Part Two
The Operational Maturity Gap
When asked to describe their current operating model, 42% of respondents characterised their organisations as having governed execution across key lanes.
Meanwhile, 39% described themselves as integrated and risk-based. The findings suggest that the industry has moved beyond informal and reactive execution. Structured governance, visibility, and transport risk management capabilities are becoming increasingly established across pharmaceutical supply chains.
More advanced capabilities remain far less common. Only 8% considered their organisations predictive and continuously improving.
This points to an industry that has not yet reached a stage where data consistently drives faster decisions, preventive action, or continuous improvement.
The gap is most visible in the moments where operational maturity matters most: planning under uncertainty, coordinating with partners, adapting when disruption occurs, and releasing product after an excursion.
Q: Which statement best describes your organization’s current pharma supply chain operating model?
Q: How are Lane Risk Assessments (LRAs) created and maintained? (Hover for details)
Reported optimizing routing, supplier selection, packaging strategy and investment decisions. See the full results here
Planning
Planning maturity has improved significantly.
Nearly half of respondents (46%) reported continuously updating lane risk assessments using shipment performance data.
However, predictive optimization remains rare. Only 9% reported continuously optimizing routing, supplier selection, packaging strategy, and investment decisions using quantified risk and performance data.
Most organizations are becoming better at understanding risk. Few are consistently using that information to optimize decisions before shipment.
Collaboration
Shared visibility is becoming increasingly common across pharmaceutical supply chains.
More than half of respondents (54%) reported operating with shared dashboards across logistics partners. Yet only 20% reported shared workflows and integrated partner data environments.
Just 3% described their organizations as operating through network-based collaboration supported by shared standards.
The distinction is important. Shared information is becoming established. Shared ways of working remain far less common. This was reinforced by the open-ended responses, where respondents consistently described transport risk decisions as cross-functional processes involving multiple internal teams and external partners.
"Digital connectivity across the pharmaceutical supply chain has become increasingly common, but true integration remains a work in progress. Achieving the next level of maturity will require organizations to move beyond dashboards toward seamlessly connected data, workflows, and decision-making processes. In an environment where responsiveness and resilience are critical, visibility alone is no longer sufficient. The greatest value will come from ecosystems that enable real-time collaboration, proactive risk management, and coordinated responses across organizational boundaries. Ultimately, the effectiveness of any digital supply chain will depend not only on the capabilities of individual organizations, but on the strength of the network as a whole.
Lou Lozanov Senior Director, Head of Supply Chain Center of Excellence Biocon Biologics
Q: How digitally aligned are you with logistics partners today?
Q: When disruption occurs how fast can your organization redesign and approve an alternative lane?
Execution
The largest maturity gap emerges when disruption occurs.
Only 3% of respondents reported being able to redesign and approve an alternative transport lane within 24 hours.
Most require between two and three days, while a quarter require even longer.
These findings suggest that intervention speed remains constrained by the time required to align quality, logistics, supply chain teams, and external partners around a decision.
Release
The release process highlights the same challenge.
60% of respondents reported requiring more than one week to release product following an excursion. Only 1% reported release cycles shorter than 72 hours.
More than 80% of respondents identified partner data collection and inconsistent documentation as the primary causes of delay.
Across planning, collaboration, execution, and release, the conclusion is consistent: data is improving faster than decision-making.
Q: How long does product disposition and release typically take after an excursion?
The Contradiction
The findings in this chapter reveal a clear contradiction. Pharmaceutical supply chains are becoming more connected, measurable and data-enabled. However, planning remains largely non-predictive, collaboration remains fragmented, interventions remain slow and recovery remains coordination-heavy.
Visibility has improved. The challenge now is converting visibility into action.
