The pharmaceutical industry faces some unique challenges in today’s interconnected world. With stresses like inflation, aggressive competition, increasingly global health crises, and geopolitical tensions, the need for a resilient and efficient supply chain has never been more critical.
Advanced technologies can help businesses vastly improve their state of pharma exim operations. Let’s unpack this today and see how your company can adapt.
Challenges in Pharmaceutical Export-Import Operations
Did You Know: PwC research indicates that over 50% of pharmaceutical finance leaders plan to accelerate digital transformation in their organizations. The goal is to standardize processes and automate as much as possible across all areas of their operations.
Increasing regulatory complexity
The global regulatory landscape is becoming more challenging due to increasing government control over pricing, approvals, and compliance. Apart from regulatory obligations such as GDPR and HIPAA, there are also multiple standards to be navigated, such as the FDA (USA), EMA (EU), and CDSCO (India).
Moreover, manufacturing regulations are also stricter now due to environmental and safety concerns.
All this increases the risk of non-compliance penalties and delays due to errors.
Vulnerable supply chains
Pharma supply chains remain fragile due to geopolitical upheavals, pandemic aftershocks, and dependence on a few countries like China for critical APIs and raw materials.
Due to the highly regulated nature of the industry, supplier networks are limited, creating unavoidable dependencies. This is further compounded by the current flux in taxes and tariffs globally.
Rising operational costs
Pharma companies are facing margin squeezes due to higher input and operational costs. At the same time, there is pricing pressure due to government caps and competition from generic drugs.
Along with inflation across essential inputs like energy and transport, pharma exim operations are also impacted by the costs of compliance and regulatory changes.
Lack of visibility across supply chains
Limited real-time tracking of materials across international borders makes pharmaceutical supply chains inefficient. This visibility gap leads to delays, increased costs, and potential damage to product quality and brand reputation.
With stakeholders working on disparate systems, data remains fragmented. Plus, a reliance on manual tracking increases the likelihood of errors and delays in information sharing.
The lack of traceability in your pharma exim operations can lead to compliance errors, stockouts, or overstocking, all of which have a financial impact.
Did You Know: The Bullwhip Effect is an interesting supply chain phenomenon where small changes in demand among end-users can lead to progressively larger variations in demand and stock at the producer and intermediary levels. In pharma exim operations, this can lead to either excess inventory or drug shortages, as well as a waste of resources. The way to prevent this? Collaborative planning, real-time data, and accurate demand forecasting using technology like Trezix.
Technological Solutions for a Resilient Pharma Supply Chain
Not every challenge, such as geopolitical stresses, can be resolved at the business level. However, technology can help pharma companies manage what is manageable and be more efficient overall. Here are some recommendations for leveraging technology in your pharma exim operations.
Increased supply chain visibility
Existing supply chains in the industry are complex, inefficient, opaque, and fragmented.
AI-powered tools like Trezix centralize all your export and import documentation in one platform. The accurate documentation and information flow, combined with real-time tracking of goods, creates unprecedented visibility across the supply chain and as well as the process.
This traceability makes your pharma exim operations transparent and trustworthy, and helps avoid losses due to delays and poor planning.
Accurate demand forecasting and inventory management
Machine learning software can help pharmaceutical companies predict product demand by studying patterns and historical data. This can help plan more accurate production targets and timelines.
In addition, predictive analytics can help optimize inventory levels to reduce the possibility of stockout or overstocking and the associated wastage.
These systems also help business leaders make better decisions about how to use precious resources like raw materials, storage capacity, and working capital.
Trezix Tip: Software like Trezix can also help you plan shipments and optimize delivery schedules, which is particularly critical for maintaining the integrity of sensitive products.
Process automation for efficiency
Pharmaceutical companies can build automated workflows for essential processes like compliance reporting, inventory alerts, document generation and verification, supplier validation, LC creation, shipment tracking, licence management, etc.
Automating these essential but time-consuming tasks reduces the possibility of costly errors, prevents delays, and helps reserve human bandwidth for other activities. With software doing the heavy lifting, you can also enhance supplier redundancy by expanding your network.
Software like Trezix will also keep you abreast of any changes in regulations, taxes, and tariffs.
The elimination of human errors can turn your pharma exim operations into a smooth, organized cycle with accurate and up-to-date records…instead of the headache they can often be.
Trezix Tip: The Trezix platform simplifies the complexities of licenses and obligations, multiple units of measurement, systems validations, and re-exports and re-imports for pharma manufacturers.
Modernize Your Pharma Exim Operations With Trezix
To establish a robust pharmaceutical supply chain, it’s essential to adopt technologies that increase visibility, reduce vulnerabilities, and improve demand prediction. Legacy systems, manual processes, and disconnected entities cannot go the distance.
Using AI and ML based technologies, your pharma business can overcome the challenges of information silos and inefficiency, to grow more resilient and future-ready.
To learn how you can take the first step in this direction, request a demo with Trezix today.
