State of Life Sciences Suppliers in 2022
In the summer of 2020, Proximo conducted research on the Pandemic Impact on small and #diverse suppliers to the life sciences industry. At the end of 2022, a full 2 ½ years into COVID, we decided to revisit this topic to see what lingering effects COVID has had on these same suppliers. Proximo partnered with our colleagues at Southpaw Insights to conduct a survey and interviews with suppliers.
In short, 55% of small and diverse suppliers are still facing challenges, but this is down from 93% in June of 2020. Supply chain disruptions and the ability to hire staff are the most cited challenges today – as they were in 2020, but then cash flow was by far the single biggest challenge. This is a positive change, as cash flow is all-important to most small businesses.
Similarly, 56% of suppliers today negative pandemic impacts on customer relationships, but this is down from 68% in 2020. Then the problems are largely focused on canceled orders and delayed payments, whereas today it is how sales teams manage a virtual and in-person presence and pricing.
The high ranking of pricing concerns made us also ask about the impact of inflation, which is itself due in part to the pandemic. 74% of suppliers said inflation was impacting them somewhat or very much, which was causing them to balance increasing expenses and lower margins against customer price points.
Below is a visual summary of our findings as well as a downloadable one-page PDF.
For more information, please contact us at info@proximo.com.