Category: Logistics/SupplyChain

UPS to Acquire Multinational Healthcare Logistics Provider Bomi Group

UPS (NYSE: UPS) today announced plans to acquire Bomi Group, an industry-leading multinational healthcare logistics provider. The transaction will add temperature-controlled facilities in 14 countries and nearly 3,000 highly-skilled Bomi Group team members to the UPS Healthcare network in Europe and Latin America.

“As a leading global healthcare logistics company, Bomi enhances our portfolio of services and accelerates our journey to become the number one provider of complex healthcare logistics,” said EVP and President of UPS International, Healthcare and Supply Chain Solutions Kate Gutmann. “UPS Healthcare and Bomi Group employees share similar values and our cultures are firmly rooted in a relentless focus on quality. The combination of our two teams will significantly improve our healthcare customers’ ability to continue to develop and deliver life-saving innovations.”

Since 1985, Bomi Group has provided high value-added services for the Medtech and Pharma sectors with a customized and tailored approach. It is a quality-focused company devoted to healthcare that has built solid and long-lasting business relationships with more than 150 multinational customers worldwide.

Key Bomi Group leaders, including CEO Marco Ruini, will continue in their roles to provide seamless service to Bomi Group customers after the transaction closes. Bomi Group’s employees will also continue to play vital roles in the combined organization.

“With over 35 years in the healthcare logistics industry, our team has developed best-in-class services designed to meet and exceed the needs of our medical technology and pharmaceutical customers,” said Ruini. “Joining the UPS team will expand those capabilities and create an even more integrated and smart global network for our customers.” 

The acquisition will add more than 350 temperature-controlled vehicles and four million square feet (391k m2) to the UPS Healthcare global footprint, offering customers access to faster shipping times, greater production flexibility, and offerings to help them attract new business. The acquisition will play a key role in the delivery of next-generation pharmaceutical and biologic treatments that increasingly require time-critical and temperature-sensitive logistics.

“We are focused on building healthcare logistics capabilities and services that allow our customers to deliver the newest healthcare innovations,” said UPS Healthcare President Wes Wheeler. “We are excited to combine Bomi’s talent, expertise and capabilities with UPS Healthcare – together, we will provide unmatched solutions to our customers, powered by UPS’s integrated, global smart logistics network.”

The acquisition of Bomi is part of UPS Healthcare’s continued expansion of its network and services to meet growing demand – including Bomi, UPS Healthcare has doubled its global footprint since 2020. Recent expansions include newly constructed and soon-to-be-opened dedicated state-of-the-art healthcare logistics facilities in Germany and Australia, and expanded campuses in Hungary and the Netherlands.

UPS Healthcare also recently enhanced UPS Premier, a technology-led service that can prioritize and track critical shipments within 10 feet (about 3 meters) of their location anywhere in UPS’s global network. UPS Premier brings worldwide visibility, control, reliability and product recovery capabilities to UPS Healthcare customers.

These expansions and new services meet the complex and varied needs of UPS Healthcare’s customers, helping them turn logistics into a competitive advantage.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of the year, subject to customary regulatory review and approval. The value and terms of the transaction are not being disclosed at this time. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC served as the financial advisor to UPS.

For more information about UPS Healthcare’s innovations and customer-driven solutions, visit Healthcare.ups.com and about.ups.com.

UPS Healthcare Revolutionises Prioritised Shipping with Enhancements

UPS Healthcare today announced a market expansion and the next generation in the UPS® Premier product line. The UPS® Premier service portfolio provides unique flexibility to meet healthcare customers’ unique needs. The expansion will see the service become available in Ireland this year.

UPS Premier monitors packages at all times, creating visibility and prioritisation for each shipment. In addition, sensor technology enables real-time recovery of UPS Premier shipments if they encounter network delays, temperature deviations, or other issues.

UPS® Premier Silver and Gold are now available in major markets around the world. UPS® Premier Platinum adds the ability to monitor temperature, light and humidity while tracking shipments in and out of the UPS network.

“The expansion and enhancement of UPS Premier supports the complex needs of our laboratory, medical and pharmaceutical customers around the world,” said EVP and President International, Healthcare and Supply Chain Solutions Kate Gutmann. “Whether efficiently moving healthcare products between countries, maintaining negative 80-degree temperatures or locating life-saving shipments with precision, UPS Premier provides industry-leading visibility, control, reliability and recovery.”

This specialised service connects major global trade lanes and is now expanding geographically. These new offerings provide customers even more benefits, including efficient customs brokerage, environmental monitoring, and visibility to meet the challenges of global healthcare logistics leaders.

“Visibility and traceability are essential to prioritizing the life-saving medications our customers ship and their customers need,” said UPS Healthcare President Wes Wheeler. “The difference between life and death for patients often hinges on the ability to quickly ship and precisely track, monitor and locate medications.”

Innovations in biologics, specialty pharmaceuticals, and medications genetically personalized for each patient’s needs are driving significant demand for precision logistics to support more patient-critical, time and temperature-sensitive products.

The global market for biologic therapeutic drugs is set to increase from $285.5 billion in 2020 to $421.8 billion by 2025. [1] UPS Healthcare has added these new UPS Premier capabilities to support the complex needs of this growing market.

For more information on UPS Healthcare’s innovations and customer-driven solutions, visit Healthcare.ups.com and about.ups.com.

Large enterprises, forced to innovate by supply chain disruption, see costs and complexity ramp up

Two-thirds (66%) of large enterprises globally say they are keeping more stock on hand now compared to the pre-pandemic period, with nearly one in five in total (18%) retaining ‘significantly more’ stock. This growing focus on taking innovative measures to address supply chain disruption is highlighted in new research commissioned by IFS, polling over 1,450 senior decision-makers at large enterprises across France, Germany, Nordics, USA, the UK and the UAE.

Further highlighting the impact of supply chain disruption, seven out of ten respondents polled for the survey (70%) said they had increased the number of suppliers of materials/products they use in response to recent supply chain issues. Moreover, nearly three-quarters (72%) of the survey sample claimed to have grown the proportion of materials/products they source from domestic suppliers as a result of these issues.

Together, these innovative measures are also likely to add more complexity and waste into the supply chain, at a time when increased regulatory burdens (highlighted by 15% as a primary contributor to their current business disruption) and the  need to tap into the many benefits of the circular economy is making supply chain management more complex. In line with this, it is positive that 93% of respondents said their organization was either embracing the circular economy today or planning to in the future.

However, many are facing challenges in terms of delivering on their goals, with around 60% of those saying they are in the process; still developing objectives; yet to plan programs; or have their objectives on hold. Even among those respondents already embracing the circular economy, 23% felt their customers’ circularity expectations were either having no impact on the customer experience or were detrimental to it, although over time the benefits of circularity in delivering a better customer experience are likely to become ever clearer.

So far, as the survey indicates, many large enterprises have re-engineered their supply chain in innovative ways to reduce the risk of this disruption. These include: onshoring to improve security of supply; keeping more stock on hand to make certain they can always meet demand and increasing the number of suppliers they use to eliminate any chance of disappointing customers.

Maggie Slowik, Global Industry Director for Manufacturing at IFS, said: “Large businesses are likely to incur much higher costs and other negative financial impacts because of the measures they are taking to mitigate disruption. Onshoring the supply chain will often lead to having to invest in more expensive raw materials or product components, especially as inflation ramps up, while keeping stock on hand will tie up significant sums that could otherwise be ‘working’ for the business.”

Despite the far-reaching benefits of the circular economy, the need to embrace it is nevertheless a source of disruption for many large enterprises – especially if their equipment and processes are not set up to deal with waste reduction and the re-use and recycling of materials. That’s particularly the case when you factor in the other macro-economic disruption that businesses are continuing to face from COVID-19 to the war in Ukraine.

At the same time, the survey reveals many large businesses are suffering from talent shortages. 65% of respondents say their organizations are finding it challenging to fill open roles, (with a lack of qualified applicants and skilled talent being the most prevalent reasons why), and 39% think disruption relating skills shortages within their organization will last beyond the end of 2022.

According to Slowik: “Businesses urgently need to find a solution that can help them to manage this disruption, which with price volatility is escalating ever further, transition to a circular economy and address the supply chain complexities we are dealing with today. To do this, especially when skills are in short supply, they will ultimately need to invest in technology that delivers the agility and fast time to insight that they need to better forecast demand. By addressing it now efficiently and cost-effectively, they will put themselves in a great position to not only survive but also thrive long into the future.”