Life Sciences Archives

There has been a collective sense that 2021 was going to be the pivot, the year in which we would turn our backs on the pandemic and look forward to a better future. We now know that there’s no sense waiting for COVID-19 to take a bow and exit gracefully. In the spirit of setting some resolutions for 2022, here are five priorities to consider in a climate that continues to disrupt supply chains globally.

Traceability

Supply chain transparency and traceability is a must-have for organizations that want visibility into every level of their multi-tier supply network to share critical information with stakeholders.

A 2021 McKinsey report suggests that COVID has put supply chain risk on everyone’s radar. Most respondents (95%) say they have formal supply chain risk management processes, and 59% of companies say they have implemented new supply chain risk management initiatives in the past year.

That’s all well and good, but the report goes on to say that “significant blind spots remain.” Indeed, about half the survey respondents claimed to have a good understanding of their tier 1 suppliers, but only 2% could say the same about tier 3+ suppliers. It’s not surprising that this lack of visibility leads to firefighting, but it also undermines sustainability and compliance claims.

To maintain brand integrity and credibility, comply with new and expanding legislation in the U.S. and abroad, and satisfy consumer expectations, a transparent supply chain supported by the necessary traceability technology is no longer just a nice-to-have.

Compliance

We often encounter compliance in the context of the rapid ‘greening’ of consumer sentiment or the increasingly aggressive regulatory climate. Companies want to attract consumers who value sustainability while satisfying rule-makers large and small.

Public Sector Pressure

In December 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a Withhold Release Order (WRO) on cotton products sourced from China and south-east Asia. It was a stark reminder to businesses of the need to take charge of their supply chains.

And it was only the beginning. President Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act into law on December 23, 2021. The law bans the import of any goods produced in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), and it goes into effect on June 21, 2022. Without a verifiable chain of custody proving products or materials are in no way connected to the XUAR, items detained by CBP will need to be re-routed to another country, abandoned, or destroyed.

The Consumer Voice

Granted, consumer sentiment is notoriously volatile, but research consistently shows consumers will use their purchasing power to advocate for sustainability. The July 2021 Global Sustainability Study, conducted by Simon-Kucher & Partners, involved more than 10,000 people across 17 countries. One key finding: 85% of respondents indicated that they have shifted their purchase behavior toward sustainable products over the past five years. As mentioned earlier, most companies do not have the capability to show evidence that each tier of their supply chain meets the standards customers increasingly expect.

Here we see the interplay among our five supply chain goals for 2022. Ironclad compliance requires comprehensive traceability, but there’s more to it. There’s value in gathering information on your suppliers’ progress toward compliance and sustainability. But there’s much more power in integrating that information into your real-time planning processes.

Integrated Business Planning

Fully distilled, integrated business planning (IBP) is all about consistent, rigorous communication. It’s a series of coordinated processes for driving desired business outcomes into financial and operational resource requirements. The outcomes can be expressed in terms of balanced achievement across the following:

Revenue and demand
Service levels
Inventory levels
Profits and margins
Cash flow

Unfortunately, fragmented planning methods and static reporting prevail, strategic planning is based on outdated data and often unrealistic supply chain capabilities, and tactical planning is a constant firefight with no regard for strategic objectives.

IBP is a unified planning and decision support system that covers strategic and tactical horizons in one solution. According to industry research comparing the performance of companies that follow an IBP approach versus those that don’t, IBP users are faster to react to unexpected disruptions in the supply chain, better able to align supply and demand over the entire horizon, more effective at collaborative planning, and able to reserve capacity with suppliers earlier and more efficiently.

The advantages of aligned, collaborative planning across the enterprise cannot be underestimated in an age when resilience and preparedness is being heavily tested. And today’s customers are looking for large, stable companies they can continue to depend on, irrespective of disruptions.

Acceleration through Automation

We often think of supply chain automation as the way to reduce cycle times and eliminate human error. The next frontier is already here: artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) automate the decision-making process, not just decisions already made, without any distortion from human bias. A simple example is the ability to detect shortages and quickly simulate, evaluate and implement alternative replenishment scenarios.

AI and ML technology is already driving dead cost out of our supply chains by predicting and managing equipment maintenance schedules, improving quality and safety in the food and beverage industry, and identifying potential disruptions before they reach crisis stage. Research shows AI’s positive impact on profitability is growing. In a 2021 McKinsey study, the portion of respondents reporting at least 5% of earnings before interest and taxes attributable to AI jumped year over year from 22% to 27%.

The Logility® Digital Supply Chain Platform’s AI engine continuously senses, analyzes and updates supply chain planning parameters in real time to help ensure peak operational performance. AI and ML algorithms take care of extracting valuable information from ever-increasing volumes of structured and unstructured data, at the same time freeing up essential resources.

Win the Talent War

In short, there are too many supply chain management job openings chasing too few candidates. A 2017 DHL survey claimed that the talent shortage was severe five years ago: six openings for every candidate. On LinkedIn, the number of supply chain management openings has nearly doubled in the past two years, irrespective of the fact that more than 150 schools in the U.S. offer associate’s or bachelor’s degrees in supply chain management. A snapshot of LinkedIn in 2019 showed 88,000 jobs available; by early 2022, that number had increased to close to 153,000.

Agree on the Ideal Candidate

Keep in mind it’s a candidate’s abilities that matter, not the tech they know today. The tools always change; the ability to learn what’s next is more important than knowing how to use today’s tools. As Karen Smith, vice president of Global Supply Chain Operations at Kontoor Brands says, “We try to find candidates who are tech savvy, have used some technology solutions and have an aptitude to learn to use others. Candidates must be comfortable asking “why” questions and have strong decision-making and communication skills. Also, no one who has spent time, effort and money on a four- or six-year supply chain degree wants to join an organization that is still being run by Excel. Not that Excel is a bad tool, but spending time moving data around from one spreadsheet to another is not a good use of skillsets.”

Play Offense

Some companies view attracting talent as “set the bait and wait.” Better to go on the offensive, says Sean Willems, PhD, Haslam Chair of Supply Chain Analytics at the University of Tennessee. “Partner with the closest university to you. Sponsor a case competition. Coach a team. Teach a class. Send your smart people in, let them identify who the best students are for your company, and make them offers before everyone else. The department head at your local university will thank you.”

Empower Strategic Outcomes and Resilient Planning with Logility

Unpredictable as well as predictable events will continue to challenge supply chains throughout the coming year. Building resilience takes time, money, and a top-down commitment, but the cost of doing nothing is far greater. Plan to develop comprehensive traceability that reaches the depth and breadth of your supply chain. This capability is a necessary component of your own compliance strategy, but compliance should go beyond understanding whether a supplier is meeting its commitments. Compliance data should be used as an input into capacity planning.

And speaking of planning, make this the year you unify your company’s demand and supply planning while adopting innovative technologies to automate decision-making. As for hiring, build the ideal candidate profile, seek them out, and then arm them with the opportunities and tools that will motivate them to contribute meaningfully for years to come. For more information on how Logility can help you achieve your supply chain goals for 2022, talk to us today.

The Importance of a Good Strategy

A weak or non-existent supply chain governance strategy leads to poor transparency and weakens the foundation of your supply chain. Governance ensures you have the correct resources and capabilities there when you need them.

Profits are important, and they will come with the reputational boost your company gets from proper governance (not to mention fewer unexpected disruptions due to better diligence). Transparency into your supply chain is a must-have for today’s consumers, which means companies must broaden their vision to create a better future through a governed, sustainable supply chain.

Many companies say they believe in corporate social responsibility but believing and doing are two different things.

It’s important to note the difference between supply chain management and supply chain governance:

Supply chain management is concerned with the operational side of the supply chain and strategic coordination of partner actions.
Supply chain governance integrates coordination of operations and ensures that the proper policies are implemented and controlled. It means taking intentional actions to affect partner relationships.

Supply chain governance creates leverage and scale, helps manage risk, increases bottom-line profitability, and conforms to your regulatory, social, and environmentally friendly company agenda.

The Elements of Supply Chain Governance

Supply chain governance is multidimensional and includes initiating, developing, and maintaining relationships between each ‘link’ in your supply chain. It coordinates the way financial, material, and human resources are earmarked within the flow and the framework for decision-making.

Mechanisms for governance can include contracts, standards, mechanisms for reporting, and social bonds. Key components include:

Working collaboratively to plan, establish and communicate overall policy guidelines, minimum expectations of performance, assessed risk, mitigation plans, and compliance metrics
Providing visibility into supply chain expenditures company-wide through functional categories and contract compliance
Planning and executing essential initiatives while incorporating supply chain governance attributes
Tracking, auditing, and reporting initiative status as well as key measures of governance across internal customer-facing departments and external suppliers, carriers, and intermediaries as well as key company stakeholders.

It’s also imperative to establish continuous process improvements that are tied to closed-loop monitoring and control of spending and compliance behavior. Creation of a Chief Supply Chain Officer role can centralize functions to facilitate company-wide standardization of goals.

An effective strategy relies on real-time supply chain management data, and this is where supply chain technology platforms shine.

Technology to Govern Your Governance

Supply chain transparency relies heavily on data that is not available via your ERP system or those spreadsheets you’ve been using. Sophisticated supply chain governance strategy, implementation, and auditing capabilities require state-of-the-art technology that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to:

Facilitate supplier compliance tasks so suppliers can self-manage corrective action plans and note improvements as they implement them.
Manage corporate responsibility assessments as well as audits that relate to working conditions and environmental impacts.
Satisfy stakeholders and create competitive advantages through transparency.
Mitigate the risk of damage to your brand equity arising from false claims or the absence of accurate, credible reporting.
Enhance collaboration with full automation of assessment information.
Make tracking factory certifications easy through an onboarding process that lets users add their codes into the system and maintain them.

In addition, the right supply chain management platform helps you create and nurture a robust supply network. Setting clear expectations means better communication and more enthusiastic collaboration because your approach is fair and open when it comes to scorecards and sourcing decisions – it’s all in the data.

Supply chain governance is quickly gaining importance as a tool to execute on corporate responsibility and sustainability initiatives. In the near future, ethical enterprise management will not be optional – plan accordingly.

Count on the Logility® Digital Supply Chain Platform

The Logility platform enables good governance and accelerates the sustainable digital supply chain by leveraging data-driven tools such as advanced analytics and AI that empower your business with greater visibility that means accurate planning, accelerated cycle times, improved precision, and increased operating performance.

We help organizations sense and respond to changing market dynamics and more profitably manage their global businesses to become resilient, sustainable enterprises. It’s time for a digital, sustainable supply chain. Reach out to our specialists today to discuss our supply chain solutions.

Take the next steps in improving supply chain sustainability

Key Takeaways

Invest in your business by extending your commitment to improving supply chain sustainability
Enable consistent, real-time visibility into your supply chain with machine learning
Balance supply and demand with integrated business planning
Optimize the life of your products from concept to retirement with product life cycle management solutions
Develop, execute, and track sales and operational strategies around your financial goals
Minimize the impact of supply chain disruptions by taking a proactive, flexible position
Lend credibility to your sustainability claims with supply chain visibility

Most businesses understand the importance of supply chain sustainability. They want to be more sustainable, and they understand that sustainability efforts can improve their brand reputation and boost their bottom line. But identifying a commitment to supply chain sustainability is just the beginning — you need to find ways to carry through that vision.

If you’ve already started your journey, this guide will walk you through some of the ways you can extend your efforts. Here are the next steps if you want to make your supply chain more sustainable.

Enhance Supply Chain Visibility with Machine Learning

If you want your supply chain to be as sustainable as possible, you need to know what’s happening in real time. Your supply chain tracking solution should be supported by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation to constantly update what’s happening in your supply chain.

This level of visibility lets you track the progress of your goods and supplies in real time. It also lets you predict unexpected delays so you can make changes to suppliers as needed and safeguard peak operational performance.

Balance Supply and Demand with Integrated Business Planning

Integrated business planning (IBP) helps you balance supply and demand. Excessive supply costs your business money, but not being able to meet demand hurts sales and damages your reputation. By striking the right balance, you can manage revenue more efficiently and improve shareholder value.

Short- and long-term planning solutions analyze the implications of supply chain activities and how they affect your revenues, expenses, and cash flow. This helps you keep pace with the constantly changing marketplace. Traditional supply planning, in contrast, drains resources, is inefficient, and doesn’t help you determine how your supply chain interacts with your overall business goals.

With an integrated solution, you can save time on planning and determine where you need to make changes quickly. When you have accurate data and projections on your supply chain, you can more easily bring together stakeholders on decisions related to new products, inventory volumes, and capital investments.

For example, an IBP solution lets you analyze how different volumes or various supplies affect the finances of your business. You can visualize plans and make projections based on the implications of different options, then choose the optimal path forward. Integrated business planning optimizes your revenue drivers and costs in a way that aligns with your business goals.

Aim for Strategic Outcomes with Sales and Operations Planning

To keep sales and operations planning (S&OP) costs at the ideal point for your business, you need the ability to create and distribute plans with logical workflows. An S&OP execution strategy lets you set up plans across multiple departments based on your budgets and financial goals. You can also track and forecast inventory performance over time and clearly visualize your capacity planning data.

Position Yourself to Minimize the Impact of Supply Chain Disruptions

Effective supply chain planning cannot be reactive. It must poise your company to preempt and proactively deal with situations before they become obstacles. In particular, you need to be ready to deal with import bans or other legal changes that threaten to disrupt your supply network and the reputation of your brand.

For example, when the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issues Withhold Release Orders detaining shipments from certain parts of the world, you need to ensure that your business is positioned to weather this issue. To deal with a supply chain disruption, you need shared components, accelerated delivery cadences, and other solutions, such as turning production facilities into distribution centers. Importers who use these strategies reduce their lead times by eight to 10 weeks and cut their purchase order to ex-factory time down by an average of 13 weeks (from 17 to four weeks).

Inject Credibility into your Sustainability Claims

Consumers today know about greenwashing. They are not willing to blindly patronize companies that only pay lip service to sustainability. A traceable supply chain is essential if you want to back up your claims about sustainability. Sustainability can give you significant leverage from a marketing standpoint, but non-credible claims can hurt your brand. You need to make sure your sustainability efforts are credible and verifiable.

Your business needs a sustainable supply chain if you want to balance supply and demand, minimize disruptions, and safeguard your image. Supply chain sustainability can help you improve planning at the store level, react to replenishment signals more flexibly, and streamline the S&OP process.

Contact Logility to improve the sustainability of your supply chain

At Logility, we create supply chain solutions that help you create, manage, and optimize a sustainable supply chain. We can help you take the next steps to a more sustainable supply chain. Interested in sustainability? Not sure where to go next? Then, let’s talk — contact us today.

Or check out our practical guide to supply chain sustainability for some great ways to optimize your supply chain to drive your sustainability initiatives.

Bridge the gap between marketing activity and inventory management with a better understanding of the impact of pricing and promotion on inventory.

In most companies, a gap exists between Marketing and Operations – a communications gap that you’ll want to avoid ‘stepping into’, if you’ll excuse the pun. Brands frequently use price as a lever to achieve strategic and tactical goals. These include encouraging product trials, boosting sales, entering new markets, maintaining channel mindshare and thwarting the competition.

For products with elastic demand, all that price manipulation can create turmoil for those managing distribution, inventory and fulfillment, and can have serious consequences, including slower inventory turns, increased stock-outs, and decreased customer satisfaction.

Pricing and Promotion Analysis

The reasons for the disconnect among corporate departments are typically benign. For example, pricing and promotional data are often stored in a Product Information Management or Trade Promotion Management system, while inventory is managed in a separate, disconnected system (ERP or WMS). Regardless of the root cause, a pricing and promotion analysis solution helps planners isolate price as the key variable in a multivariate scenario and create a promoted forecast, which can then be easily compared with one or more base forecasts.

An optimal Pricing and promotion analysis solution uses machine learning algorithms and price elasticity models to create promotion-influenced forecasts. In other words, planners will have a mechanism to perform granular what-if analyses in the face of frequent price changes. Users can leverage the technology to understand the impact of pricing and promotion on demand (the ‘lift’) and take action to ensure inventory positions are sufficient.

Enrich Your Demand Planning Capabilities

Pricing and promotion analysis will benefit companies that:

Have a basic forecasting discipline in place but no systematic way to model price change outcomes and account for differences in important segments (location, region, etc.)
Have outgrown manual tools and are (often) mired in multiple spreadsheets from multiple sources
Need a strong promotion lift solution to complement their demand planning capabilities and generate a price-adjusted forecast to align inventory decisions with marketing campaigns
Have sufficient price and sales data at the product category and SKU level.

To get the most out of the technology, companies must ensure that data is accurate and complete, and that confounding events have not strongly biased the data and obscured important nuances, such as seasonality, business changes, market changes or a combination of these.

Dealing with the Unavoidable

As you have probably gathered, it’s all about data quality and the trustworthiness of the models built on the data. If the foundational input is incomplete or unreliable, even the most gifted analysts can’t be certain of their decisions.

In conclusion, we suggest recognizing and accepting the fact that marketers will always jump at the chance to use price as a driver and will therefore repeatedly put planners in a challenging situation. Logility’s pricing and promotion analysis solution was designed and developed with that reality in mind.

Are you interested in learning about more ways machine learning can help with supply chain planning? Read our white paper Making the Case for AI and Machine Learning.

Your ERP system is not the right technology for a sustainable supply chain.

Key takeaways:

A digital supply chain platform is essential for a sustainable supply chain.
While your ERP may run your internal business, it’s not the right choice for the complex tasks a sustainable supply chain requires.
A purpose-built digital supply chain platform provides the data, visibility, and analysis needed for accountability all the way through the supply chain.
It provides the means to achieve the three pillars of sustainability: economic, social, and environmental responsibility.
Supply chains need the functionality that only a digital supply chain platform can provide – connecting planning and execution with strategic outcomes across the entire enterprise.

Digital is definitely the new normal for most business functions as technological advances have enabled more efficient gathering and use of data to improve process management and enable better overall decision-making. For today’s sustainable supply chain, a digital supply chain platform is a must.

Just six years ago, this was a technology on the rise, empowering companies with visibility through the ability to better identify the sources of raw materials and more thoroughly vet suppliers. Today, it is intensifying accountability for both the social and environmental impacts of their supply chain.

To truly manage your entire supply chain, including achieving goals of authentic transparency and sustainability, the technology platform you use is important. While your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is likely the heart and soul of most of your internal processes, it’s not the best choice for highly complex, collaborative, and relationship-based processes such as supply chain management (SCM).

You need a specialized solution – one that follows best practices, is easy to use, and improves sustainability. Let’s explore how to achieve your goals with the right technology for a sustainable supply chain.

3 Reasons Your ERP Can’t Deliver a Sustainable Supply Chain

Let’s first define what a sustainable supply chain is. Conventional supply chain management focuses on speed, cost, and reliability. A sustainable supply chain includes the stated goals of maintaining corporate responsibility by supporting the business’s environmental and societal values, including climate change, water security, deforestation, human rights, fair labor practices, and corruption.

Your ERP does a great job in accounting, budgeting, financial management, and reporting — things that are essential for running your business day to day. However, these systems are built for workflow optimization to manage internal, transactional data, which is of no help to your supply chain management.

Let’s look at a comparison of functions between ERP and SCM:

1. The nature of the platforms –

ERP is transactional: This means ERPs stand out when it comes to recording daily transactions and offering easy access to that information.
SCM is collaborative: With an SCM platform, workflows are collaborative, with the ability to build networks of all of the interconnected stakeholders throughout the supply chain.

2. They handle data differently –

ERPs use internal data: They record, process, and report on data that is well-understood, internal company information.
SCM manages disparate data: An SCM platform integrates data from multiple sources, including your ERP, and uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze and make predictions from that data.

3. They manage different processes –

ERPs integrate internal functions: Your ERP is a standout when it comes to integrating things like resource planning and finance with other business units such as sales and your customer relationship management (CRM) platform.
SCMs provide the complete picture: The focus of an SCM platform is the supply chain, including sourcing, buying, planning, pre-production, production, and quality management, as well as compliance and sustainability.

Simply put, you need the right tool for the job.

The Technology You Need for a Sustainable Supply Chain

Digitizing your supply chain operations will transform your business operations. A digital supply chain platform will provide enhanced communication, quicker decision-making and issue resolution, delayed mitigation, partner connections, and improved visibility that gives you a competitive advantage.

Also, you know that when it comes to sustainability, accountability is vital. A digital supply chain platform with a corporate responsibility solution makes suppliers, manufacturers, logistics, and other supply chain stakeholders more accountable through centralized reporting and data. This provides the visibility you need to ensure that everyone in the global supply chain is meeting their commitments.

This increased visibility also helps drive the sustainability initiatives that consumers demand, because you can prove that you are sourcing and manufacturing goods in a responsible manner.

A digital platform increases sustainability in three key areas:

1. Economic sustainability

Improved and accelerated decision-making
More effective inventory deployment
Assets more efficiently utilized
Increased fulfillment rates and improved customer satisfaction

2. Environmental sustainability

Reduced energy consumption and carbon footprint
Improved effluent and waste
Product more easily traced and recovered
Increased recycling
More efficient use of raw materials
Increased utilization of return and restore

3. Social sustainability

Conformance with labor, safety, and security laws and standards
Maintenance of accepted standards of fair trade and social equality
Better delivery and availability of products
Automation of routine and mundane tasks

A sustainable supply chain means you have the insights you need to stay one step ahead. This means you can be proactive instead of reactive, seize new opportunities, sense and respond to fluid market dynamics, and more profitably manage your global supply chain.

Your ERP just isn’t up to those tasks. Business leaders are realizing that to navigate the complexities of global economic disruptions, their supply chains need the functionality that only a digital supply chain platform can provide – connecting planning and execution with strategic outcomes across the entire enterprise.

The Logility® Digital Supply Chain Platform

The Logility platform accelerates the sustainable digital supply chain by leveraging data-driven tools such as advanced analytics and AI to empower your business with greater visibility. This allows more accurate planning, accelerated cycle times, improved precision, and increased operating performance. It’s the only way to ensure you’re meeting global standards of corporate responsibility.

We help organizations sense and respond to changing market dynamics and more profitably manage their global businesses to become resilient, sustainable, and responsible enterprises. It’s time for a digital, sustainable supply chain. Reach out to our specialists today to discuss our supply chain solutions.

Collaboration in life sciences is not new but there is so much more to accomplish if the industry keeps pace with digital transformation.

“Hyper-collaboration is based on the fundamental belief that it is innovation ecosystems, not individual companies, which will deliver the novel solutions the world is waiting for. Hyper-collaboration means seeing ecosystems for what they are: not just candy stores full of opportunities, but fiercely competitive arenas in which companies fight for the best partners, technologies, and networks to create, build and defend added value.”
[Ecosystem Innovation, Prism First Semester 2017]

Recently, the life sciences industry has participated in an unprecedented amount of collaboration, behavior not often seen in a traditionally competitive sector steeped in secrecy and caution. Life sciences companies are sharing findings and working together; the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the ability of the healthcare and life sciences industries to respond to unforeseen, dire needs with unprecedented speed.

Early Symptoms

Independent of the pandemic and in light of disruptive innovations in fields such as artificial intelligence and data governance, the life sciences industry was already opening up. In other words, intense collaboration in life sciences is not new. Many of us simply weren’t aware of it until the world asked the life sciences ecosystem for a fast, effective response to COVID-19 with the assumption that industry giants and governments alike would serve the greater good.

“One hundred years before COVID-19, the world experienced another pandemic. With limited knowledge, it pulled together then to mitigate the spread of influenza and treat the many millions affected. Similarly, during COVID-19, the incredible work of scientists around the globe has seen collaborative projects produce hugely valuable outcomes. From repurposed therapies to novel vaccines, the normal timeline of R&D has been accelerated beyond measure.” — Dr. Steve Arlington, president of The Pistoia Alliance

Deloitte Consulting provides further evidence that there has been a shift under way as life sciences companies of all shapes and sizes move from traditional asset-based partnerships to collaborative, non-asset based R&D partnerships.

In its report titled How Biopharmaceutical Collaborations are Fueling Biomedical Innovation, Deloitte analysts point out that “these new biopharmaceutical collaborations may include three or more parties, often a mix of ecosystem stakeholders including life sciences companies, academia, non-profits, and government entities.”

The statistics are telling:

Approximately 9,000 new biopharma R&D partnerships were formed between 2005 and 2014 at an annual growth rate of four percent during that 10-year period.
The 9,000 new biopharmaceutical R&D partnerships formed between 2005 and 2014 are more than double the number formed (approximately 4,000) in the preceding decade (1995-2004).
The consortium model alone saw a nine-fold increase between 2005 and 2014 versus the prior decade, with 334 new consortia formed, versus just 34 from 1995 to 2004.

Should Supply Chain Professionals be Hyperventilating?

Hyper-collaboration offers many benefits, including shared risk, lower costs, better access to funding and talent, more innovation capacity and improved transparency.

However, there are challenges, including alignment of objectives and incentives, tracking progress across multiple partners, as well as standardizing processes around data collection and logistics. Technologies offering centralized control coupled with decentralized collaboration will offer the greatest advantages.

Supply chain professionals will feel the pressure in these areas:

Support for the radically extended enterprise. Alliances may not be new to life sciences, but their current scale and complexity are, and this will only grow over time. Partnerships will often comprise multiple players, including biotech, pharma, medical device and health tech companies, as well as academia, payers/providers and even regulators. This means supply chain solutions must be architected to successfully model and manage not only one or two partnerships, but a network of hyper-collaborations.
Keeping pace with faster innovation. The rate of innovation is accelerating, with digital and data-driven technologies disrupting life sciences companies in novel ways. Designers and developers of supporting systems will have to keep up. That will require adopting composable technology strategies to improve flexibility, ensure fitness-for-purpose and reduce the time it takes to bring new solutions to market.
Compliance. Focusing on compliance can cause reluctance to collaborate. Indeed, the implementation of new technologies or processes to enable hyper-collaboration is often seen as a prescription for spiraling out of compliance. To that end, many companies in the industry are now investigating blockchain-based platforms to improve collaboration while remaining compliant. Blockchain creates a trusted, auditable, chronological record of relevant data. Every upload, version and comment can be recorded and is immediately memorialized, increasing the security and traceability of documentation.
Data visualization. Data visualization is the graphical representation of quantitative and qualitative information to aid human understanding. The world we live in offers a data deluge, but it’s accompanied by complex challenges for maximizing the value of that data.

Prognosis

It’s clear that life sciences companies are embracing collaboration. A phenomenon that started well before the pandemic has picked up speed. But there’s still more to accomplish, and much hard work along the way.

To quote Dr. Arlington once more: “In the one hundred years between these two world-changing events, we’ve learned a lot more about the science of pandemics. But we’ve learned far less about the art of collaboration. This must change. Let’s not wait another hundred years to collaborate. You only have to look at the many viable vaccines produced in just ten short months, and the openness we’ve seen around sharing data and knowledge, to understand the value of working together to tackle big problems. Mindsets must change from ‘we should collaborate’ to ‘we must collaborate to save lives’.”

Supply chain professionals will play a critical role in bringing this vision to life.

Learn about other ways in which the life sciences industry is using technology to create value and drive change here.

Increasing scrutiny of labor practices requires supply chain technology that proves accountability and compliance.

Key Takeaways

Consumers are demanding greater transparency and want more information about worker treatment in the supply chain.

Lack of transparency also carries a huge reputational risk.

Companies are using social audits, which are often ineffective without essential support.

Technology, particularly corporate social responsibility solutions supported by AI and machine learning, increase transparency by identifying employment practices and enabling corrective action.

True supply chain transparency means your company knows exactly what is happening upstream in the supply chain and can share this knowledge internally and externally. This is not only the right thing to do but also good for business.

Consumers are demanding greater transparency. A recent study showed they are willing to pay 2% to 10% more for products from companies that provide it. In particular, consumers want information about worker treatment in the supply chain and want to know what sellers are doing to improve working conditions.

Transparency, or lack thereof, carries a huge reputational risk for companies. Incidents like the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh have led to new laws, but laws are not always followed which makes it incumbent upon your business to ensure your supply chain is ethical.

The stakes are high. Shipments without origin documents are being turned away from ports, creating expensive disruptions and inventory that doesn’t reach its destination, affecting the overall supply chain and your business health.

Improve Your Audit Process

Supply chain leaders can only ensure compliance through the use of technology that traces every tier in their global supply chain and supports corporate social responsibility goals.

With the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and implementation of due diligence as the global standard for companies on human rights, companies are using social audits to comply with due diligence standards.

A social audit is a formal review of a company’s activities, process, and code of conduct around social responsibility and the company’s societal impact. A social audit is an assessment of how well the company is achieving its goals or benchmarks for social responsibility.

Even though social audits are accepted as the foundation of socially responsible supply chain management, they are ineffective when used alone to discover human rights abuses, and these audits in their current form are failing workers. Rana Plaza was audited shortly before the tragedy which, along with others, has illustrated the shortcomings of social auditing.

This means companies must adopt technological solutions to supply chain management and social responsibility. Logility’s corporate responsibility solution combines audit and self-assessment data in a way that is highly effective at identifying suppliers who are not engaged in ethical social practices.

Supply Chain Transparency Requires the Right Technology

Audits are often ineffective as they are currently used. Supply chains are opaque. Violations of workers’ rights are at an all-time high.

In 2020, the poorest working conditions were identified in Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Honduras, India, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Turkey, and Zimbabwe.

Yet you may need to buy from these countries. How can you ensure you are not purchasing from a supplier that had a positive audit but actually practices worker abuse? How can you align your business with consumer and regulatory demands for transparency?

What’s required is an intuitive supply chain powered by the newest innovations in cognitive planning. The solution should leverage artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and automation to ensure peak operational performance by continuously sensing, analyzing, and updating any supply chain activity.

Logility’s corporate responsibility solution allows your business to create robust, collaborative supply networks that boost your corporate reputation. You are empowered with relevant and timely social and environmental data to drive ethical sourcing decisions, enable transparent reporting, and support better risk management across your supply chain to provide:

Comprehensive visibility into social compliance data across all suppliers throughout the entire network.

The capability to monitor, review and submit corrective action plans for all aspects of social compliance.

Environmental status to ensure compliance with a good corporate responsibility practice.

The ability to review total emissions by each supplier as well as perform root cause analysis to understand the reasons for variances that could require action through a notice or corrective action plan.

The Logility platform also offers a traceability solution that allows brand owners and retailers to document the chain of custody from component origin to importer of record, storing and managing all supporting transactional documents for complete visibility. This provides a digital thread for your company to generate a certificate that comprehensively summarizes the chain of custody.

With the right digital solutions in place, your company can make honest and verifiable human rights claims and easily comply with new legislation and regulations, satisfying both today’s consumer and your company’s obligation to humanity.

Want transparency? Look no further than Logility

Today’s consumer values brands that push past boundaries to ensure they are operating a completely ethical and sustainable supply chain. That puts corporate social responsibility at the forefront of any business endeavor.

Logility empowers companies to reach their social and environmental goals. To deliver a digital, sustainable supply chain, reach out to our specialists today.

7 ways sustainable supply chains improve your business’s bottom line.

Key Takeaways

Sustainable practices give businesses a competitive edge

Traceability solutions allow businesses to back up their sustainability claims

Visibility into the supply chain allows businesses to optimize their practices

Sustainable practices save businesses money

Sustainability protects brand reputation

Traceability verifies compliance of third- and fourth-tier suppliers

Diverse supply chains safeguard operational continuity

Sustainable business practices are critical for brands that want to succeed in today’s market. Sustainability refers to managing the environmental, social, and economic impact of a business in a way that reduces harm and benefits the world. While these practices often present extra costs, they bring significant value as well.

Businesses cannot survive unless they are committed to sustainability. Ideally, this should happen at every level of the supply chain, from sourcing raw materials to delivering products to end consumers and even to returns and recycling processes.

Businesses need to balance their bottom line and the ‘green line’, and sustainability practices backed by the right technology allow you to strike that balance. To help you understand the value of sustainable supply chains, this guide explains the business benefits of sustainability.

1. Sustainability is a competitive differentiator

Today’s consumers want to work with sustainable businesses. They don’t want to be complicit in environmental harm or unfair labor practices. They seek out companies that are committed to sustainability.

Companies can use their sustainability practices as a competitive differentiator. If two products or services offer similar quality at similar price points, many consumers will choose the more sustainable option. Building sustainability practices into your business gives you a competitive edge.

2. Traceability allows businesses to back up sustainability claims

The vast majority of businesses are committed to sustainability on paper. About two-thirds of companies have developed a sustainability purpose statement, and 23% are in the process of doing so.

However, simply making a sustainability claim is not enough. Consumers dig deep into the companies they patronize. If a company cannot support its sustainability claims with verifiable practices, it will lose support and money.

3. Businesses need visibility into the supply chain

Many businesses lack oversight of their supply chains, especially when dealing with N-tier suppliers. When businesses can’t see what they are doing or who they are dealing with, they cannot back up their sustainability claims. But even more significantly, they cannot track their sustainability practices.

Traceability solutions allow you to see exactly what’s happening at every step in the supply chain. This makes it easier to set goals and track your progress. It also allows you to see problem areas and make changes quickly to ensure your practices reflect your corporate social responsibility statement.

4. A sustainable supply chain protects your brand

If a partner in your supply chain is using unfair labor practices or committing environmental injustices, that will reflect poorly on your brand. Ignorance is not an excuse in this situation. Consumers tend to view unethical practices by your suppliers just as harshly as if you committed them yourselves.

When you don’t know what’s happening in your supply chain, you put your business and your brand at risk. Traceability solutions allow you to keep an eye on your suppliers. If you see unethical practices that break the terms of your compliance agreements, you can change course quickly.

5. A sustainable supply chain reduces a company’s greenhouse emissions

Over 80% of a consumer company’s greenhouse gas emissions come from its supply chain. If a company can make its supply chain more sustainable, it can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. This can save companies money directly through savings on energy bills and increased innovation.

But these measures also save money indirectly by protecting the environment. Right now, businesses are incurring annual losses of €300 million ($347 million) due to natural disasters caused by climate change. By making their supply chains more sustainable, businesses lessen their degree of environmental harm.

Businesses may find ways to reduce CO² emissions related to warehousing and transportation functions. For example, they may develop more optimized routes, take advantage of CO²-neutral delivery options, or use truckload planning tools to reduce empty miles.

6. Reducing environmental harm can improve profit margins

Simple, sustainable practices can save businesses money. For example, a practice as basic as connecting devices to a power strip and ensuring everything is off at night reduces electricity consumption. Businesses can also get creative and invest in programs such as training drivers to drive in a more fuel-efficient manner, and those savings add up.

Similarly, businesses may change manufacturing methods in a way that reduces labor and material costs, and saves money. There are countless ways businesses can use sustainability to drive savings in very specific, measurable ways.

7. A diverse supply chain improves continuity

To make your supply chain more sustainable, you need to make it more diverse. This allows you to quickly pivot as needed if your suppliers are using unsustainable practices, but it also protects the continuity of your supply chain.

If something happens to one of your suppliers, you already have established relationships with other suppliers, and you can lean on them. Companies without diverse supply chains suffer delays, shortages, and downtime if something happens to their suppliers. For example, if you exclusively rely on suppliers in a single country and that area experiences a natural disaster, you will struggle to meet your customers’ needs, and your business will suffer.

A sustainable supply chain makes good business sense. Sustainability isn’t just a buzzword, and sustainable practices do more than impress consumers. They help to protect your bottom line and your reputation while also benefitting the world.

Contact Logility to talk about sustainability challenges and solutions

At Logility, we have what you need to make your supply chain more sustainable. Our digital supply chain platform supports supply chain traceability, corporate social responsibility, fair trade, and fair labor. To learn more about how a sustainable supply chain is an investment into your organization, contact us today. We look forward to helping your organization become more sustainable and more successful.

The cloud is arguably one of the most value-creating technologies of our time. It is the foundation for the digital transformation driving massive changes in how businesses operate, compete and create value for stakeholders. Cloud technology for life sciences companies offers myriad possibilities.

It’s Not Just About Money
For life sciences companies, the cloud’s value is not just about lowering costs. It is about the ability to unlock data, collaborate across the ecosystem with agility, create more meaningful engagements, enable better decisions, and transform cultures to successfully embrace new ways of operating. In addition, cloud computing facilitates the development of standard business processes, thereby enabling companies to outsource transactional processes and focus on those that genuinely add value.

Said another way, the ultimate benefit for a research-intensive industry such as life sciences lies in the fact that cloud computing aids innovation. It provides a reliable, secure, scalable platform for collaborating with suppliers and other stakeholders, making it possible for a once-secretive industry to start sharing.

Even Google is taking life sciences in the cloud seriously, offering businesses a way to ‘process, analyze, and annotate genomics and biomedical data at scale using containerized workflows.’

Cloud computing goes far beyond utility. It is not just a more efficient way of purchasing computing power but, rather, a way of facilitating new, more efficient business models. But success depends on boldness of vision and proper expectation-setting.

In essence, all clouds enable the users to engage with each other, operate and innovate in smarter ways. It’s helpful to think in terms of multiple clouds, e.g. research, development, supply chain and commercial.

Supply Chain Cloud Technology for Life Sciences

The management of the life sciences supply chain is challenging. The non-stop nature of pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution requires reliability and security. Many companies are also trying to shorten the production life cycle and reduce costs by outsourcing work to overseas contract manufacturers and carriers and closely collaborate with them. This means they must share data with numerous suppliers – and they must share the right data with the right suppliers in the right ways to create as much value as possible. A supply chain cloud that brings all the partners together using a common set of processes creates efficiencies.

Manufacturing and distribution pose particular difficulties. Because many life sciences products must be made and transported at carefully controlled temperatures without being subjected to vibration or other potentially damaging environmental factors, they must be tracked at every stage throughout the supply chain. A cold-chain cloud with industry-wide standards would enable all the distributors and transport carriers in the supply chain to measure and monitor the products and issue alerts where necessary. It would also provide scalable resources for analyzing the data for both reporting and predictive purposes.

Cloudy Forecast in Life Sciences?

Two-thirds of life sciences companies say they haven’t achieved the results they expected from cloud infrastructure. Several obstacles to widespread adoption of cloud computing still remain, including concerns about data security, privacy and ownership, as well as the absence of global standards and protection of the interests of competing cloud users.

Regarding security and reliability in particular, Logility has partnered with Microsoft to provide its comprehensive suite of solutions available on Microsoft Azure. Now, Azure customers can gain access to the Logility® Digital Supply Chain Platform. Furthermore, working with Microsoft strengthens Logility’s ability to provide a high-performing, secure and reliable environment for life sciences customers to access its extensive supply chain knowledge and experience.

As we’ve pointed out before, simply adopting cloud technology for life sciences does not ensure ROI. Here are some pro tips:

The entire enterprise, including the CEO, needs to be aligned on the cloud strategy and its intended ROI; it cannot be a purely IT-driven exercise
Use the cloud as a catalyst to do things differently and draw new insights — from discovering new treatments to providing more precise patient support
Bring all areas and functions moving to the cloud together to agree on what you want to achieve, how to achieve it and how you will measure success
Go beyond building pockets of excellence to create an entire community of technologically savvy people
Use the cloud to modernize regulatory approvals and policies around risk, security and data.

We think some technologies are so powerful they actually live up to the hype. The cloud is one such technology. The life sciences industry is as capable as any other when it comes to the mechanics of deploying cloud-based solutions, but long-standing commitment to fierce competition and secrecy may prevent some from truly benefitting. Did the pandemic and industry’s response to it usher in a new and lasting spirit of collaboration? We’ll have to wait and see.

Interested in reading more about empowering your life sciences supply chain for the modern world? Read this great blog about sustainability in the life sciences supply chain.

You need to know what corporate social responsibility is and understand how to leverage it in order for it to work for you.

Like every other entity across the earth, your company has an impact on the society around it. Whether that impact is positive or negative rests on how well the concept of corporate social responsibility is understood by stakeholders and embedded in your corporate culture.

What is Corporate Social Responsibility?

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) represents the idea that every company bears a responsibility to the societies that exist wherever it operates or has partners. It stems from the idea that no company can be properly valued without proper recognition of the physical and human context within which it operates.

Consider it a form of self-regulation that is expressed in terms of strategies and initiatives that are aligned with the organization’s goals.

“Socially responsible” means different things to different companies. The closest to a unified principle that exists is how companies allow their efforts to be guided by what is known as the triple bottom line, which stipulates that a business should be focused on measuring its environmental and social impact in tandem with its profits.

The Different Types of Corporate Social Responsibilities

Corporate social responsibilities have traditionally been categorized into four different types: philanthropic, environmental, ethical, and economic.

1. Philanthropic responsibility

CSR activities in the philanthropic mold are those that are specifically designed to make the world a better place. Without losing sight of ethical and environmental constraints, a company driven by a philanthropic mindset will designate a portion of its earnings for philanthropic uses.

Volunteer work, donations to charities, and nonprofits that share the company’s ideals, as well as donations to causes the company considers worthy, are a few examples of philanthropic practices that companies resort to. Some companies even take things further by creating their own charitable vehicles to guide their philanthropic efforts.

Philanthropic responsibility is not geared toward profits and may not directly impact the performance of the business.

2. Environmental responsibility

Environmental responsibility subscribes to the idea that businesses ought to operate in a manner that is as considerate of the environment as possible. Sometimes referred to as environmental stewardship, environmental responsibility is quickly becoming the most common form of CSR companies practice today.

There are several ways companies show their commitment to environmental responsibility:

Reduction of pollution, where companies seek to limit the amount of greenhouse gases they emit during operations, the amount of single-use plastics they employ, the levels of water they consume, and the general waste they leave behind;

Increasingly opting for renewable energy sources, where companies turn to sustainable resources and recycled or partially recycled materials when sourcing raw materials;

Counteracting the negative impact made on the environment by human activity, for example by planting trees to absorb greenhouse gases, donating to environmental causes, or funding research dedicated to helping the environment.

Environmental corporate social responsibility initiatives may impact the company’s profitability because they generally improve operational effectiveness and efficiency.

3. Ethical responsibility

Ethical responsibility is making sure the organization behaves in a fair and ethical manner to the people across its value chain.

When a company subscribes to ethical responsibility as its form of CSR, it strives to achieve fair treatment of all stakeholders of the business, including customers, suppliers, employees, partners, investors, and leadership.

Ethical responsibility can be expressed in different ways like:

Establishing a minimum wage of its own that is higher than the wages established by regulators because they feel the latter doesn’t constitute a livable income;

Mandating that sourcing for products, ingredients, components, and materials are done according to free trade standards, free from forced labor or child labor;

Ensuring they pay a fair price to suppliers along the supply chain to ensure that they thrive rather than just survive;

Taking care to provide reasonable working conditions for employees up and down the supply chain of the business.

Ethical responsibility initiatives tend to have a bearing on a company’s revenue because they impact factors like working conditions, healthcare, talent retention, productivity, and brand reputation.

4. Economic responsibility

Economic responsibility is when a company considers all the above forms of corporate social responsibility whenever it makes a financial decision at any level, from the boardroom down to the factory floor. Companies that are economically responsible are not simply looking for maximum profits but are rather concerned with how they can merge profit-making with positive impact on the environment, stakeholders, and society at large.

How to Make Corporate Social Responsibility Part of a Sustainable Culture

Any effort geared towards incorporating CSR into sustainable corporate culture must begin with an inventory and audit of existing programs. Contrary to expectations, the majority of CSR initiatives are spearheaded by internal managers, without the active engagement of the C-suite, leading to poor coordination and a lack of an overarching logic to drive efforts.

Only after inventory does the necessary next step make sense, which would involve the development of coherent CSR strategies that would require full backing from the CEO and the board. These strategies include:

1. Trimming and organizing initiatives within categories

Non-coordination of CSR initiatives within categories is less obvious than non-coordination across categories, but no less disastrous. Companies can combat this by eliminating initiatives that do not address important environmental or social issues that are aligned with the company’s purpose, values, or identity.

For example, a fast-food chain may do away with programs that cater to recycling in favor of choosing to use sustainably grown ingredients.

2. Establishing metrics to gauge effectiveness and success

For each category of CSR initiative, outline metrics that will indicate success. Metrics will not necessarily be the same across categories that differ. Stakeholders should be well-drilled in why these metrics matter, and their impact should be measured regularly to gauge progress.

3. Coordinating CSR initiatives across categories

This goes beyond tying all CSR activities into serving the same social or environmental issue. Rather, it demands that your company develops a coherent portfolio of CSR practices that are mutually reinforcing and consistent with the values of the business.

4. Developing an interdisciplinary CSR strategy

To consolidate your CSR programs, the company should establish a position dedicated to integrating initiatives across all categories, convening key actors for planning, and maintaining communication to ensure coherence and coordination among separate disciplines.

Committing to CSR as outlined above requires creativity and buy-in across the entire organization, but the resulting benefits go beyond profits and can be enjoyed in both the long and short term.

5. Leveraging technology solutions for better and more predictable outcomes

Corporate social responsibility technology solutions have a lot to offer companies that are committed to socially responsible practices. Global supply chains are complex, and it’s difficult to keep track of all the moving parts.

Logility’s corporate responsibility solution can offer much-needed transparency, sustainability, and resilience to a company’s CSR efforts by fostering a strong collaborative supply network that enhances corporate reputation with consistent social and environmental data. This data could then inform ethical sourcing decisions and facilitate transparent reporting and better risk management across the supply network.

Logility’s corporate responsibility solution helps companies with:

Increased visibility into social compliance data for all suppliers that are part of a company’s supply network;

Carrying out, monitoring, reviewing, and submitting corrective action plans where aspects of social compliance are concerned;

Increased insight into each supplier’s level of compliance to environmentally and socially responsible practices;

Assessments of total emissions from each supplier and root cause analysis to determine a corrective action plan.

Contact Logility

Logility empowers companies to commit to CSR by increasing the visibility of the supply chain, and in the process, making it easier for them to seize new opportunities and more effectively manage complex global interests. To learn more, contact Logility today.

Industry: Life Sciences

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