Archive for February, 2020

By 2025, the global last mile delivery market is estimated to reach $61,573 million, up from $31,198 million in 2018, according to a press release by MarketWatch. An increase in the demand for efficient delivery, along with rapid growth in the logistics industry, is the key factor behind these figures. Last mile delivery aims at customer satisfaction, without raising costs significantly for the courier company.

A few challenges faced by courier companies today are high costs, delayed deliveries and inability to provide real time updates. To gain a cutting edge over the competition, it is crucial to have efficient tools, such as an analytics dashboard.

WHAT IS AN ANALYTICS DASHBOARD?

An analytic dashboard lets you keep track of the overall performance of your business. In fact, 41% organizations say that they believe a visual representation of the data is the right approach to understanding the huge volumes of information. It also eases the process of separating useful data from outdated ones. An analytics dashboard helps to bring down humongous data into manageable formats, such as tables, graphs and charts, so that users can get a quick look at all the necessary information in one place.

HOW USEFUL IS THE ANALYTICS DASHBOARD?

This dashboard can tell you if traffic is normal, whether sales have increased and if your new marketing campaign is working, according to experts at Mixpanel. It also helps to keep you updated on real time information, like processing, receiving and delivery reports. This is important, since a delay of few hours can render information useless. The company is able to act immediately when an issue is detected, before it spirals into something larger.

Apart from this, a dashboard helps manage large scale data, including shipments, returns, dispatches and contact details of customers. Coming from different sources, it is often impossible to manage so much data. This incredible amount of data is organized professionally, leading to smoother business operations.

Actionable information is crucial for business success. An analytics dashboard can help provide relevant information for prompt decision making.

Supply chain management is especially important for pharmaceutical companies. From packaging to medications, there are many types of supplies that pharmaceutical companies rely on daily. More importantly, consumers depend on pharmaceutical companies to deliver finished products that they need to maintain their health.

SUPPLY CHAIN THREATS

Geopolitical issues can threaten the production and shipment of some important supplies. According to Compliance Week, two issues that are top concerns to most companies are shortages and recalls. These two topics are especially critical to the pharmaceutical industry. Raw material shortages mean that some substances may be harder to produce. With some types of shortages, production plants may be forced to close. If pharmaceutical companies have only one supplier for a certain product, a closure or a major delay could cause delays in other operations that rely on that supply.

Medication recalls are on the rise today. For example, Zantac was recently recalled after a probable carcinogen was discovered in it. The carcinogen was also suspected to be in some generic products that were made by other companies. However, a few suppliers still sold the over-the-counter acid reducer for a while. In some cases, tainted ingredients or other impurities that lead to recalls are discovered in one or two suppliers’ ingredients. However, they may not exist in the products of every supplier.

BUILDING AND MANAGING A ROBUST SUPPLY CHAIN

Maintaining a robust supply chain is a multi-faceted strategy. First, it is important to strategically choose raw material suppliers. Pharmaceutical companies should have suppliers in various locations. This will help reduce the likelihood of political or economic issues eliminating supplies. For example, if a company’s three suppliers are all in the same country, shipping delays would become problematic if political turmoil develops. Having suppliers that follow the strictest compliance guidelines for quality production is also important in the pharmaceutical industry.

Another important part of a good supply chain management strategy is having a reliable way to transport shipments. This is true whether the shipments are coming from a raw materials provider or are being sent to another recipient. Although some companies maintain contracts with major global shipping providers, it is also helpful to have on-demand services. When a shipment must be guaranteed to arrive at a destination on time, a courier management service is essential.

With our courier delivery software, a pharmaceutical company or supplier can use tools to plan a route, estimate the delivery time and take advantage of last mile delivery options. Last mile delivery and logistics solutions are ideal for companies that need to get a shipment from a major shipping hub to the recipient as quickly as possible. Although major shipping carriers usually take longer and use standard route planning, our program makes it easier to find faster courier delivery options. Tracking is available for the convenience of the sender and for the peace of mind of the recipient. When there is a robust supply chain and a powerful supply chain management plan in place, pharmaceutical companies are able to better serve their customers’ needs and stay competitive.