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AMR Healthcare Exchange an Evergreen Opportunity for Value

Written By: Shabbir Dahod

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

I recently attended the AMR Healthcare Exchange and I walked away with a feeling of Déjà vu. First of all, Hussain Mooraj and the AMR team do a great job of stimulating ideas and connections for joint value creation at all ends and aspects of the supply chain, including pharmaceutical, life sciences and health care participants. As always there was a clear sense of urgency and a feeling of lost time and missed opportunities. This was accentuated by the closing remarks by Johnson and Johnson (J&J) President of Supply Chain and Business Processes, Tom Sullivan. Tom outlined the major value opportunities attained by CPG that remain distant goals for the Healthcare industry. His challenge to the industry was to do for life saving drugs and devices what we do for Coke cans.

This year’s conference provided case studies of value attainment by connecting providers into a Demand-Driven Supply Network (DDSN) of Pharmaceutical and BioTech companies. Roddy Martin made the case for Patient Outcomes as the Moment of Truth for the Healthcare value chain. From the presentations it was clear that significant value attainment was possible when companies collaborated to identify and understand each others business issues and in turn develop mutual trust to enhance integrated cross-company business processes for shared and measurable value.

The frustration and excitement for all of us is the sheer volume of opportunity and the feeling that four years ago we were discussing the same opportunities. Because other industries dominate the annual Top 25 Supply Chain list, Healthcare needs its own special list of Healthcare Top 25 to identify the leaders in this lagging industry. However, our industry has complexity and dynamics that require greater care and hence can support change in very measured steps. These steps need more investment and oversight in our industry.

As an entrepreneur by nature and profession, I am an optimist! In my first job in the summer 1981, between high school and college, I worked for an entrepreneur who was starting a company to provide Local Area Networking (LAN) gear. In doing research for him I was so excited by the fact that he was entering a market at a time when market data identified the 1980’s as the Network Decade. As years and decades past, I was told that every year was the breakthrough year and every decade was the Network Decade. Now it is clear that networking is an endless source of value which grows exponentially as it matures.

DDSN is the same class of evergreen opportunity and the Healthcare industry is transforming to leverage the value from integrating processes, people and information. The strategic imperatives in all parts of the value chain require greater network integration for the next level of financial performance. We work across the value chain and it is obvious to us that business plans more so than regulatory force will drive the adoption of supply network solutions.

Please share with me your perspective. Are you as optimistic as I am and what parts of the supply chain do you see collaborating more effectively?

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Pharma and Twitter - Patients and Providers but what about Operations?

Written By: Brian Daleiden

Friday, October 30, 2009

I have been keeping an eye on Twitter for a while now. Not that I paint myself as an expert by any stretch of the imagination and Tweeting is still more of an activity that I consciously force myself to think about rather than feeling it is part of my DNA. A little different than, say, our own Peter Spellman here who I swear needs a third hand just to keep up with all the ideas that he would like to convey. Can you say drinking from the fire hose??

Much of the buzz about Tweeting usually centers on its usage for personal interests. A 24x7 channel for thoughts and ideas that you want to share. What has been on my mind lately, though, has been the business communications side of the issue. In that light, any new bi-directional channel that enables me to listen to what others have to say and improves my ability to communicate back to them is great.

A recent post by ePharmaRx got me thinking more about how this channel is used and viewed by the Pharmaceutical industry. As ePharmaRx comments, many pharmaceutical companies have just started to "officially" Tweet in the past year. This is somewhat understandable given the concerns noted in several places over the liability issues involved, particularly in the patient care arena. Certainly, these official channels are somewhat separated from the individual discussions that pharma employees have already opened via Twitter.

So what about the operational groups and Twitter? How do the people leading the charge in manufacturing, supply chain, contract outsourcing and other functions view and use it? Based on my conversations with people in these areas, the responses are all over the map. Some are starting to find it a valuable new channel for "pushed" information from companies and individuals which they can take note of if interested or ignore if not. Others are keeping Twitter solely in the personal realm, for now.

This is an issue that we here at TraceLink are looking at closely. Today there are such a variety of ways for us to share information about what we are doing, listen to what others are doing and gain quick, pointed feedback on key issues. What exactly is the right role in B2B for the 140 character soundbite?