Do Supply Chain Performance Influence Firm Profitability? A Predictive Approach in the Context of the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry

Abstract

The competitive nature of the pharmaceutical industry necessitates that its multifaceted supply-chain be cost-efficient and profitable. This paper aims to ascertain the critical supply-chain financial indicators influencing pharmaceutical-supply-chain (PSC) performance, revealing its unique features and assessing these indicators’ effect on profitability. This paper measures the PSC performance of 55 public-limited Indian pharmaceutical firms, including multinational enterprises, integrating supply-chain financial variables and SCOR KPIs through a ten-year timeline. The critical supply-chain-performance indicators (SCPIs) are identified from the measured set through factor analysis. A panel data random effect model is developed, linking these critical SCPIs and profitability to understand their significant influence on profitability. This paper has evidenced the existence of three critical SCPIs, revealing working capital efficiency, material flow efficiency and investment efficiency. It has also proved the significant influence of these SCPIs on firms’ profitability and has brought out the importance of material flow efficiency in terms of inventory and distribution efficiency as a leading contributing factor for profitability. This paper contributes to finding key PSC performance features and their vital role in pharmaceutical firms’ profitability. Supply-chain managers can enhance PSC’s specific performance areas to be cost-efficient and can increase the firm’s profitability.