Expense Reduction Analysts (ERA) has helped Chile's leading distributor of pharmaceutical products Pharma Investi to achieve major savings in key areas such as deliveries and packaging.
With 120 employees and an annual turnover of US$15.9 million, Pharma Investi is part of the Roemmers Group which produces a wide range of cardiology, paediatric and specialist clinical products.
Sustaining savings over time
ERA has helped the company make a saving of more than US$107,600 in three key business expenditure areas; the equivalent of the company's total annual outlay on compulsory staff health insurance.
"After one year of work with ERA, we have been able to obtain savings in some areas where we previously thought there was no room for cost reduction," says Pharma Investi CEO Gonzalo Calvo. "ERA has shown us how to achieve savings and most importantly, how to sustain these savings over time."
Delivery costs cut "The biggest saving was made in delivery costs, with costs being cut by 49 per cent," says ERA Latin America managing director Bernardo Fainçaig. "The reduction was made possible by entrusting the air delivery of medical products to different parts of the country to one single supplier and negotiating more beneficial rates. ERA was also able to obtain prices based only on weight and secured special rates for packages weighing under three kilos, which make up almost 7o per cent of total deliveries."
Massive savings were also made on packaging by grouping products to minimise the total requirements of paper and cardboard and optimising the use of different materials to make the boxes. This helped Pharma Investi to reduce its packaging costs by 34 per cent.
On office cleaning, ERA changed internal procedures and working layouts to optimise the use of labour and materials, while maintaining the standard of service. Switching to more efficient cleaning practices resulted in a 13 per cent saving for Pharma Investi.
21-Aug-2007