On October 11th, Franck Toussaint will participate to the BSMA conference in Foster City. At this occasion he will be part of a panel discussion on “Handling the Tumultuous Global Economic and Political Uncertainties”
This very intersting panel discussion will be the occasion to exchange with peers such as Khalid Shah, Vice President & Head of Pharmaceutical Operations and Supply Chain, Exelixis; Paul Anderson, Senior Director, Toll Manufacturing and Supply Chain, Illumina Cambridge, UK; Horacio Enriquez, Senior Manager, Global Supplier Quality Management, Bio-Rad Laboratories; Jason Mieding, Vice President, North America Supply Chain, Pharma Services, Pantheon
Such a topic might be infinite and without entering into politics consideration – we have to take account of growing uncertainties and more and more complex environment.
This panel is the occasion from our side to discuss about :
- Brexit status update and current strategies – risk evaluation, costs evaluation, inventories increase, contingency plans. What are the current strategies that are developed by global leaders such as GSK, AstraZeneca.
- Customs & trade barriers – in EU governments such as UK, Hungary and Czech republic received recently large fines for misapplication of customs duties – this brings additional uncertainty to quick movements of high value products. In some other parts of the world, we see how countries can take benefit from improved systems eg : Uruguay vs Brazil
- Opposition between increased nationalism and supply chain principles.
- While supply chain leaders are looking for disintermediation to improve value, politicians tend to increase barriers and border frictions. This might lead to business discontinuity
- Also tax decision might influence strongly our supply chain models and that despite some risks. Let’s take Puerto Rico for which 30% of GDP was from pharma but despite a major risk regarding hurricane such as Maria.
- Difficulties for small suppliers to position. It is more and more difficult for small suppliers to position themselves and we generally see a decrease of number of suppliers which sometimes tend to bring to sole sourcing. The environment has brought an increased risk of disruption through additional pressure.
Any further information needed on one of this topic – please contact us!