August 17, 2022 – Shaleta Dunn is the Assistant Vice Principal of Member Diversity and Community initiatives at Vizient, Inc. Read an excerpt from The Journal of Healthcare Contracting’s “10 People to Watch in Healthcare Contracting” below.
What are the most important attributes of successful supply chain teams today?
The effects of the COVID pandemic are still being felt across the globe and require a new level of agility for supply chain leaders and their staff. Having diversity in staff can infuse the team with new ideas for strategies to help deal with disruption and improve processes.
The ability to use data is another attribute for success. Leaders must understand utilization trends and optimization opportunities as they work with the end users across the organization that they support. They must also use data to better understand their suppliers and collaborate on new strategies that create greater supply assurance.
Lastly, they must have visible support from executive leadership to ensure they are appropriately staffed and to enable forward thinking strategies that support the supply requirements for overall growth and sustainability goals.
What changes brought about by the pandemic are here to stay in the supply chain?
The biggest changes are a shared understanding for the benefits of greater transparency between providers and manufacturers, the importance of domestic or near shore manufacturing and warehousing of essential supplies and drugs and the importance and value of a diverse and inclusive supply chain.
At Vizient, we had put some new supply assurance programs for essential medicines and supplies in place just ahead of the pandemic. These programs required suppliers to provide information related to manufacturing locations, sources of raw materials, and insights into inventory and warehousing. They also required suppliers to increase onshore inventory to cover six months of historic demand. They have proven to be invaluable to our members and served as a catalyst for additional transparency and collaboration with members and suppliers.
These programs also sparked renewed focus on diversifying the supply chain to engage new suppliers and more local, diverse suppliers. This is creating more supply chain resiliency overall as well as local economic growth and job creation.
To see the rest of our 10 People to Watch in Healthcare Contracting list, click here.