other side to “unite what looks like opposites”.

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The increasing online-Pharmacy business in Europe is a logical answer to changing market conditions, patients‘ needs and customers’ behavior.

“Click here to receive your prescription pharmaceuticals delivered to your doorstep”.

Cosmetics, medical products, over-the-counter medications and now also prescription pharmaceuticals are already available via online channels in some European markets. A world is changing…

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Medical device manufacturers increasingly face the challenge of managing their products at the point of care. Their customers, the hospitals, need products to be delivered quickly to the ward and also require constant availability of medical technology without a high level of financial investment. For manufacturers, this involves write-offs due to expired products, additional inventory costs and over-burdening of sales departments with secondary activities, all in an increasingly competitive field. Arvato makes use of a tool to support medical technology manufacturers in analyzing what optimal field inventory management could look like for their companies. The Magic Cube of Field Inventory Management facilitates the basic process. 

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From March to May 2020, everyone in the healthcare supply chain was busy managing the short-term effects and ensuring the supply of medical and pharmaceutical products to the healthcare system and patients. This applied to supply chain managers at manufacturers as well as their logistics service providers. And it applied both to critical COVID-19 products and to all other healthcare products. But what are the long-term effects of COVID-19 on the health care supply chains? And how can you manage them to your advantage? I am going to look at six areas!

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Alongside the issue of outsourcing integrated process chains, another dimension involving a similar question reveals itself through the regionalization of logistics structures: Is it better to opt for a best-in-breed service provider in every country or to award the contract for a whole region such as Europe to one strategic partner?

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These days, outsourcing (contract) logistics activities is an obvious choice when designing and optimizing supply chains – and one that is often used. This is particularly true of companies that are not attached to an existing infrastructure, be that emotionally or in terms of assets and employees. While in the past it was usually companies based outside of Europe – in particular the US, Japan, and South Korea – today, outsourcing logistics is theoretically and practically a viable option for all companies.

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