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Learn more about how BM&C led efforts to understand the implications and impact COVID-19 has had to our vendors and to determine if decision-making data would be impacted
Vendors play an important role in support of our molecule projects across our clinical trials. During the rapidly-evolving COVID-19 situation earlier in the year, a group of operational outsourcing representatives, from Development Sciences, Product Development, and Global Procurement, met to understand the implication and impact the global pandemic has to our vendors, specifically within the biomarker category. Our focus was to ensure that the data generated by our vendors, which is leveraged in decision making for clinical trials, would not be impacted.
The meeting and discussions were led by the Business Management and Communication (BM&C) team in close partnership with key functions focused with the goal to:
1. Understand the business continuity plans (BCPs) of our vendors and impact to our trials,
2. Understand what was already covered in the different areas of the business related to vendors and BCPs,
3. How to best align on approach and streamline our efforts,
4. Determine and create communication channels to ensure the exchange of critical information on the business continuity at the vendors including potential risk mitigation strategies are shared internally pan-Roche.
The global biomarker category managers within the Procurement organization had already undertaken efforts to understand the state of BCPs and risks related to Covid-19 with preferred vendors. However, in addition to preferred vendors, a large portion of our outsourcing efforts are with non-preferred vendors. To ensure that teams and organizations are informed of any potential issues and/or delays with non-preferred vendors generating critical deliverables and decision enabling data (Tier 1), the Strategic Outsourcing, Collaborations and Insights (SoEI) team within BM&C, worked closely with functions to identify a list of Tier 1 vendors in this space.
A total of 31 vendors were identified by teams/functions within the Tier 1 category to understand their approach to their respective BCPs through targeted questions. Vendor responses were captured through standardized tools and processes developed by the SoEI team and scored to quickly identify gaps needing attention/support for vendors within the high-risk (red) category. A list and summary of the responses from these Tier 1 vendors were shared internally and can be found within the following dashboard (LINK). The team will continue to re-assess the current state of BCPs of these vendors within the ongoing global Covid-19 situation (including financial impact) and where applicable work with impacted project teams/stakeholders to mitigate potential risks related to vendor and data deliverables.
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