Faster access to thousands of life-saving products

The Partnership for Supply Chain Management (PFSCM), a nonprofit procurement services agent, always goes the extra mile to ensure that life-saving health products reach the people who need them most, no matter where they are in the world. They empower governments, humanitarian organizations, and NGOs to organize their procurement processes as cost-effectively and efficiently as possible and provide sustainable supply chain operations.

Transparency plays a crucial role, as digital supply chains offering end-to-end visibility are vital in improving access to quality-assured health products. To further its digital transformation, PFSCM partnered with Incentro to digitize and simplify the ordering process. The result? A future-proof platform that enhances efficiency, strengthens data security, and makes ordering more accessible for clients of all sizes.

About PFSCM

Since 2005, PFSCM has helped countries and organizations worldwide ensure that essential health products—such as pharmaceuticals and medical devices—reach the right locations. They achieve this through facilitating sustainable, data-driven supply chain solutions by connecting demand with supply, optimizing procurement and distribution, enhancing supplier performance, and promoting access to quality health products through comprehensive market analysis and strategic alignment.

PFSCM’s operations are distinct due to their comprehensive management of the entire supply chain process. This includes conducting due diligence on suppliers, ensuring rigorous product quality standards, and organizing sustainable and cost-effective logistics.

However, their services do not stop there, as PFSCM also oversees warehousing and organizes the installation of medical equipment and training of the health care workers. Lastly, things can get even more complex when you imagine the transportation management of hazardous, fragile, and cold-chain goods while ensuring sensitive products are delivered safely and efficiently, even to the most remote locations.

PFSCM supplies products to more than 86 countries and plays a crucial role in global healthcare, particularly in regions where access to health products is limited. Since its founding, PFSCM has delivered billions of dollars worth of health products and tens of thousands of shipments to its clients.

Wanted: digitization boost

Quality and continuous improvement lie at the heart of PFSCM’s services, and the company is undergoing constant digital transformation. To keep exceeding customer expectations, the company initiates operational excellence projects to evaluate and optimize its services. 

During one of their latest evaluations, it was found that the product ordering process could benefit from a digitization boost. Local partners, such as hospitals and governments, had to navigate multiple systems and paper forms to submit requests. This led to:

• Limited product visibility: Clients lacked easy access to the extensive product catalogue and description of over 6,200 SKUs.
• Inefficient processes: Manually submitting and processing orders was time-consuming, error-prone, and often required a lot of back-and-forth with PFSCM staff members. 
• Suboptimal integrations: With an ever-growing and diverse customer base in more than 85 countries worldwide, not all smaller clients could connect their ordering mechanisms to PFSCM’s ERP system.

The solution: a Health Supply Portal

To tackle the above-mentioned operational challenges, Incentro was trusted to build a robust and intuitive platform for product management and ordering.

Together, we developed a Health Supply Portal —a user-friendly online platform that fully digitizes the ordering process. This platform, built on the propeller engine, includes several key features:

• Increased product visibility: Customers and PFSCM staff members have direct access to the full, published product range, enabling users to make more informed choices based on their needs. This is done through custom filters tailored to disease areas, programmatic focus, or specific grants.
• Streamlined processes: Product selection has been simplified with a user-friendly interface and automated features, saving time and minimizing errors.
• Online requests, quotes, and orders: The portal facilitates the entire process—from requesting quotes to placing orders—all in one centralized location.
• Future-proof and agile A good amount of thought has gone into the decision to create a MACH-architecture, with a best-of-breed mix of technology. With PFSCM’s ambitious digital transformation objectives outlined for the future, this will help them in adapting to ever-changing market conditions. 

Operational excellence and another step in digitization

By building an agile, future-proof platform, PFSCM has enhanced the efficiency of the entire ordering process for both staff and clients. The portal not only streamlines operations but also strengthens data security and transparency, reflecting PFSCM’s commitment to operational excellence.