Partnership spotlight: How OrderInsite and AmerisourceBergen are making inventory management easier for pharmacies

As our customers’ trusted industry partner, AmerisourceBergen shares valuable solutions and services that may not be available directly from us, but can meet our customers’ needs and keep their business a best-in-class pharmacy in their community.  

AmerisourceBergen's partnership with OrderInsite gives retail pharmacies invaluable tools for managing their prescription drug inventory and gaining market insights, all while still fulfilling their patients' needs.

We talked with leaders from both AmerisourceBergen and OrderInsite to learn how this partnership helps pharmacies thrive.

Q: Why did AmerisourceBergen and OrderInsite launch this partnership?

George Rafferty, President, Corporate Partnerships at AmerisourceBergen:  We have a team within our Corporate Partnerships segment, Strategic Solutions, that is tasked with identifying, designing, and launching new solutions. It’s our mission to bring valuable solutions to our customers that drive results, even if it’s not something we’ve built on our own. 

Our relationship with OrderInsite spans more than five years. During that time, we’ve heard glowing reviews directly from our customers. Not only is customer service a top priority, but the customization element of OrderInsite means that this is a solution that can be molded to fit the unique needs of each pharmacy. We serve a broad array of customers, and no one pharmacy is the same. OrderInsite can understand what the customer's needs are and build an inventory solution that really meets that need.

The high regard from our customers and customizable features to fit each pharmacy have been a great reason for us to continue to partner with them.

George Lazenby, CEO & Co-Founder of OrderInsite: At the end of the day, a healthy pharmacy is a healthy customer. What I really enjoyed about the partnership from the beginning is the way that AmerisourceBergen has embraced this. We share those same customer-centric values.

Q: How do AmerisourceBergen and OrderInsite work together to provide unique inventory management tools for pharmacies?

George Lazenby: Our software has tools and capabilities that run automatically and allow our customers to optimize their prescription drug inventory to demand. In order to do that properly, we need information from the customer and their software systems, but we also need information from the supplier.

The great thing about our relationship with AmerisourceBergen is the depth of information we get from them, whether that be in the EDI responses, from an ordering perspective, or the deep integration we have on returns.

George Rafferty: The scalability and ease with which OrderInsite has been able to integrate into our customers' world have been seamless. And as they've expanded beyond the independent retail space, you can see that the platform they've built really works across multiple different customers. They've been able to adapt and fit into our customers' world, which is terrific for our pharmacies.

Q: Out of all the ways OrderInsite can help pharmacies, what are you most excited about?

George Rafferty: Our customers are challenged each day with balancing a business and best serving patients. One of the things that all of our pharmacies are trying to figure out is how they can better manage inventory to make sure their customers are never without a product. There's nothing worse for a dispensing pharmacy than not having a product available when the customer shows up to get the prescription. Optimizing inventory and making sure the right product is there at the right time is critical for us and for our customers.

Additionally, the technology OrderInsite has built helps customers with the overall financial decisions that come with running a business. OrderInsite has the capability to build in elements of a customer’s rebate structure to ensure they’re always maximizing value while best serving their patients.

Giving at-a-glance access to make informed decisions provides an overall better experience for our customers, which is AmerisourceBergen’s top priority. 

Q: Can you share a tangible way that your partnership is committed to helping pharmacies?

George Lazenby: Suppliers benefit the most if pharmacy customers don't return prescription drugs. Some of the suppliers we deal with outside of AmerisourceBergen are reluctant to work with us on a better returns process for the customer. But AmerisourceBergen doesn't run their business that way. We have a direct integration between our software and AmerisourceBergen’s returns process. We worked together to make the complicated returns process easy for the pharmacies, even if it might be at a slight disadvantage to AmerisourceBergen.

When you do things to help pharmacies out, even if it might not be to your advantage, they take note of that. Retail pharmacy is under a tremendous amount of pressure from a margin perspective. AmericsourceBergen never hesitates to integrate with us in a way that allows us to help pharmacies run their businesses better.

George Rafferty: We truly care about the problems our customers want to solve. And then we work with our partners to find the best way to solve them, whether it financially benefits us or not.

Q: How does AmerisourceBergen stand out from other suppliers?

George Lazenby: I deal with all the major suppliers, and AmerisourceBergen is by far the most committed to helping their customers understand what solutions are out there to help them run their businesses better. What you expect from OrderInsite is that our company makes our collective customer — the pharmacy — a healthier business. In the end, that's going to be better for all of us in the long run. And that's been a real commitment from the beginning, from our very first customer.