Maintaining Business Continuity Over the Holidays
October 2018
It’s that time of year, when school supplies on store shelves quickly make room for holiday-themed decorations, candies and supplies. As the holidays approach, and you look forward to time with family and loved ones, rest assured that plans are being made for business continuity over the Cardinal Health 3PL Services official holidays.
Prior to any holiday you can expect a communication from your Customer Service Representative in advance to confirm how orders should be handled. When holidays occur towards the end or beginning of a month, we’ll take the opportunity to secure your direction for both how to handle the holiday and the month-end orders.
Orders received on a holiday will be held until the next business day, or until a preferred shipping day based on your instructions.
During the week of a holiday, some lanes of our Exclusive Pharmaceutical Transportation Network (EPTN) may be cancelled. We’ll let you know in advance which lanes may be impacted and can discuss how to plan for business continuity.
Check out these FAQs covering how we remain open for business, even when the office is closed.
Q: What is the Cardinal Health holiday schedule?
- Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 22, 2018
- Day after Thanksgiving, Friday, November 23, 2018
- Christmas Day, Tuesday, December 25, 2018
- New Year’s Day, Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Q: How are “emergency” orders handled over the holidays?
Proactive planning makes emergencies extremely rare. However, as with any special request, reach out to talk through feasible options. We recommend using the communication with Customer Service about holiday shipping instructions to raise any concerns in advance and make arrangements accordingly.
Q: Does Cardinal Health 3PL do anything special related to FedEx to work around their influx of holiday shipping activity?
Cardinal Health 3PL Services works closely with FedEx to ensure efficient delivery of products on a day-to-day basis. We coordinate every order recognizing FedEx’s policies – including the reality that delivery is only guaranteed for overnight and 2nd day shipments. Our basic business practices, like the Certified Cargo Screening Program for packages going on commercial aircraft, expedite the delivery of necessary products or drugs to distributors and provider offices. These practices remain unchanged for the holidays.
FedEx ramps up their own operations to account for the anticipated 1 billion packages that Americans ship between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In addition to adding tens of thousands of seasonal employees, FedEx tracks patterns in shipping, recognizing for instance, that the growth of e-commerce (weekend online shopping) drives the highest surges in demand on Mondays. Speaking of which, there are less than 100 shopping days until Christmas!