The pharmaceutical business is the fastest growing business now. Along with this, major changes are also visible in the Indian pharmaceutical marketplace. All these facts are known to us, and we also see changes in them on a daily basis.
These changes have a major impact on the business models that pharmaceutical companies need to employ.
Thus, business owners who are already in the wholesale pharma business or want to set up their own wholesale pharma are looking for solutions that ensure profits, easily handle the changing demands, and overcome the challenges.
Index
- Why does the wholesale pharma business need to change?
- Role of technology in wholesale pharma business
- Know Details to Set Up a Wholesale Pharma Business in India
- Wholesale_Drug License eligibility criteria
- Challenges you may face in the wholesale pharma business
- What should you do to overcome these challenges?
- Importance of RetailGraph wholesale pharma software solution
- Wrapping Up
Why does the wholesale pharma business need to change?
Most wholesale pharma companies have traditionally done everything from ordering medicines to final delivery. But we have noticed that, as of 2020, this model is no longer working for the wholesale pharma business.
Due to the COVID-19 impact, many other factors like contact-less ordering and billing have come into force. So if the wholesale pharma owners prosper pharma business, they need to-
- Improve their business core
- Enhance their working mechanism
- Switch to technology
- Provide more comfort to the customers
- Achieve high customer retention with unlimited profits
- Create a sales strategy for this
Role of technology in wholesale pharma business
The wholesale pharmaceutical business will have to integrate with pharma software solutions to establish business with advanced tech trends. This includes inventory systems, billing systems, multiple payment options, reporting, and analysis techniques.
The technology aids people in their health management. It ensures that they receive prompt assistance from the pharmaceutical industry. It also
Know Details to Set Up a Wholesale Pharma Business in India
India is the world’s third-largest producer of pharmaceuticals, with a growth rate of over 15% predicted by the end of 2022. As a result of its rapid growth, the pharma sector provides huge business potential for people throughout the country. People have ample options for business in the pharma industry; one such option is wholesale trade in pharmaceuticals.
This blog explains how to start a pharma wholesale business in India. You will be able to know all the requirements required to start your wholesale business in the pharma industry through this blog.
These methods ensure that you can start your business without any problems. Let’s take a look at these steps.
- First, you need to find a premises/shop for your business and understand the overall financial responsibility of its rent to maintenance.
- After that, you have to join pharmaceutical companies for distributorship or stock and finalize a deal with a pharmaceutical company.
- After this, you will have to arrange the drugs according to their handling.
- Most importantly, you must apply for a Wholesale Drug License and a Sales Tax Number from the District Drug Control Officer.
- A drug inspector or a concerned person will inspect your premises as soon as you set up your office and apply for a drug license.
- The person in charge will authorize your wholesale business license if your premises match the requirements.
- You will receive the drug license and copy number once the visiting procedure is done.
- You can now begin purchasing, stocking, and billing pharmaceuticals for retailers and pharmacies.
Wholesale Drug License eligibility criteria
A drug license plays an important role while you’re setting up a pharma wholesale business. Without a license, selling drugs is illegal and will lead you into trouble.
The following are the requirements for obtaining a drug license:
- A registered pharmacist with the state pharmacy council is required to apply for this license.
- Graduation requires at least one year of experience as a salesman in a registered drug licensed firm.
- After passing the senior secondary exams, you must have at least four years of experience as a registered drug seller.
However, before starting or getting a drug license, you need to know the challenges you may face in the wholesale pharma business.
Challenges you may face in the wholesale pharma business
Lack of visibility in every business process
As we all know, wholesale pharmaceuticals entail a variety of procedures and risks. Many company problems can be traced back to a lack of visibility in the workplace.
The non-visibility of inventory and other pharma processes leads to serious threats of counterfeits, loss of sales, challenges of locating products, and unpredictable demand scenarios. A single mistake by the pharma owner can result in huge losses and put your business at risk.
From procurement of medicines to handling inventory and final delivery of medicines, everyone needs a proper strategy, which satisfies customers and increases customer retention.
Thus, maintaining communication between those processes is essential for a successful pharma business. This is a wholesale pharma challenge that needs to be thought about.
Non-visibility of inventory items
Inventory management or inventory optimization is essential for any pharmaceutical business. This minimizes waste/shortages, limits costs, improves service levels, and provides on-time delivery.
However, optimizing inventory becomes more difficult when there is no access or low visibility of what is happening in your pharma inventory. For these reasons, it is becoming more difficult for pharmaceutical companies to optimize their inventory. Also, the business is unable to calculate how many drugs need to be ordered and which pharma product is on-demand or out-of-demand. Thus, both employees and customers are dissatisfied with the lack of visibility into inventory items. For this, a proper solution is recommended.
GST calculation and filling challenges
GST is levied on every supply of goods and services or both with lesser exceptions such as tax-exempt goods and services. The wholesale pharma business also comes under the purview of GST, so it is the responsibility of pharma traders to implement a proper mechanism to deal with this challenge.
The implementation of GST has had a positive impact on the pharmaceutical industry. GST enables the seamless flow of tax credits with a better compliance mechanism. Thus, the pharmaceutical sector is facing some major challenges in the transition to this new tax regime. Following are some of the challenges faced by Wholesale Pharma:
- Switching to GST-ready software is not an easy task for small and medium chemist shops. It will take some time to get comfortable with the new tax system.
- Soon after the implementation of GST, the pre-GST inventory level is slowly recovering. It is not easy to maintain such an inventory level as GST affects every supply chain step.
Lack of Financial Resources
The wholesale pharmaceuticals business is a capital-intensive business. This also becomes important because it has a complex inventory that comes with an expiry date.
You have to take care of the expiry of the drugs. Because either you will sell expired products to any one category of patients or they will get spoiled lying in the expired drug store. That will cause financial risk.
Thus, there is a need for adequate planning for financial resources.
It is necessary to consider the high frequency of orders to ensure a consistent stock of products. This idea proves that the only way to scale a distribution business is to retain customers while simultaneously acquiring customers, which is possible only with accurate financial planning.
Unavailability of Products
The unavailability of products is enough to tarnish the reputation of any business or drive customers to another store. This minimizes sales and creates uncertainty among staff.
Since the pharma industry is a critical business segment and patient service is paramount, providing proper service is essential. Maintaining consistent availability of drug products is a reality of the pharma distribution chain.
According to a study, the loss of sales due to the non-availability of medicines is up to five percent. This can lead to a loss of 30 to 50 percent in revenue.
Thus, it is required that you have a system that lets you know about real-time stock availability. Also, it alerts you when your drug stock is getting out-of-stock or expired and when you need to replenish it.
Overstocking of drugs
Overstocking of drugs is also one of the big chaos in the wholesale pharma supply chain. If a pharma business owner has no planning of how much stock it needs, it may cause overstocking or understocking of pharma products. Both conditions will lead to trust break of customers and reason for big financial loss.
Not to forget that most drugs come with an expiry date. You will have a big business loss if you overstock drug items and cannot sell them within their expiry date or return them to vendors. This definitely creates chaos in the supply chain that needs some immediate action.
Unavailability of tracking systems
Tracking sales, purchases, inventory, employees, customers, supply chain, and distribution is the biggest challenge of any business. When it’s a wholesale pharma business, tracking is even more important. And this becomes mandatory when you are new to the business.
Thus, you must have a system that tracks everything in your pharma business. This will give you a real-time visualization of your business. This will develop trust with your customers, and you will be able to ensure timely medicine delivery and billing to the customer.
Unsafe Storage of Pharmaceuticals
Medical equipment and medicines in the wholesale pharma business require proper storage. Unsafe storage or poor storage leads to a deterioration in the quality of medicines.
When the chemical loses its effect, it becomes useless. It definitely damages the pharma business. Patients/business owners blame the manufacturers, although it was the fault of the warehousing.
Thus, by proper management of medicines, you can avoid this challenge. Thus, a significant amount of wastage can be prevented by introducing quality warehousing.
What should you do to overcome these challenges?
A Pharma software solution can help the wholesale pharma business to overcome these above-mentioned pharma challenges.
In this fast paced world, a technological switch and adoption is required that stops the manual entry errors and optimize your business as per your requirement.
A wholesale pharma software-
- Takes care of the business cost till the last mile.
- It ensures that the medicines are taken to the patients quickly.
- Comes with an advanced ERP solution, which keeps a close eye on the products.
- It makes it easy to cancel any faulty shipments.
- The distribution channel of your business gets strengthened.
Along with these benefits, Pharma Wholesale Software also manages your inventory, sales, purchases, and customers with its robust reporting, analysis, billing, and delivery solutions.
Importance of RetailGraph wholesale pharma software solution
One of the most difficult issues facing any pharmaceutical company is adhering to legal norms and regulations while focusing on profit and competition.
RetailGraph or Pharmaceuticals ensures the visibility of drugs and the supply chain right from the time of drug purchase until the drug is in the hands of a patient.
It consists of Pharma billing software capability that ensures quick delivery with multiple payment options. It aids in the reduction of compliance costs, the management of a secure pharmaceutical supply chain, and the enhancement of patient safety.
The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the process of contact-less access to drugs. SWIL Pharma Solutions offer B2B/B2C business applications. It is a platform where patients/business owners receive their orders quickly.
Or, you could say that the system provides relief and opportunities for faster access to vital medicine.
Wrapping Up
Pharma Software gives you the whole supply chain visibility. It gives you the power and understanding to manage, control and review business service quality and compliance within your business processes.
As such, the value of Pharma management software in improving the profitability, reputation and productivity of your business should not be underestimated.
Thus, if you are interested in starting your own wholesale pharma business, you need to look at this blog. The blog gives you an idea to start a pharma business as well as choose the right software to manage your business smartly.
You can contact our team for further assistance. The team will do everything possible to help you. Also, SWIL India offers wholesale pharma software free download plans for 45 days. This gives each business owner a more detailed view of the software utility.
