Story | Global reach
Diary of an honest shopper
Blunt customers wanted
A prime example of this is our Short Dates and Special Buys program, which provides pharmacies access to discounted generic medications that have expiration dates less than a year away. Not only does this allow providers to potentially save money on product they know they can move quickly, but it also enables pharma manufacturers to reduce revenue loss and supply chain waste by helping them offload excess inventory before it expires.
The opportunity for Cencora to play a role in bridging this gap was initially brought to our attention by both our upstream and downstream customers. Their insight into the time-sensitive nature of short-dated medications encouraged us to build a solution into our existing purchasing platform, ABC Order. And it has been the outspoken voices of our customers that are currently helping us evolve the program into a leading solution.
Tell it like it is
Rather than share bits and pieces of actual feedback pulled from hours of customer conversations, we’ve amalgamized and anonymized their responses into one digestible diary from a fabricated persona named Sid. Here’s what our customers had to say in a nutshell.
Open up our customer diary
Last week, my rep from AmerisourceBergen stopped by the hospital downtown to see how things were going. It’s always great to see Trish and talk shop. I gave her an update on the shortages we had been seeing since we last met, and I filled her in on our run rates.
As we were talking about what items were churning quickly, I let her know I was looking for ways to save some money on those fast movers. That’s how we got on the topic of short dates (AKA drugs expiring sooner than later). It’s something I’ve dabbled in before, but I never devoted that much time to try and figure out the best way to hunt them down. They’re not exactly the easiest to find, especially in amounts that are worth your while.
It just so happened that Trish was hearing rumblings from manufacturers that were looking to offload product creeping too close to the expiration date. So, I said, “Great! Let’s make that happen.”
She chuckled and pumped the brakes. “Sid, it’s not that easy, but we’re working on it.”
I was only half serious … maybe three quarters … but I’m pretty excited that there could be an easy way to save some money on the horizon. Not that I’m getting my hopes up though. I’ll believe it when I see it!
After a few sporadic updates from Trish over the past few months on the whole “short dates” thing, I came in to an email this morning announcing that they’re now available in ABC Order. I was definitely not expecting that.
Sure enough, I logged in and now I’ve got short dates at my fingertips! Speak and you shall receive!
To be honest, I had kind of forgotten all about it with everything else going on. But now that it’s right there on the ol’ ordering platform, of course I’m going to give it a whirl. It’s pretty simple. Now when I add an item to my cart that has short dates available, it notifies me right there on the screen. One click and boom! It swaps in the short-dated product.
Obviously, I need to make sure we use that product first or else I’m getting a discount on lost revenue, but those are minor details. All in all, it’s a win. I get to keep buying from my preferred partner and I don’t have to crosscheck against other websites. Whatever spares me from a wild goose chase is alright in my book!
I had an interesting conversation yesterday with some people from AmerisourceBergen. Well, Cencora now. They changed their name since they have such a big global footprint these days.
Apparently, I’m a short dates super user and they wanted to ask me some questions about how I interact with the program. Who knew my opinions were in such high demand?
They probably reached out to me because they know I don’t beat around the bush and won’t sugarcoat my feedback. Or at least I hope that’s what Trish told them…
Regardless, I figured I’d hit them with the truth and hope that’s helpful to them.
It was a smooth interview. I walked them through how I find short dates in ABC Order, what I’m usually looking for, and how I figure out how much to buy. I also shared a few thoughts on what they could do to make the program better.
That said, it didn’t take long for me to realize I wasn’t really using the program the way they intended.
For the most part, I’ve gotten into the habit of just clicking on the links I see in the weekly short date email. It’s like my personal shortcut to short dates. But they said there was a link on the website that made it easy to see all the short dates at once any time I wanted. I’ll be honest though — I had no idea it was there! Even when I went looking for it, I had a hard time finding it.
That wasn’t the only curveball I had for them either. The way I determine quantities to buy isn’t necessarily the most sophisticated process. I usually just default to what I purchased last time, so I always bring up my order history and go with that. I mean, if it worked well before, why reinvent the wheel?
Of course, that’s not a speedy process either. Even doing that takes some time. And the more we talked about it, the more I realized there might be a better way to do that, along with some other things. They encouraged me to think big on how they could make improvements, so that’s exactly what I did!
First of all, I told them I just don’t have time to reevaluate how much of each item I should buy every time I log in. There are only so many hours in the day. So, if there’s a way that I could be making more efficient purchasing decisions, let’s figure that out. How about some analytics? Some automation? They know how much our hospital goes through in a month and how much product is available in the system. Can they do the math so I don’t have to?
Then I started thinking really big. To get the more out of the short dates program, I knew I needed more in the program. More variety. More categories. More quantity. Sometimes they don’t have enough of the product I need to hit the no-cost shipping minimum, so I’m tempted to skip it. But if they had more short-dated items available all around, I could really take advantage of it.
I’m not sure if that’s possible, but we’ll see what happens. They seemed open to my ideas. Hopefully, they’ll consider my two cents. All I can say is at least I put it out there.
My days of digging through my order history are over! It looks like that interview I did with Cencora really paid off. They just launched a new feature in ABC Order that provides an automatic quantity suggestion in your cart when you go to buy a short-dated item. They’re basing the suggestions off of average monthly purchase history for same-size generic equivalents, which is probably a better way of figuring it out than what I was doing.
Now I know exactly how much I can purchase and use before the expiration date without having to look up anything. That means potential savings and zero time wasted! Plus, it’s pretty reassuring to know what I’m buying is backed by data and logic.
Now this is interesting … Cencora is going to start offering short dates through their Marketplace. Trish gave me a sneak preview of what that’s going to look like and I think people are going to like it. I know I’m looking forward to this thing launching!
Trish said I’m not the only one who’s been asking for more short-dated inventory either. Apparently, there are a lot of other buyers in the same boat as me. On top of that, Cencora has many suppliers that need to move more inventory that’s getting closer to expiration. It sounds like between the supply and the demand, they’re expanding to an adjacent platform that links up to ABC Order so I can stay in my Cencora ordering system.
If this is as seamless as it sounds, it’s going to be a powerful tool for potentially saving money on fast-moving product. This will have a major impact on the variety of short-dated items they’ll be able to offer from now on.
Cencora is making big improvements here, and I’m glad I could be a part of it. It was smart of them to listen to me. Now if only my kids would do the same.
Continuous improvement fueled by your feedback
From the initial concept of the Short Dates and Special Buys program through the transformation to what it is today, it’s been the perspectives of customers like “Sid” that have guided us along the way. Many of our customers voiced similar sentiments about the importance of cost savings, prioritizing efficiency, and inventory optimization. It was their keen insight that helped us fine-tune how we integrated the program into ABC Order. And it was their constructive criticism that led us to the realization that a more robust short-dated program was needed to maximize the opportunities for cost savings.
In each case, our team members approached those conversations with an open mind, and we pivoted to address the challenges our customers were facing, proving that innovation isn’t solely a matter of creating new solutions. Boldly iterating on our current offerings is equally as important. And as long as we keep getting honest feedback like this from our customers, our growing catalogue of programs, services, and solutions will continue to evolve.
Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes only. Cencora strongly encourages our customers to review the labeling information for any product and to rely on their own clinical judgment before ordering or prescribing any product for a particular patient.
