Hey everyone! I just wanted to write you a quick note because lately this has been a hot topic. Blood centers are inquiring about engaging with Incept, in the event of an outage or disaster, to have us “on the ready”. For the few that have picked up the phone and called us, let’s be honest, they each had a major event (power outage, flood, phone system issue) that left them without the ability to call their donors for several days. So they called Incept to see if we could help.
The reality is, we can do what we can, but when you are amid dealing with a major disaster, setting up a brand-new vendor to make calls with virtually no lead time, is NOT ideal and the amount of time it would take for us to get up and running may be longer than your hardship.
Which brings me to a question that has come up recently; can a blood center go through the entire setup process just in case and the answer is YES! Absolutely.
Partnering with a backup center can do more for you than just give you peace of mind in the event of a major disaster. Having a backup center can also help you during seasonal times where you need a little extra support. A backup center can be a turn key solution if you should take on a new hospital system. A backup center can even help if you ever need to move locations or even offices for your team.
The hope is that you would never need a backup solution, but having someone on standby to reduce the risk of not having enough inventory on the shelves is worth the setup.
Take some time and examine each area of your business. Think about who can be down for a few hours, a few days, or a few weeks and what the impact would be. In any case where the impact on your ability to supply products to your hospitals is at risk, develop a backup plan and start that process now BEFORE you need it!
As always, I’m here if I can answer any questions!