Porter’s Five Forces
Forces Grade Note
Segment Rivalry Strong The current market is divided between a few powerful competitors that can relatively easily attract customers from one another as the switching costs are low and practical absence of product differentiation contributes to the easy loss of market share.
Threat of Mobility Weak While the new entrants only need a relatively simple GUI and a supplier in order to enter the market, the federal and local regulations will require significant investments prior to any positive cash flow. Again, the differentiation is practically non-existent and the new entrants will have to compete with financially established enterprises capitalizing on competitive advantage.
Supplier power Strong In order to sustain the market share in this highly competitive industry the pharmacies have to establish and maintain strong working relationships with PBMs that have power to divest particular clients from a pharmacy by denying reimbursement privileges to their customers.
Buyer Power Strong It is not hard to obtain the same drugs from different sources so the customer loyalty is virtually non-existent and the pharmacies have to try extremely hard to sustain their consumer base.
Threats of substitutes Weak There are very few alternatives to drugs. The alternatives are practically limited to traditional medicine. Therefore, the threat of substitute is weak.
Conclusion: CVS is in a favorable position because it already controls the large share of the market and its brand name is known to the populace. Therefore, it is crucial for the company to protect its market share and pursue the aggressive expansion policy to secure even large customer base.
Financial Analysis
CVS was able to se...
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...ts and special deals with PBRs. Thus, the firm’s pricing policy should be flexible enough as not to discourage the price-sensitive consumers and yet allow the company to sustain ever increasing product and service development costs.
Also, mergers and acquisitions could be used by the company to its advantage. That would be following into footsteps of the CVS recent acquirement of Arbor Drug and Revco and comparable transactions performed by the CVS competitors such as Rite Aid acquiring Marco, Thrifty Payless, and K&B.
The M&A practices make sense as they reduce competition, increase the customer base, and provide convenient locations for the existing customers. One of the main points in this respect is the necessity to create a unified customer database similar to the one operated by Walgreens that allow customers to access their prescriptions from any CVS store.
Bargaining Power of Buyers. This is the most concerned force because many companies in the drugstore industry start to do the same thing as Walgreens.
Pricing Strategy: We are going to take into consideration inflation, benchmarking and customer trade off. The pricing strategy for the new products/line extensions will be a penetration-pricing strategy to gain customers from other competitors and increase market share. Further, the volume discounts are going to be in the range of 25-40%. Taking into consideration Product lifecycle, those will be raised in the time where new products/line extension are launched.
Marketing at the Vanguard Group. In light of an evolving market, faced with new competitors, and after a careful analysis of their current customers, the Vanguard Group (hereinafter referred to as “Vanguard”) realizes it must rethink its entire marketing strategy. However, in order to protect and leverage their competitive advantage, which is their low management fees, and to optimize the loyalty that their customers continuously demonstrate toward their organization, they must now target the most profitable segment for them, and develop the best way to serve and delight these customers. SITUATION ANALYSIS Highlighted SWOT Strengths Low fees strategy - a good idea.
Rivalry among established firms is fierce. There are several factors that illustrate this: established market players (6.1). The product is highly standardized and the switching costs of the customers are low. Players are aggressive (6.2)
Pharmaceutical benefit managers process prescriptions for the groups that pay for drugs, usually insurance companies or corporations, and use their size to negotiate with drug makers and pharmacies. This latest deal continues the consolidation trend but also highlights how the industry is becoming more than just an administrator and negotiator.
This is definitely a problem for consumers because they can have ties with the pharmaceutical and they have the ability to evoke the best interests for their company when pricing drugs. According to the drug makers and the intermediaries, the higher cost are needed to pay of rebates and providing discounts for insurers and employers. Despite providing incentives to those with insurance, this alienates those who have little to no insurance, they are left to burden the higher drug prices. In the U.S., there isn’t a checks and balances system when it comes to drug pricing like in the U.K. therefore some critics do not blame Mylan for raising the price for these drugs. Making and testing for innovative medicines requires years of research, which means money. Therefore, I do understand that drug makers, the pharmaceutical company and its investors want to get paid for the amount of time and money that they put into their new drug. However, I believe that they need to find that particular medium that helps the people especially those who are less fortunate and in need for this life-saving medication while being able to make a
• It allows pharmaceutical companies to create awareness of their products among patients and healthcare professional, increase sales, create consumer loyalty and fight against the threat of generic products.
It is said that name-brand prescription drugs in Canada cost approximately 40% less than they do in America. But it is illegal for the transport of drugs from Canada to America. Why? It is because Pharmaceuticals are simply greedy and prey on victims that are in need of their products to survive. It makes it hard for large households on a budget to purchase drugs to keep healthy. The way pharmaceutical companies look at their clients is like this: It is a life or death situation for them so the customers have to buy it in order to survive. According to the annual Fortune 500 survey, the pharmaceutical industry, expectedly, made it at the top of the list of the most profitable. The top seven pharmaceutical companies took in more profit-money than the top seven media companies, the top seven airline companies, the top seven oil companies, and the top seven car manufacture companies. (…cost so much, CNN) The profits of pharmaceutical companies are outrageous and extreme. There are many reasons to why these companies are greedily taking advantage of customers. The number one reason is because people who are need of these prescriptions have no other choice but to purchase them.
Has anyone noticed that there seems to be a drugstore being built on every corner these days? Revco, Walgreens, and Rite Aid seem to be just a few of the drug store chains that are expanding. One has to wonder if this has anything to do with the possibility of including medicine under coverage by healthcare systems. This means that they may become part of a capitated payment system to the pharmaceutical providers. "By capitation, we mean a prospective payment to physicians or providers - either individually or as a group - of a fixed amount of money to care for each patient (Pearson, 1998)." In other words, every physician is provided a set sum of money whether they see any patients or not and every pharmacy would be given money whether they prescribe any drugs or not. Drug costs will rise.
Per capita spending on prescription drugs in America is far greater than any other country. Kesselheim goes on to say that this is a natural result of America’s free market approach to healthcare resulting in monopolies. These healthcare monopolies are not held accountable for their high drug prices. The claims that these costs can be justified through research and development is rubbish, according to
Currently the dominant player in a new arena, TeraTech a leader in the pharmaceutical industry, is a fiver year-old Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions provider. This CRM concept is relatively new, and its basic function is to help develop a complete picture of the industry customers, then evaluating those relationships across products and services.
Why are the prices so high? Some critics of the drug companies argue that the larger firms are ripping off the American public, are dishonest and, in some cases, unsafe. On the other hand, there are health care workers such as doctors and their supporters who claim that research and testing for drugs costs money. This supposedly justifies their prices for their products. Also, as an argument to their side, they say that their practice is a benefit to the improvement to mankind. It is a life saving business, but are these prices justified? As one can see, this is a very important issue in medicine today. It affects everyone involved with medicine, which is much of the American public. It also affects the physicians and drug makers.
...including their expiring patents and inefficiencies in their research and development practices. In the end, Novartis has a very strong internal environment. Their strategic direction, value chain, strengths, resources, and capabilities have allowed them to grow, develop, and truly become a global leader in the pharmaceutical industry.
The threat of new entrants is moderately strong. Incumbents do not strongly contest entry of newcomers, but existing industry members are consistently looking to expand their geographic reach and offer a broad product assortment. Brand awareness and customer loyalty are high and greatly important i this industry.
There are high entry costs to enter the market. The large industry competitors already have captured the market share.