8 Strategies to Reduce Costs and Extend Runway in Life Sciences

With IPO and VC funding tight and the economy unpredictable, life sciences startups are likely looking to trim operations to extend their runway. This eBook will address eight ways to trim operations and discuss how the right Total Spend Management platform can help analyze and prioritize spending in your organization. Discover how such a system and process can help life science companies thrive — not just survive — in a volatile market environment.

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In the current macroeconomic environment with rising costs, high inflation, increasing interest rates, and global market uncertainty, one thing is clear — we’re going to be in choppy waters for a bit.

In this eBook, learn why building a resilient organization is key to navigating current and future disruptions, as well as:

How to get ahead of uncertainty with smart discipline rather than broad clampdowns
Why visibility and control via digital capabilities will be your friends to guide you along a path to resilience
How to emerge from this environment in a strong position for growth.

Download this eBook to learn how total spend management provides a holistic, unified view of all your company’s spend and the ability to make decisions on that spend quickly.

Total spend management gives you multiple levers to pull when it comes to cost containment, such as:

Providing visibility and control over your spend and cash
Optimizing to both reduce risk and boost sustainability
Increasing business agility to invest at the right time.

An investment in a comprehensive platform pays off quickly, so you’re set up with advanced capabilities when you need them the most — during the next disruption, not after it’s already passed.

“Coupa’s platform provides multiple layers of automation. From automating the majority of the supplier onboarding process through the entry and approval of invoices, the Coupa platform provides the ability to increase efficiencies for both procurement and finance teams.”

-Karen Soligon, Director of Technology, Sikich

FAQ

What are the 8 strategies to reduce costs and extent the runway in Life Sciences?

The 8 strategies to reduce costs and extent the runway in Life Sciences are:

Improve spend visibility to identify low-impact areas that can be cut.
Implement the spend controls to stop unnecessary outgoing spend.
Negotiate tail spend.
Fix and streamline the financial approval processes.
Drive digital adoption with suppliers.
Streamline and optimize the payments process.
Mitigate supplier risk.
Maximize the productivity of your workforce.

Download this eBook to discover how investing in Business Spend Management to empower cost containment pays off quickly.

What are the indicators that your approval chain is inefficient or ineffective?

In order to determine whether or not your approval chain is inefficient or ineffective, be on the lookout for these scenarios:

Too many approvers in a given chain. Late-stage approvers almost always rely on approvals that have already been completed, and they rarely reject. But these pointless steps slow things down and those delays work against getting more of your spend preapproved in the first place.
Very low rejection rates. These mean that the approvals are pointless. Those approvers should be reassigned as “watchers.”

If you’re working with manual systems or point solutions (or both), it can be tedious to revise approval processes to change your approval matrix and approvers for each category and spend amount. And it might take multiple rounds to perfect your setup — until it needs to change again.

Download this eBook to learn more about connecting your spend processes in order to take multiple actions at once in a coordinated way.