Central Laboratory Market Procurement Intelligence Report

A changing ecosystem within the Clinical and Medical Support Services market also affects the procurement process, cost dynamics and supplier attractiveness for the buyers of Central Laboratory. New locations and vendors are emerging as cost effective suppliers of Central Laboratory, offering an opportunity to widen the supplier base and gain further negotiation leverage with incumbent suppliers.

Despite increasing costs on almost all fronts, suppliers are resisting a drastic price increase due to intense competition where market players are willing to increase their market share at the cost of profitability. Therefore, buyers can expect pricing status quo in most cases, or only negligible to marginal price increases in some cases.

Over the years, regional boundaries have blurred as suppliers foray into different continents, increase their capital expenditure and spend on cross-border M&A initiatives. The deployment of geographic diversification strategies through such consolidation initiatives has enabled the large suppliers to improve their performance and expand their business footprint.

Sometimes, procurement functions are unable to timely alter their practices while responding to market conditions. Industry experts acknowledge that periodically reviewing procurement best practices and adopting learnings from across procurement categories can help procurement teams respond to market needs in a more agile way. This report combines our experience of other categories with Central Laboratory procurement insights and hand picks best practices that can work for category managers delving in this market.

For example, Category buyers should invite bids from all potential service providers that have the ability to meet the overall requirements. Bids must be evaluated based on pre-defined parameters such as financial strength, reputation, offerings, geographical presence, and track record. Buyers can use standard scorecards to evaluate service providers and provide necessary feedback to rationalize the given scores. This helps in the effective documentation of decision-making processes.

It is important for category managers to track and measure the performance of suppliers against a set of defined KPIs that are agreed upon during the contract negotiation phase. The performance of suppliers can also be linked to a portion of their fee that can be paid upon rendering of services in a satisfactory manner.

Category managers must ensure that they have clearly identified and listed down potential negotiation levers to maximize the value of their category spend before entering into contract-related discussions with service providers. Common negotiation levers to maximize value include deadlines, terms related to payments, (including fees, expenses, and payment timelines) and assistance required from the buyer's organization.

Central Laboratory procurement managers also need to proactively identify and mitigate potential risks that can arise in the supply chain or contracts for Central Laboratory procurement. Some examples include: