Lockwork-like precision has helped Swiss-German company DKSH become a brand not only recognised by commercial buyers of pharmaceutical premium products, but also end costumers in Cambodia.

Bulk buyers as well as patients value the country’s leading market expansion services group for the full control of the supply chain from the producer of high-quality pharmaceuticals such as Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim and GSK in Germany and the Unites States, right to the pharmacies in Cambodia.

DKSH General Manager in Cambodia Nicolas Chabanier gave an example of uninterrupted quality control in the supply chain: “When the temperature inside one of our trucks bringing pharmaceuticals to Mondulkiri rises I can see that on the GPS at my desk in Phnom Penh.”

Even after distribution DKSH carries through on its strict controls in pharmacies and checks if medication could get into the hands of unscrupulous patients.

Strict checks have lead DKSH to blacklist 17 pharmacies in Cambodia that have violated the company’s strict controls.

But before a buyer gets permission to buy from DKSH, six approval signatures inside DKSH are necessary.

To end customers, the company’s compliance practices show in sparkling clean white trucks all over the country and stickers on pharmaceutical carton boxes carrying the company’s name and the fan tree logo in red.

Huotphea Lina, a pharmacist at Pharmacy De La Gare, said: “We buy most of our products from DKSH and if the medicine boxes have the DKSH stickers on them patients are sure that the medicine is approved by the Cambodian government and fulfils all quality standards.”

According to General Manager Chabanier, end costumer marketing is not in the company’s branding guidelines. He added, however, that “customers are looking out for the red fan tree themselves”.