Read the case study provided and answer the following questions.

PLAYING THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: SUPPLY CHAIN LESSONS FROM CONSUMER GOODS COMPANIES

Pharma executives need to place more value on supply chain excellence and reconsider the way their supply chains are managed. The best way for pharmacos to get up to date on global best practices is to understand how supply chain champions in other industries smuntanecusly deliver superior performance in cost$,$ service levels, and capital eflectiveness The value at stake is signficant$-$in consumer goods, for example, supply chain champions achieve on average $4$ percent higher EBIT than their peers

For decades now, executives in the pharmaceutical indusiry have not viewed supply chain management as especially important. Their indifference appeared to be warranted: high gross margins justified buiding enormous inventories and did littic to encoutage management to think about holistic approaches to the supply chain. But that was then. Today, the pressures on the pharmbceutical sector mean that traditional industry mindsets about the value of modern supply chain management proctios have to change$-$and quickly. For a start, phamas that inlend to grow in emerging markets will have to apply different supply chain models to be successtul. What works to datribule products to consumers in Germany or Japan will not be anywhere as rear as effective in rurai China. At t te same time, demand is becoming more diverse; tender markets, for example, increasingly require enormous flexbity in capacity and supply. Ousity issues are also driving the need for manage's to be accourtable for ther suppl; chain practices As concerns about drug quaity besome big newsratting consumet comdence and rasing repuators' hackles $-$ there are more and more calls for among other things better traceability of batches across the full chain. furthermore, efficiency programs have yielded results on cost and inventory across key parts of the value chain, but not necessarily to the bottom line. with reference to the pharmaceutical sector, examine some of the emerging practices that supply chhan practitioners have adopted in response to the challenges they have been exposed to$.$