In this morning’s Pharmaceutical/Healthcare Transformation breakout session, Reema Alzoubi, a Manager in Pfizer’s Worldwide Procurement group, discussed some interesting cultural challenges that they face internally and externally. Not too surprisingly, they found the solution on both fronts to be personal contact with their stakeholders.

Pfizer initially had a difficult time moving their European suppliers towards a more automated, electronic world. As Reema said, it seems that “overseas they like paper.” But rather than further exacerbating the problem with process mandates or allowing payments to float unpaid in a paper vs electronic void, they did something far too few people probably think of these days; they picked up the phone. Reema credits those personal contacts with a few key vendors overseas as helping to push others to comply since “everyone talks to everyone.” So as word spread, other suppliers came into compliance.

Internally, their process adoption and compliance issues stem from the vast perceived cultural divides between different groups. As Reema explained, “manufacturing thinks they’re so different from development and sales thinks they’re so different from manufacturing.” I’m not surprised one bit that folks in the lab think their sourcing and purchasing needs are totally different than front office operations. But it was impressive to hear that the procurement team (which often has a difficult time getting a seat at the table in pharmas) could sit people down, do a little hand holding and get them in line. It just goes to show that sometimes there’s no automated substitute for actual human to human conversations.

Justin Fogarty is Managing Editor of Supply Excellence and will be covering Ariba LIVE 2008 from Las Vegas this week. Any feedback or questions about the event or blog can be directed to Justin at jfogarty[at]ariba[dot]com.