Innovation is Good Medicine

"Creativity is thinking up new things.  Innovation is doing new things."

-Theodore Levitt

Shifting customer needs have always been a driver for innovation. Life science organizations are in need of innovative supply chain partners that can deliver turn-key services for all of their product delivery requirements, both locally and globally.

Diagnostic testing companies, especially today, are adapting to distributing to more clinic-based locations in the US and working on constructing rest-of-world building and shipping options for their test kits.

Finding more economical ways to access local settings is key and creating economies of scale is essential to ensure that numerous locations can be reached with ease.

Combine that with the advanced analytics that are necessary to stay on top of both inventory and customer success requirements and things can get very challenging indeed.

Adapting your supply chains to changing market opportunities and customer demands enables you to put in place dynamic planning that allows you to continually fine-tune operations.

Integrating new business partners that have the ability to implement state-of-the-art automation enhancements such as programs that securely enable easy yet sophisticated shipping, tracking and reporting that delivers real value through reduced cost and time saved is essential.

The results include better visibility and enhanced collaboration across the value chain, including sourcing and supply, manufacturing, transportation, warehousing and distribution, and accelerated decision-making with better analytics and support.

Disruptive innovations change the product offering by redefining the value proposition. Both physical and digital Supply Chain Innovation (SCI) can be sustaining and/or disruptive as well.

As consumer preferences become more personalized and complex, life science executives are asking their suppliers and logistics providers to continuously improve services to meet and exceed their customer's expectations of performance.

And helping bring innovative products and services that improve patient health to people around the world is good medicine.

Brian Butler is the VP Business Development of The Allied Group and TAGmedica. He is also the author of two books: Find 'Em Get 'Em Keep 'Em and the recently released In Search Of...Customers!