Tracking lab supply orders can often feel like being on a wild goose chase, filled with phone calls and emails to figure out if your order’s been approved, shipped, or if it's stuck somewhere in the process. This time-consuming back-and-forth wastes valuable hours that could be spent on high-priority research or strategic tasks. For lab managers, procurement professionals, and scientists, this issue is a significant productivity drain, and it's time to fix it.
The global lab supply market is booming, expected to reach $49.18 billion in 2025 and up to $81.24 billion in 2033. ZAGENO, the leading AI-powered lab supply marketplace, surveyed hundreds of research scientists, lab operations, and procurement professionals across biotech and pharmaceutical R&D labs about their purchasing processes. Among the results? A staggering number of hours are wasted on manual order tracking.
ZAGENO’s survey found that the average lab professional spends 6 hours per week just tracking lab supply orders. This manual process often involves emails and phone calls to suppliers, shipping departments, or even receiving docks. Here’s how the time breaks down across different roles:
As organizations scale, the time spent sourcing and tracking R&D products increases dramatically. In fact, scientists in large pharmaceutical companies spend up to 9 hours per week on order tracking, which is double the time spent by researchers in smaller biotechs. Even with procure-to-pay (P2P) systems in place, tracking time increases as operations grow, jumping from 2.4 hours per week in biotechs to 10 hours in large pharma companies, with scientists spending double the time tracking orders post-P2P implementation.
Scientist hours spent per week on order tracking, with and without P2P
Read the rest of ZAGENO survey results with the free eBook: 6 Key Lab Supply Purchasing Pains and Solutions
For R&D labs, where hundreds of orders are placed every week, tracking becomes a nightmare without automation. As one scientist in ZAGENO’s survey shared:
“You have to check each item to see if it was dispatched since you don’t get a notification in the event of a delay. You think, ‘Oh, that should have arrived by now.’ But then you discover it is not even dispatched yet because there is suddenly a delay for four weeks. Then you need to cancel that one because you can’t wait that long, start looking for alternatives, and go back to the beginning of the cycle. With how often that happens, ordering is quite often a nightmare.”
The manual order tracking process includes several pain points that take valuable time away from research and production:
While the life sciences industry has unique procurement needs, there’s no reason why lab supply ordering can’t be as easy as shopping on Amazon. ZAGENO’s self-service, AI-powered platform streamlines the entire process from order to receipt, offering over 40M products from 5,300 trusted brands. Here’s how ZAGENO’s automated features can help you save time and reduce frustrations:
With ZAGENO’s advanced features, labs can automate their procurement process and save valuable hours. Imagine scientists spending less time chasing down orders and more time conducting meaningful research and experiments.
As labs grow, the complexity of managing supplies grows exponentially. ZAGENO's solution integrates easily into any organization’s existing workflow, offering a scalable solution to meet the demands of both small biotech startups and large pharmaceutical companies. By automating tedious manual tasks, ZAGENO helps labs focus on what matters most—innovation and discovery.
If you’re tired of wasting hours each week tracking down lab supply orders, it’s time to make a change. ZAGENO is the solution that makes order tracking simple, efficient, and proactive. Our AI-driven marketplace connects lab scientists and procurement professionals with suppliers, automating the entire ordering and tracking process.