PHOENIX Group Serbia case study

As one of the leading pharmaceutical and healthcare providers in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Montenegro, PHOENIX Group prioritises product quality and supply chain excellence. Over the last decade, the business has established a patient-centric operation, ensuring swift and accurate deliveries of medicines while actively contributing to its societal and environmental vision.

PHOENIX Group Serbia identified a significant challenge within the pharmaceutical industry: a raw materials and finished products shortage. This obstacle was not unique to the Serbian market but posed a global concern for the PHOENIX Group. The company understood the necessity of addressing this challenge to ensure the smooth functioning of its local supply chain, while aligning the process with the broader group.

Challenges and Goals

PHOENIX Group Serbia’s primary goal was to enhance supply chain process capabilities to improve overall operational efficiency and foster a more strategic and customer-centric approach.

Nada Milenkovic, Supply Chain Manager at PHOENIX Group Serbia, explains, “Our goal is to continuously elevate service levels while freeing up our pharmacy team to dedicate more time to ensuring exceptional care to our patients. It is also important that we help our planning team to adjust their mindset from operational execution to strategic planning.”

To tackle these challenges, PHOENIX Group Serbia initiated a supply chain transformation project. By opting for Slimstock’s award-winning supply chain planning platform, Slim4, the pharmaceutical company benefitted from an advanced technology as well as a seamless integration with its global group operations.

Why Slimstock?

After successfully adopting the Slim4 platform in other branches of PHOENIX Group, Slimstock emerged as the ideal partner, offering fast and efficient implementation.

Nada highlights, “A crucial factor in choosing the solution was the intuitive design of the Slim4 platform. Furthermore, Slimstock were able to work flexibly to fine-tune the platform around our business vision, ensuring a rapid transformation.”

Global Collaboration

Slimstock and PHOENIX Group have a longstanding, established partnership. As a result, PHOENIX Group Serbia were able to quickly scale the Slim4 platform to support data-driven decision making across the Serbian Branch.

Nada explains, “The collaboration between Slimstock and PHOENIX Group Serbia extends to other members of the PHOENIX Group, and it is a great privilege to be part of such collaboration and communication.”

Results

The supply chain transformation project of PHOENIX Group Serbia delivered tangible results within just six months of implementation, seeing:

• A 5% increase in service levels in wholesale operations
• A 20% increase in service levels in the BENU retail channel

By automatically alerting PHOENIX Group Serbia’s team to issues around raw materials and finished product shortages, Slim4 has proved a pivotal tool, ensuring a dynamic and proactive approach to managing supply chain challenges.

According to Nada, “Slim4 effortlessly identifies shortages and provides a range of solutions and functionalities to address and minimise their impact on our customers.”

Embracing Innovation

With its robust and dynamic, AI-powered algorithms and sophisticated calculations, Slim4 has become a game-changer for PHOENIX Group Serbia.

“We found the right partner, who was committed to implementing all our requirements and ideas in the most practical way, and notably at an rapid pace, resulting in enhanced supply chain processes,” affirmed Nada.

Slimstock’s ability to understand the business and its specific industry challenges was critical in ensuring the resilience and adaptability of PHOENIX Group Serbia’s supply chain.

Nada highlights, “In addition to the powerful planning capabilities of the Slim4 platform, Slimstock took on board all of our ideas and worked relentlessly to help us innovate our operation.”

Next Steps

Having achieved significant success in the initial phase, PHOENIX Group Serbia outlined its next steps for further enhancement. The focus is now on further automating supply chain processes, minimising the need for manual intervention, ensuring more efficient management of promotions and campaigns, as well as further enhancing the tool to support the specific needs of the Serbian planning team.

As PHOENIX Group Serbia looks toward the future, Nada concludes, “Our imagination is boundless, and this story is only at its beginning. There is always scope for improvements, and with Slimstock as our partner we are excited for what the future holds.”