Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac
In 1987, Eli Lilly began to market Prozac, the first available drug in a new class of psychotropic drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Prozac, and other SSRIs that followed it, revolutionized the treatment of depression and changed the philosophy and practice of psychiatry. It allowed depression to be treated by nonpsychiatrist physicians, substantially increased the number of depressed patients who had access to treatment, and lowered the cost of treating depression and other mental illnesses. Prozac quickly became the biggest selling drug in the history of the pharmaceutical industry. Explores the history of Prozac and the factors that combined to make it the best-selling drug of all time. Provides a brief history of depression and the theories that led some scientists to pursue SSRIs. Covers Lilly's uncertain development of Prozac, the thoughtful marketing that went into the launch, and the company's post-launch marketing strategies as the drug became widely used. Emphasizes the management difficulties, including product lawsuits and patent expirations, generated by blockbuster drugs.
Swot Analysis of "Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac" written by Margaret L. Eaton, Mark Xu includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Prozac Ssris facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Product development and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Prozac Ssris, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Prozac Ssris operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Prozac Ssris
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Prozac Ssris
Strengths Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Prozac Ssris in Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Prozac Ssris
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Prozac Ssris does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Prozac Ssris has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Prozac Ssris has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Prozac Ssris digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Prozac Ssris has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Prozac Ssris has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Prozac Ssris is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- Prozac Ssris is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Prozac Ssris is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Prozac Ssris is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Prozac Ssris are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Prozac Ssris has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Prozac Ssris has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Strong track record of project management
– Prozac Ssris is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Prozac Ssris products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Prozac Ssris needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac, it seems that the employees of Prozac Ssris don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Prozac Ssris has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Margaret L. Eaton, Mark Xu suggests that, Prozac Ssris is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Prozac Ssris has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Prozac Ssris has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Prozac Ssris has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Prozac Ssris is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Prozac Ssris has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Prozac Ssris, firm in the HBR case study Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Prozac Ssris to increase its market reach. Prozac Ssris will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Prozac Ssris can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Prozac Ssris can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Prozac Ssris can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Prozac Ssris has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Prozac Ssris to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Prozac Ssris to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Prozac Ssris to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Prozac Ssris can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Prozac Ssris can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Prozac Ssris in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Prozac Ssris to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Loyalty marketing
– Prozac Ssris has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Prozac Ssris can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Prozac Ssris is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Prozac Ssris can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Prozac Ssris with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Prozac Ssris demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Environmental challenges
– Prozac Ssris needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Prozac Ssris can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Prozac Ssris high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Prozac Ssris in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Prozac Ssris
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Prozac Ssris.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Prozac Ssris can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Prozac Ssris in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Prozac Ssris is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac, Prozac Ssris may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Prozac Ssris will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Prozac Ssris can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Developing and Marketing a Blockbuster Drug: Lessons from Eli Lilly's Experience with Prozac is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Prozac Ssris needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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