The customer experience starts before the first order

Onboarding is the first real test of how easy a distributor is to do business with. From licensing and pricing to operational setup and customer support, dozens of activities happen behind the scenes before a provider can place their first order. When that process is slow or unclear, the impact extends beyond administrative delays, creating additional burden for provider teams and potentially slowing access to therapies. The challenge is making the experience feel simple from the provider’s perspective.

That’s where Cencora's Commercial, Operational, and Relationship Excellence (C.O.R.E.) initiative comes in. C.O.R.E. looks across the provider experience to identify opportunities to reduce friction wherever work moves between teams and systems. Onboarding is one of the clearest examples of that approach in practice.

Onboarding is the process providers go through to begin doing business with a distributor. That could mean establishing a new customer account or setting up an additional ship-to location. The process is complete when providers are ready to place and receive orders without unnecessary obstacles.

The best onboarding experiences feel uneventful. Providers know what to expect and the transition happens with little disruption. As Katie Reisbeck, Director of Pharmacy Operations at Nebraska Medicine, recalls, “All of our core staff felt that we were able to maintain operations and hospital business without interruption. We were beyond thrilled with how that experience was.”

When onboarding doesn't go as planned, the experience can look very different. Common sources of friction include:

• Submitting the same information multiple times because systems aren’t connected
• Figuring out new tools or processes in the absence of guidance
• Bouncing between multiple departments without a single point of contact

While each challenge may seem small on its own, together they can create delays, additional work, and unnecessary complexity for provider teams.

Providers understand that pharmaceutical distribution is complex. What they shouldn't have to do is manage the complexity themselves. As Cencora Vice President of Strategic Initiatives Jenny Westbrook explains, "Our goal is to make onboarding easier and help providers get ready to order more quickly."

Improving onboarding isn't as simple as eliminating a few forms or automating a handful of steps. Before a provider can place a first order, accounts need to be established, contract terms and pricing confirmed, and licensing requirements verified. Operational teams need the information required to fulfill orders accurately, while customer support teams need visibility into the account before questions arise.

Much of this work happens simultaneously across multiple teams and systems. All of it is necessary to support regulatory compliance, product integrity, and the reliable delivery of medications.

One of C.O.R.E.’s primary goals is to identify where providers experience friction and translate that feedback into meaningful improvements. For onboarding, that work has focused on the points most likely to create delays, confusion, or unnecessary back-and-forth.

Recent improvements include digitizing and streamlining document collection, accelerating credit reviews, automating contract loading to reduce errors, and simplifying account setup. Together, these changes help create a more coordinated onboarding experience while reducing administrative burden for providers and their teams.

Through these improvements, Cencora has reduced average onboarding time by more than 50%*. Faster onboarding means providers are ready to order sooner, with less time spent tracking paperwork or status updates and fewer barriers to delivering care.

These improvements ultimately matter because of how they are experienced by providers. Katie Reisbeck, Director of Pharmacy Operations at Nebraska Medicine, describes the Cencora onboarding process as “very structured and smooth,” with clear timelines and guidance throughout implementation. “All of our core staff felt that we were able to maintain operations and hospital business without interruption. We were beyond thrilled with how that experience was.”

Onboarding is only one part of the customer experience, but it's one of the first opportunities to show what partnership should feel like. "Onboarding sets the tone for the relationship as we begin our journey together,” Jenny notes.

Through C.O.R.E., Cencora continues listening to provider feedback and refining the onboarding experience as expectations evolve. When that experience is defined by clear communication, smooth handoffs, and visible progress, it creates a stronger foundation for everything that follows.

*Based on internal data