Pharmaoverseas: Traversing complex finance and logistics workloads through the transformative potential of AI
How AI capability unlocked a new era of efficiency
Fast-growing pharmaceutical distributor Pharmaoverseas tackled growth-related operational challenges with SAP Business AI. The Joule capability now proactively assists employees who use the company’s ecosystem of SAP solutions, helping automate processes, enhance cash-flow management, and reduce inventory holding costs while generating real-time insights for decision-making.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| Wholesale distribution | Cairo, Egypt | 3,500 employees | Phoenix Consulting and Information |
reduction in excess inventory holding costs.
faster reporting.
Applications Manager, Pharmaoverseas
Maximizing automation and insights to meet rising healthcare demands
Pharmaoverseas is one of Egypt’s largest and fastest-growing pharmaceutical distribution companies, playing a vital role in the supply chain by storing and distributing over 13,000 pharmaceutical and healthcare products. Founded in 1995, the company operates a network of 44 branches, 5 major stores, and more than 600 distribution vehicles.
Driven by substantial investments in technology to enhance its logistics, e-commerce, and data analytics capabilities, Pharmaoverseas is forging new growth by expanding its product offerings and market reach to meet increasing healthcare demands.
The company’s reliance on manual processes was slowing business momentum and hindering the sales cycle with inefficiencies, significant delays, and increased operational costs. There was a need to support faster order processing and real-time decision-making.
At the same time, operating without personalization capabilities and real-time insights impinged on its ability to attract new customer segments effectively. To get ahead, Pharmaoverseas needed to satisfy customers by providing tailored solutions and use data-driven insights to meet the diverse needs of its expanding customer base.
Adopting AI to automate complex workflows across business functions
To bolster its continued growth and expansion of product offerings and market reach, Pharmaoverseas sought a robust AI solution to simplify its mounting operational complexities. Specifically, it wanted to enable AI-assisted user experiences for managing new processes, enhancing customer personalization, and optimizing logistics, all while generating real-time insights to inform decision-making.
Deciding to take advantage of the SAP Business AI capability because it could be implemented quickly and would scale with the business, Pharmaoverseas joined forces with Egypt-based SAP gold partner Phoenix Consulting and Information. With extensive experience and a strong track record implementing the Joule copilot for similar use cases, Phoenix Consulting configured the capability to meet the company’s goals around automating manual processes and enhancing cash-flow management. The project involved transforming sales, finance, and logistics processes and automating complex workflows across these business functions, and in doing so, enhancing efficiency and decision-making.
Embracing AI to smooth operational complexities
Phoenix Consulting led the way for Pharmaoverseas to realize its vision for AI-assisted user experiences with SAP Business AI. In doing so, it has heightened efficiency and productivity through access to analytical insights and general workflow automation for users across its SAP solution ecosystem.
By configuring Joule for automated matching of purchase orders, invoices, and contracts, mismatches are automatically flagged, allowing the company to quickly identify and resolve discrepancies and helping improve cash-flow management.
Pharmaoverseas also used Joule to strengthen early delivery management. The Joule capability monitors lead times to identify early shipments that have the potential to disrupt inventory planning, enabling the company to make timely interventions that have reduced excess inventory holding costs by 5% to 10%.
In parallel, Joule has reduced the manual effort involved in creating sales documents by autogenerating sales orders and invoices based on historical data, product catalogs, and customer preferences. Not only has this accelerated order processing times, but it has also minimized errors, enhancing customer satisfaction.
Elsewhere, the company has used Joule to improve supplier tracking, inventory management, and various internal processes that have enhanced internal collaboration and communication, resulting in faster problem solving and innovation.
Unlocking further efficiencies using generative AI
Having already achieved efficiencies across the business, Pharmaoverseas is now looking to make use of Joule as an always-on assistant across both SAP and third-party software. The plan is to use the Joule capability to anticipate users’ needs, offer real-time recommendations and insights, and provide task support without explicit prompts.
Featured partner
Phoenix Consulting is a cloud system integrator with a team of business experts who have proven experience in the wholesale distribution industry in Egypt and significant expertise developing apps for SAP Business AI. In this project, Phoenix Consulting focused on developing and training generative AI models to meet the goals of Pharmaoverseas for automating manual processes and enhancing cash-flow management.