supply chain management Archives

An effective supply chain management system relies on a healthy manufacturer and distributor relationship in healthcare. Manufacturers and distributors are the first two parts of the supply chain before products reach the customer.

Investing in a relationship with your distributers benefits both parties because you can support each other. Ultimately, you will see a greater return in profits and experience fewer frustrations from supply chain disconnects.

Are you ready to learn how to develop this relationship? Then let’s get started.

Key Takeaways

Effective communication is foundational for building a lasting relationship with your distributors.
A relationship is built on both communicating and listening to the other party’s needs.
You may often find your challenges align with your distributors’ challenges and mutually beneficial compromises are possible.

Use Effective Communication

Communication is foundational to building a manufacturer and distributor relationship. 97% of workers say communication impacts their daily tasks. For companies with over 100 employees, miscommunication costs them about $420,000 annually.

Timeline

Description automatically generated with medium confidence

All the other strategies we will explore for building a manufacturer-distributor relationship will be pointless without first establishing efficient supply chain communication channels. These channels are the ways you contact your medical distributors, and they respond to you.

Some ways to foster open and efficient communication is through:

Collaboration software
Regular emails
Company chat platforms like Slack
Meetings either live or through video software like Zoom
Direct phone numbers to contact management

You should use these communication channels regularly to keep both sides of the supply chain on the same page. When you reach out to one another, you need to remember to spend as much time listening to the other party as communicating your wants and needs.

In addition, keep your information in any shared systems up to date, such as your product data. In this way, your distributors know what products are available and the latest information about the supplies you offer.

Automation makes communication easier by sending alerts and regular emails to your distributors so they all know the latest product updates.

Support Each Other’s Needs

Manufacturers and distributors can come in conflict because you are often not exclusive to each other. However, you should still find ways to support one another to give the additional party flexibility to work with their other connections. For example, you may use multiple distributors, and your distributors sell products from several manufacturers.

For example, a sales tactic you would prefer might not work well with your distributor, who has multiple different types of medical equipment to sell. Both sides should learn to compromise so you can mutually benefit.

One way to foster a supportive environment is to take time to understand each distributor’s situation properly. This means that manufacturing should regularly visit the distributors at their physical stores to see how best to work with each distributor. These visits also allow each party to talk face to face about their needs and what the other person could do to support them better.

Understand Each Other’s Challenges

During your meetings with distributors, take time to know their challenges and share your marketing challenges. While both parties will have roadblocks that make their job more complex, you don’t need to compete with each other.

Diagram

Description automatically generated

Sometimes you might find your challenges are similar, in which case you can work together to solve them in a mutually beneficial manner. For example, manufacturers struggle to keep their branding consistent. Since you often work with several different distributors, you may find that each distributor is promoting your products differently. Unfortunately, customers may lose trust in your company when you don’t have unified branding because they won’t know which message to believe.

However, you can resolve this challenge by providing all the marketing materials for your distributors. Doing this ensures a unified brand appearance while relieving some of the pressure on your distributors because they don’t have to create the materials themselves.

Other times, your challenges may contradict each other. For example, manufacturers focus on selling specific products and promoting new devices. In contrast, distributors want to raise their profit margins. Therefore, distributors concentrate on making sales rather than selling a particular product.

Effective communication can help you find a compromise where your distributor won’t lose money from old supplies they haven’t sold yet while still promoting your new products.

Provide Necessary Materials

You can avoid miscommunication in healthcare distribution by ensuring your distributors receive all the necessary materials for understanding and using your supplies. Creating materials to send over with products also saves your manufacturing team time as you will have fewer phone calls from distributors asking for clarification.

For example, you can create training videos and booklets on your products. This training material will tell your distributors what your product is, how to use it, and how to market the product. In addition, you can provide videos that your distributors can show healthcare workers when demonstrating medical devices.

In the end, your customers will be more satisfied with their experience because they received accurate information and thorough training straight from the manufacturer.

Other marketing materials you can pass along to your distributors include:

Signs for their shops
Product brochures
PDF ads for their websites
Product descriptions for their ecommerce shops
Product images for their promotions.

Create a Lasting Partnership

Always remember that you and your distributors are on the same team. Ultimately, you both want the same results: to sell your products. While you may feel strongly about certain expectations, you should not push your agenda to the point of compromising your partnership with your distributors.

Not every interaction has to relate to work. Sometimes the best way to invest in a healthy relationship is by investing in your distributors personally. You can send gifts to your distributors, invite them to events, and take time to thank them for their work as a way to show you appreciate their support in your partnership.

Investing in Your Manufacturer and Distributor Relationship in Healthcare

Efficient communication with your distributors begins with quality content that gives a clear and concise message. Share Moving Media helps you develop a stronger relationship with your distributors through better communication like training videos, RepConnect, articles, and advertising campaigns. If you want to reach 95% of the distribution rep community, Repertoire Magazine and Share Moving Media can help!

Contact us for more information on how we can help you connect with your distributors.

Hospital supply chain management is complex due to challenges like limited inventory visibility, a lack of audit trail for supplies, and limited control over procurement. These issues can result in waste, costing healthcare organizations valuable money. Research suggests that United States hospitals could save up to $25.7 billion annually with improved handling of products and operations.

As a medical supplier or healthcare distributor, understanding the supply chain hurdles your clients face is critical if you are going to cater to their needs. These hospital supply chain management tips provide essential insights and give you the tools you need to enhance collaboration with your clients.

7 Hospital Supply Chain Management Tips

Supply chain hurdles do not just impact healthcare workers. They can also prove problematic for patients, increasing the risk of supply gaps or shortages — a critical issue when it comes to potentially life-saving equipment, tools, and medications. Implementing the below hospital supply chain management tips is thus a question of cutting costs and improving patient care.

1. Use Technology to Improve Overall Inventory Management

Technology improves inventory management to help cut costs. Management can enhance pipeline visibility to track medical device product usage in a hospital or healthcare facility using cutting-edge QR codes. Radiofrequency identification, RFID, tags are another option. RFID tags are used to track everything from vehicles to pets.

Cloud-based solutions are another expected game-changer for the healthcare supply chain management market. A hospital is a data-driven organization, collecting masses of patient data, from personal details to medical history, current symptoms, and insurance information. Cloud-based solutions help integrate information coming in from diverse locations.

2. Manage Medical Devices to Point-of-Use

Once QR or RFID codes are in place to track inventory, hospitals will gain comprehensive oversight of how, when, where, and why medical devices and products are used. This opens the door to mapping products throughout the entire supply chain through to the point of use. Managers will have apparent oversight of what devices are already in circulation versus where supplies are lacking.

Hospitals can also correlate data regarding medical device use with general organizational data (patient populations, staffing, seasonal health trends, etc.). They can then see what factors may be impacting device use and use this data to ensure optimal usage, sparing extraneous costs.

3. Examine Utilization Rates to Avoid Waste

The use of QR codes and RFID tags opens up the door to real-time locating systems. These tracking systems can be used to find equipment accurately and quickly in the present and further to inform supply chain analytics in the future. RTLS implementation allows healthcare systems to not only streamline equipment utilization but also improve patient flow.

For example, supply chain teams regularly issue extraneous purchase orders for moveable medical equipment, MME, due to poor visibility. Often, MME is sitting idle and readily available – but forgotten or lost in the shuffle. This is especially true of the larger hospital organization. Utilization data can be leveraged to avoid needless equipment rentals and purchases.

4. Promote Clinical Engagement

Healthcare professionals are on the front lines of patient care in any organization, be it a private clinic or a public hospital. These experts are often a fantastic resource for identifying points of waste in the supply chain. They can also provide insights into how to standardize product usage best and prioritize products. Gathering feedback from clinicians further helps to establish trust within the supply chain.

In addition to asking healthcare professionals for their input, it is also essential to provide them with the education they need to use resources optimally. Adequate training can help encourage good habits and discourage bad ones – such as unnecessary hoarding of supplies. A physician leadership program is one helpful way to raise awareness and provide actionable advice at the ground level.

5. Reconfigure to Need-Based Ordering

Poor inventory management can result in excess or expired stock. This is a financial drain on hospitals and poses a potential risk to patients (in the worst-case scenario that an expired item is used). Instead of simply filling supply rooms, hospital management must shift to a need-based ordering system.

The technologies described above, like QR codes and RTLS systems, can help in this regard. For example, advanced inventory management systems will automatically send a digital alert when the amount of a select product falls below a certain level, ensuring there is enough lead time to order fresh supplies. Such systems can even be configured to automate ordering from suppliers.

6. Understand Costs to Ensure Effective Pricing

Healthcare providers who fully understand costs can ensure effective pricing. For example, a cost-accounting system can be used to break down the cost of each service based on supplies and human resources used.

Many hospitals lack the requisite accounting methods to determine details like Medicare cost allocation or cost-to-charge ratio accurately. However, this data is integral to a smoothly running pricing system. Knowing the cost-to-charge relationship at the level of patient care will promote better investment in tools overall, creating more value for both the hospital and the patient.

7. Reexamine Suppliers Relationships

Supplier relationships are never set in stone – at least, they should not be. Suppliers and hospitals alike should revisit vendor contracts regularly. As hospital managers gather data about supply chain management using the tools and processes described above, they may find that they must adapt their ordering. For example, consolidating contracts and suppliers can be one way to save.

Stay Up to Date on the Latest Healthcare Supply Challenges

Share Moving Media helps healthcare distributors like yourself keep track of the latest news in the healthcare market, providing the competitive edge needed to increase market share. We can further help you connect with your target audience with our comprehensive healthcare marketing and content services.

We are a full-service media agency, producing everything from traditional print publications to podcasts, webinars, and more. We cater specifically to suppliers and distributors in the healthcare and medical fields. Visit the Share Moving Media blog for more actionable content.

Contact us to learn how we can boost your business.

How to Build Lasting Manufacturer and Distributor Relationships in Healthcare