In the life sciences industry, efficient and reliable shipping is not just a logistical challenge—it’s a critical component of business success. Whether it’s delivering temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals, high-value laboratory equipment, or time-sensitive clinical trial materials, companies in this sector face unique shipping complexities. Unfortunately, this area of significant spending has been left unmanaged for years despite the impact on bottom-line results. That is, until the development and release of Parcel Spend Management 2.0 (PSM 2.0).
Parcel Spend Management 2.0 offers a cutting-edge solution tailored to address the many challenges life sciences companies face, providing the tools they need to optimize shipping costs, enhance operational efficiency, ensure HIPAA compliance, and maintain regulatory standards.
In this blog, you’ll learn about:
- The evolving and complex shipping needs of life sciences companies
- Challenges in parcel spend management that life sciences companies are facing
- How advanced parcel spend management technology is critical to lowering costs and gaining competitive advantage
Let’s dive in!
5 Main Challenges in Life Sciences Shipping
Shipping in the life sciences industry is fraught with challenges that extend beyond mere cost considerations. Maintaining the integrity of sensitive products during transit, adhering to stringent regulatory standards such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and managing diverse shipping requirements across multiple locations are just a few examples. The stakes are incredibly high—any delays, damages, or non-compliance can result in significant financial losses, reputational damage, or even legal repercussions.
There are 5 main logistical challenges impacting the life sciences industry:
1. Regulatory Compliance and Documentation
Life sciences companies operate in a highly regulated environment, which means they have to navigate stringent regulations and jurisdictional control, all while ensuring the timely delivery of products to patients.
Shipping pharmaceutical products, medical devices, or biological materials involves stringent compliance with regulations such as the FDA’s Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP), the European Union’s Good Distribution Practice (GDP), and various international guidelines. Companies must ensure that all shipments meet regulatory requirements, which can add complexity and cost to parcel spend management.
Additionally, the need for accurate documentation for customs clearance and regulatory submissions adds to the administrative burden, increasing the likelihood of errors and delays.
2. Temperature-Controlled and Specialized Shipping Needs
Every life sciences shipment must be meticulously monitored and controlled, which makes every shipment significantly more expensive than other industries.
Many life sciences shipments, such as vaccines, biologics, and certain pharmaceuticals, require temperature-controlled environments (cold chain logistics). This demands specialized packaging, monitoring, and shipping options that can be significantly more expensive than standard parcel services. Maintaining the integrity of these shipments throughout the delivery process is crucial, and any deviation from the required temperature range can lead to product loss and financial waste.
3. Global Supply Chain Complexity
Life sciences companies often operate globally, sourcing raw materials from multiple countries and shipping final products to international markets. Managing shipping costs across various regions, dealing with customs and tariffs, and navigating different carrier services can make parcel spend management a daunting task. Currency fluctuations, international shipping rates, and varying fuel surcharges add another layer of unpredictability to overall parcel spend.
4. Risk of High-Value Shipments
Damage is often an inevitable result of shipping, and the products can easily be replaced. But when it comes to life sciences, the replacement process is not quite as simple.
Life sciences companies frequently ship high-value products, whether it’s expensive medical devices or critical pharmaceuticals. This heightens the stakes of each shipment, as any loss, damage, or delay could result in significant financial consequences. If a box of medicine or pills gets damaged in transit, the entire box must be discarded, even if the contents within the package seem unscathed. There’s a lot at stake here!
Ensuring proper insurance coverage, tracking, and auditing of these shipments is essential but can drastically drive up costs if not managed efficiently.
5. Limited Visibility and Control
Despite the critical nature of their shipments, many life sciences companies struggle with limited visibility into their shipping data. Without real-time insights into parcel spend, shipment status, or carrier performance, it becomes difficult to optimize shipping strategies or negotiate better rates. This lack of transparency can lead to overspending and missed opportunities for cost savings.
Given these complexities and challenges, life sciences companies need more than just basic shipping solutions. They require a comprehensive approach that not only minimizes costs but also enhances visibility, leverages data analytics, improves carrier performance, ensures HIPAA compliance, and manages risks. It’s a tall order, but one that Parcel Spend Management 2.0 can accomplish with ease.
How Parcel Spend Management 2.0 Improves Shipping for Life Sciences
With less than 50% of life science companies with access to real-time data, PSM 2.0 is designed to provide comprehensive insights and control over parcel shipping operations. Here’s how it can make a difference:
1. Advanced Cost Management and Optimization
With PSM 2.0, life sciences companies can gain complete visibility into their shipping spend. The platform provides real-time analytics on shipping costs, including breakdowns by carrier, service type, region, and more. This level of detail allows companies to identify areas where they can reduce costs, such as negotiating better rates with carriers on the services they are required to use, optimizing shipping routes, or consolidating shipments.
Additionally, PSM 2.0 can highlight hidden fees and surcharges that may be impacting the bottom line. Whether it’s a new carrier surcharge, a negotiated discount that expires before the contract does, new rules, changes to zone, or packaging that unexpectedly triggers additional costs for an entire product line, PSM 2.0 alerts shippers of costs that can easily be prevented.
By understanding these cost drivers, companies can implement targeted strategies to minimize them, ensuring that every shipping dollar is spent wisely.
2. HIPAA Compliance and Risk Management
Life sciences companies often handle sensitive patient information and materials that must comply with HIPAA regulations. PSM 2.0 helps ensure compliance by providing secure, encrypted data transmission and storage for shipping information, including patient data and other protected health information (PHI). The platform also offers detailed documentation and audit trails for every shipment, which are essential for meeting HIPAA and other regulatory requirements.
The risk management features enable companies to proactively address potential issues before they escalate, reducing the likelihood of compliance breaches and ensuring the integrity of sensitive shipments. With PSM 2.0, life sciences companies can feel confident knowing that customer and patient personal health information is safe and secure at all times.
3. Carrier Performance Monitoring and Management
Reliability is key in the life sciences industry, where delayed or mishandled shipments can have serious consequences. PSM 2.0 enables companies to monitor carrier performance, tracking key metrics such as on-time delivery rates, transit times, and service reliability. By leveraging this data, companies can make informed decisions about which carriers to use, ensuring that their products reach their destination safely and on time.
4. Streamlined Returns and Reverse Logistics
The nature of many life sciences products like test kits often requires a robust returns process. Unlike other industries, a majority of packages are two-way shipments. PSM 2.0 offers comprehensive reverse logistics management, helping companies efficiently handle returns while minimizing costs. The platform provides insights into return shipping costs and carrier performance, allowing companies to streamline their returns processes and improve customer satisfaction.
“We secured more than $6 million in initial savings as soon as we began using Reveel’s Shipping Intelligence Platform. That was even before we began parsing our shipping data to negotiate better terms with our carriers, bundle orders and match shipments with lower-cost service levels that still satisfy our need for the fast deliveries of temperature-sensitive therapies.”
— The head of shipping at a leading drug component and therapy packaging company
5. Gain Real-Time Visibility
With a majority of life sciences shipping requiring advanced monitoring, real-time visibility over shipping vital factors is a necessity. PSM 2.0 technology offers advanced shipping metrics such as total shipping spend with the carrier, total surcharge spend, the average cost-per-shipment, the average weight and dimensional weight, the average zone, and minimums. Instantly see how you’re performing and receive actionable insights to ensure your parcel spend management strategy stays on track.
Complex Shipping Challenges Require PSM 2.0 Technology
For life sciences companies, shipping is more than just a cost center—it’s a critical part of operations that directly impacts their bottom line, compliance, and reputation. Parcel Spend Management 2.0 provides a comprehensive solution that goes beyond basic shipping management, offering advanced cost optimization, HIPAA compliance assurance, carrier performance monitoring, and scalable global support.
By leveraging PSM 2.0, life sciences companies can transform their shipping operations into a strategic advantage, driving efficiency, reducing costs, ensuring compliance, and safely delivering their critical products.
Get started today! Request a demo with our team to learn about how Reveel’s Parcel Spend Management 2.0 technology can enhance your parcel spend management strategy.
