Biopharma R&D Lab’s Ideal Lab Supply Procurement Process - ZAGENO

The lab tells ZAGENO what they want, what they really, really want, from the procurement process.

When ordering lab supplies, do you ever sigh loudly and think how much worse the process is compared to pretty much any other kind of online shopping? You’re not alone. A major pharmaceutical company recently sought employee feedback on their lab supply ordering process for a Net Promoter Score (NPS) benchmarking study. NPS is a customer experience metric reported from -100 to +100.

The Pharma company’s NPS pertaining to the lab supply ordering process? A very frustrating -79! To put this figure into perspective, the software industry’s NPS is +31 and online shopping’s is +45.

We can all agree that -79 is a pretty abysmal score. So, how can this purchasing experience score be improved? ZAGENO, the leading digital life sciences marketplace, queried scientists, lab managers, and procurement about their lab supply ordering wish list. Here’s what they said.

The ideal lab supply procurement process:

1. Recoups time and reduces delays. Should consist of one place to not only find trunk and tail products but also easily find new providers and products. Can manage supplier additions on behalf of procurement and operations and provide self-service order and delivery tracking.
2. Is as automated as possible. Should consolidate and automate trunk and tail spend by eliminating manual supplier entry. Self-service platform able to track purchases across all trunk and tail suppliers. Can consolidate approvals on a per order basis and directly integrate with existing procure-to-pay (P2P) / source-to-pay (S2P) and/or ERP systems. Goal of minimizing maverick spend due to speed and ease of use. Able to provide access to order history and reporting.
3. Saves costs. Capability to easily compare products across multiple suppliers for the best price in one place. Can offer price transparency for all purchases and enable negotiated discounts for tail suppliers. Should apply previously negotiated discounts, consolidated across a single marketplace.

A common refrain that ZAGENO heard from the lab personnel was that “there should be an easier way.” Luckily, there is. All of the above is possible, through a subscription to a digital marketplace such as ZAGENO.

Lab supply marketplaces serve as a central hub on a single platform where scientists can go to find the supplies, equipment, and tools they need. With a variety of vendors displayed side by side, lab managers reap the benefits of complete cost transparency. In a life science marketplace, specialty vendors are allotted the same visibility as more dominant brands and suppliers and scientists can find what they need using advanced search functions. They can also save their order for one-click re-ordering, saving hours of manually adding lab items to the online shopping cart.