How Procurement Flow helps Frontier Scientific achieve better results for their global procurement customers

‍Frontier Scientific is the leading contract research organization that provides outsourced compound management services to Research and Development organizations worldwide, from startups to big pharma. They help pharma companies streamline drug discovery and by that, reduce time to market, internal costs, and resource requirements. Their services include materials management, sample processing, analytical services, and global procurement.

Challenge: using spreadsheets affected the outcome and quality of their global procurement service  

As mentioned, one of the services Frontier Scientific offers is global procurement. They handle the time-consuming and resource-intensive process of sample acquisition. They take a list of compound identifiers/structures and source these items at specified quantities from reliable suppliers. This includes: 

• Worldwide compound sourcing
• Maintaining, resupplying, and enhancing collections
• Aggregation and inventory integration

‍

Purchased samples are aggregated by Frontier, transferred into a client-specified format, and sent directly to the researcher with data files and status reports. Frontier purchases anything from vials and microplates to caps, seals, and labels annually from its reliable supply network. By leveraging this purchasing power, they can provide significant cost savings to their clients. 

‍

Before Procurement Flow, their procurement tasks were managed in an old-fashioned way. They used Excel spreadsheets to track requests, orders, and their fulfillment. Manually managing procurement was very labor intense and started to impede their ability to obtain the best possible outcomes for their customers. 

‍

Solution: Procurement Flow Purchase Requisition Management Software

When Frontier Scientific started looking for a procurement solution they had 4 main criteria in mind: 

• quick and easy implementation, 
• that it covers the majority of their common procurement activities, 
• room for enhancement (in multiple phases), 
• good integration/communication with their other internal systems (Accounting, Registration/Receiving etc.)

‍

Procurement Flow purchase requisition software checked all those boxes and when Frontier Scientific decided to give it a try, the implementation process was fairly smooth and quick. “Procurement Flow support team has always been really responsive and supportive,” notes Tommie Zhao, the Director of Procurement at Frontier Scientific. 

‍

With purchase requisition software: 

• Sending requests is easy for requesters, 
• Every request is automatically registered and no request goes unattended, 
• It’s easy to get an overview of all the requests and keep eye on the progress (or lack thereof), 
• All in all, the streamlined process saves the procurement team time and effort. 

‍

The solution was well received by the team and today they use it for all their procurement operations from collecting purchasing needs to issuing purchasing orders. 

Results: fewer errors

• Less basic human errors 
• Better outcomes and prices for their customers 
• Procurement is simple, fast, and automated 

‍

Procurement Flow helped simplify and automate Frontier Scientific’s day-to-day procurement operations.

‍“We are happy with most of its features but what was the biggest positive surprise, is the easy-to-use interface. Overall, using procurement software reduces the number of errors, saves our time, and helps us achieve the best possible results for our customers,” describes their procurement team. 

‍

All in all, Frontier Scientific recommends Procurement Flow to any company still using Excel or another manual system to manage their procurement operations: “Procurement Flow helps streamline and follow the procurement process, reduces the number of exceptions to this process, and makes sure your company achieves the best result possible in their procurement.”

‍