In the current economic atmosphere, as doing what you have always done well, is no longer essential to succeed. Pharmaceutical organizations are increasingly under pressure to control costs while delivering results and profits. it is important to change rather than improving your operation. This means applying new procurement best practices that would give your organization the edge in the industry. Here is list of best practices as delivered by the procurement leaders in the pharmaceutical industry.


Before you evaluate any procurement best practices, it is necessary to have information about all the cost drivers in your organization. Cost drivers include all the factors on which the overall cost of your business process depends. Once you have determined these cost drivers, you can implement the best practices that are linked with managing these drivers beginning with building relationships with suppliers.


If you visit a conference headed by procurement leaders, you would learn that such relationships were not there in the past because sellers and buyers were more in a challenging setup. If you believe that such relationships existed, then you have a misconception. The suppliers were selected as and when needed on the basis of costs, and buyers would move to the next supplier for the next procurement. Such an approach was nothing more than a short-signed approach, making it non-effective. An effective strategy is to select several suppliers that offer sound quality and prices, and then building long-term relationships with them. The benefit of such a practice is that your organization would be able to secure its goods while forgoing additional costs and even delays involved in looking for new suppliers.


One of the increasingly popular procurement best practices is to make use of technology. Most organizations make the common mistake of introducing complex and costly technology that is difficult for their staff to learn and adjust to. Implementing new technology is not a procurement strategy, but it is a simple tool for making a strategy successful. Before you add any new technology, it is important to implement practical strategy and the technology should be fixed to the right part of the overall picture.


Another best practice suggested by procurement leaders is getting all the necessary support from the top management of your organization. Most of the time, the top management doesn’t get involved in the process. Their involvement should begin with the provision of sufficient funding for the strategy. If there is not sufficient funding, the procurement strategy wouldn’t work. it would be required to hire personnel who have knowledge about the implemented processes. They would also have to convince their staff including managers that the top management itself is committed to the new changes.


Last but not the least procurement best practices is that your organization must pursue the change with a team-based approach. Staff from all the departments of the organization should be included and not just from the purchasing department. When your have personnel working in teams, they would be able to achieve the goals of the new procurement strategy.

Do you want your pharmaceutical organization to implement the procurement best practices http://www.wbresearch.com/procureconpharma/knowledge_portal.aspx ? Make sure to check this link for information on the best practices developed by procurement leaders http://www.wbresearch.com/procureconpharma/WhoShouldAttend.aspx in the leading pharmaceutical corporations.