| Category: | Business Insights, UPS News |
| Tags: | cost management, healthcare, Pain in the Chain, product security, regulation |
E-mail is a funny thing. The cadence of my workday is set by it, and I have made a game out of getting things out of my inbox as soon as possible. I prefer to leave at the end of the day with less than 100 e-mails in my inbox, because I treat it as my to-do list.
A project manager with whom I frequently work (and subsequently send a lot of detailed e-mails to) finally just came right out with it: “I’m a scanner. If you want me to read something, don’t put a lot of text in it. Just bullet it out for me.”
So, for all you scanners out there, here’s a high-level look at what we found out from our fifth annual Pain in the (Supply) Chain survey.
In 2012, the top concerns for healthcare companies revolve around three areas:
- Regulations and legislation;
- Product security and spoilage; and
- Cost management
Regulations and Legislation
- Regulatory compliance can be considered both a constant and a changing focus for healthcare companies. It’s an on-going concern in that it won’t go away, yet it’s also a challenging area as regulations differ and change from country to country and region to region, and they will continue to evolve on a global scale.
Product Security and Spoilage
- This year, we saw an increase in concern around the areas of product security and product damage and spoilage. This isn’t surprising when you consider the entry into the market of high-value, complex products from synthetic skin to titanium replacement knees and hips. And, we have longer, more complex global supply chains stemming from trade in new, developing markets. Product protection is an important—and growing—issue.
Cost Management
- This year, cost management ranks as the second top supply chain issue globally, cited by 60% of executives as a concern.
- Despite being a perennial top concern, cost management is an issue that companies seem to make little progress in addressing, with less than half—only 41%—of companies reporting that they have been successful in managing costs.
To read the UPS Pain in the Chain survey results, download the executive summary and special five-year report.
