50% less time
on supply chain management, with the same team, after 95 hours of work
Amazon seller: half the time on supply chain management, same team
Relevant if your procedures exist, but nobody follows them because they are too long.
Case study · Logistics and freight
Medical delivery startup: one location to five in four months
PPS Consulting India set up the operations of a US medical delivery startup, which takes prescriptions from pharmacies to patients, and ran its Project Management Office (PMO) for six months after launch. In four months it grew from one pharmacy and location to two pharmacies and five locations, and from 3 drivers to 20+; revenue and profit were ahead of projections within six months.
At a glance
5x locations, 7x fleet
from one pharmacy and location to two pharmacies and five locations in four months, and from 3 drivers to 20+
- Client
- A US medical delivery startup, taking prescriptions from pharmacies to patients
- Sector
- Logistics and freight
- Where
- United States
- The work
- Process systems
- Scale
- Launch, then six months leading the PMO
- Led by
- Rahul Kulkarni
What was the problem?
The startup had a service to launch, but not yet a business model, a system for orders and dispatch, or a fair way to pay independent drivers when volumes spiked.
Patient data meant HIPAA, the US health privacy law, applied from the first delivery. And the plan was to go from one pharmacy to several locations within months, so whatever was built had to be copied to each new site, not reinvented.
What did we do?
-
Design
A revenue model that stayed profitable at each stage of growth, with pricing, cost structure and profitability benchmarks. A driver incentive model with pay that varies with demand, for the high-volume days.
-
Build
Software selected and configured for order processing, driver dispatch and financial tracking. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) for onboarding pharmacies, driver operations and incentives, and finance, from receivables and payables to profit and loss tracking. Contracts and policies for drivers and pharmacies, and data handling policies aligned with HIPAA.
-
Adopt
Training and updates on the software for the first five months after launch, and six months leading the PMO: hands-on support in managing the teams, fixing workflow problems as they appeared, and keeping the business on its key measures and revenue targets.
What did we build?
- Intake
- Order received from the pharmacy
- Validated, delivery window set
- Dispatch
- Driver assigned, route built
- Exception? Playbook with time limits
- Driver
- Pick-up and handling check
- Delivered, proof captured
- Compliance
- Chain of custody record filed
- Billing
- Invoice on delivery confirmation
- Location dashboard updated
Exceptions follow a playbook with time limits; the founder sees them in the weekly review, not on the phone. The same flow opened at every new location.
What changed?
- Launched on time and within budget.
- From one pharmacy and one location to two pharmacies and five locations in four months.
- From 3 drivers to 20+ in the same four months.
- Revenue and profit ahead of projections within six months.
- Operations run in line with HIPAA, with the same dispatch-to-billing flow opened at every new location.
- A five-star client review on Upwork.
What stayed after we left?
The dispatch-to-billing flow was written so that every new location opens on it. Exceptions follow a playbook with time limits, so the founder sees them in the weekly review rather than on the phone.
Is this relevant to you?
It is if:
- You are about to open your second, third or fifth location, and the first one still runs on you.
- Your people are paid on volumes that vary, and the rules live in someone's head.
- You handle regulated data, and compliance has to be built in rather than added later.
Where would we start with you?
With the PPS Backbone Review: four weeks, a fixed fee of ₹1,50,000 to ₹3,50,000 plus GST and expenses, one fix working by the end, and a plan with owners and measures that is yours to keep, whether or not we build it with you.
How the Review worksWhat else have we done like this?
Runs without the founder
SOPs for the recurring work, one workspace, and a weekly rhythm the operations lead now runs
Marketing operations team: running without the founder
Relevant if every client question in your business still reaches the founder.
One record
for each patient, from referral to discharge, with every view and the monthly report built from it
Behavioural health provider: a patient registry in ClickUp
Relevant if your client or patient records live in several places and nobody trusts the count.
What have we written about this problem?
Our newest articles on the problem this case shows.
-
The Boss Paradox · part 1
The Communication Gap
Leaders think in narratives and teams operate in consequences. Why a clear announcement leaves every listener with a different message, and the cost.
-
The People Paradox · part 1 of 5
The People Paradox: When Teams Stop Behaving Like Families
Why the family metaphor stops working somewhere between the fifteenth and the fiftieth hire, and what leaders can build in its place.
-
The System Maturity Index (SMI) for Scaling Businesses
A five-pillar self-diagnostic to test whether your systems, not your software, are ready to scale: process, ownership, invocation, simulation and feedback.
- 100+ engagements
- 62,000+ delivery hours
- Top 1% Expert-Vetted on Upwork
- 100% job success, independently verified
Across Upwork and direct contracts, including the people on our project teams.
- MIT MicroMasters, Supply Chain
- Six Sigma Black Belt
- PRINCE2 Practitioner
Questions about this case
How do you scale a delivery business to new locations without chaos?
By turning the first location into a system that can be copied before opening the second: one dispatch-to-billing flow, written SOPs, driver rules on paper and a dashboard for each location. Here the same flow opened at every new site as the business went from one location to five in four months.
How did you handle HIPAA?
As part of the build: data handling policies aligned with HIPAA, and secure processes for patient information.
Tell us two things.
What you're trying to achieve in the next 90 days, and what's breaking in execution. We'll tell you plainly what we'd fix first.
Book a discovery callFree, no obligation, and under an NDA if you prefer.
Or write to consult@ppsconsulting.biz WhatsApp +91 93246 21840 (opens in a new tab)