Technology as a B2B facilitator in the Pharmaceutical Market



Telmo has a degree in JAVA distributed systems programming currently…
What does B2B stand for?
B2B is the acronym for the expression “business to business”. The term is used to define the offer of products and services between two companies, thus referring to the business dynamics in companies whose main or only customers are other companies.
In the case of the pharmaceutical industry, B2B is linked to a platform that aims to connect all companies in this market in a single solution, allowing the connection of all the sector’s Stakeholders.
What are the characteristics of the B2B model in the pharmaceutical market?
Despite not being visible to the public, like traditional retail, the B2B business is quite common, tending to move significantly larger amounts of money than the B2C business — the so-called business to consumer.
However, this can also be a more difficult target audience to reach and captivate. Marketing initiatives in B2B, for example, will be totally different from the type of marketing applied in B2C businesses. This is because the decision-making process goes through more than one person/entity making the act of closing a deal more complex and slower.
On the other hand, research indicates that the business relationship in the B2B market tends to be more lasting than in B2C relationships.
B2B in the pharmaceutical market is no exception, and thus, it has been focusing on the development of a platform that centralizes all the operations involved in the logistics of the pharmaceutical product in a single tool, providing the means to:
- Control and monitor the product during the various stages of distribution;
- Create operational reports based on placed orders;
- Obtain purchase and sales recommendations based on product history and market evolution;
- Increase market visibility and transparency, leading to the creation of new commercial relationships and growth in the national market;
- Optimize costs in business transactions.
The approach to achieving these mentioned goals involves defining a solution that is capable of:
- Operating with the Pharmaceutical Marketplace by promoting commercial relationships, providing greater efficiency to all those involved in the pharmaceutical market;
- Allowing Pharmacies to find all their suppliers on a single platform, integrated into their management software;
- Improve business performance assessment;
- Reach all industry stakeholders, including Pharmacy Groups, by diversifying the offer, complementing the current one and creating value;
- Define the standard communication protocol of the drug circuit;
- Provide a marketing and communication tool for direct contact with Pharmacies;
- Provide a single supply platform that covers all the needs of Pharmacies;
- Automate the product circuit;
- Serve as a source of information, allowing the generation of new data for market characterization studies, trends and the relationship between stakeholders.
What are the types of B2B companies and how does technology contribute to their cooperation?
Currently, regarding the pharmaceutical market, B2B companies will have another company as their target audience, which in turn will deal with the final consumer/individual. The intervening companies would be:
- Wholesalers – responsible for the wholesale distribution of pharmaceutical products;
- Pre-Wholesale – entities to whom laboratories outsource their logistical and storage activities, usually having the storekeepers as the final consumer;
- Companies associated with the ANF group, such as HMR – Health Market Research, which is responsible for promoting the service to customers.
The figure below represents the forms of interaction between the types of entities and B2B.

This image offers an overview of the integration solution between systems that is carried out through the exchange of messages and through operations made available in the form of WEB services, translating into the concrete model of the B2B solution. This information is shared through a web interface, which allows any of the entities to track this communication.
Technology can thus play an aggregating role in B2B relationships in the pharmaceutical market, ensuring the integration of the different phases of the purchase and sale process and enabling an optimization of communication between the various stakeholders. Cooperation between companies becomes easier and the relationships become more transparent and efficient.
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Telmo has a degree in JAVA distributed systems programming currently dedicating himself to B2B Operations and Production Control. When away from the computer, he loves nature, sports and reading. He is also a physiotherapy assistant and a masseuse by profession, an area he practices in his spare time!