West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc., a global leader in innovative solutions for injectable drug administration, has announced the official opening of its warehousing operations in Chennai, India.

The warehouse in Sriperumbudur Chennai will serve customers within the Indian market and is integral to West's ongoing efforts to enhance the customer experience through shorter lead time and improved trading process.

“Our pharmaceutical customers value speed and efficiency to facilitate their work developing solutions for patients,” said Alagu Subramaniam, Managing Director, West Pharmaceutical Services, India.

“With the opening of our warehouse in Chennai, the delivery time will be reduced to one week for the most ordered SKUs in India. Previously, depending on the SKU and the region from which it was being ordered, delivery could take anywhere from five to 16 weeks. There will be significant time saved for our customers with the new warehouse, which will make it even easier for them to do business with West”, he added.

The warehouse is expected to reduce lead time for SKU deliveries significantly for existing and potential customers. To determine the SKUs with which to begin operations, the West India team has evaluated more than 500 SKUs being ordered from different geographies, such as Singapore, the United States, and the European Union. 

The warehouse will initially stock a small number of the top SKUs being ordered by customers from these regions and will expand to offer more SKUs by the end of 2020.

“West now offers delivery of orders to anywhere in India to its customers. Having a strong logistic partner enables us to take care of last-mile connectivity, which will allow customers located in remote areas of the country to now order from us”, added Alagu.

Elaborating on the role he expects the warehouse to play in the India operations, Alagu said, “In today’s environment, an enhanced customer experience is paramount. With the ability to stock locally, and the addition of more SKUs every quarter, we expect to be able to service almost all of our customers in India through the warehouse by the end of the year.”