Investing in the pharmaceutical industry is the most challenging business venture that an organization may undertake. According to Whewell (2010), the pharmaceutical industry has been experiencing various changes, challenges and dynamisms. These changes may result from either the internal environment or external environment of the company. Due to such rapid changes in the internal and external environments of an organization, it is important for top managers to develop appropriate strategic plans that would enable the organization to retain its competitiveness in the market. In order to develop, formulate and implement sound strategic plans, the top management must evaluate the current situation in the market as well as the position of the organization. This entails use of various evaluation methodologies. Discussed below are the various methodologies that I would use as a manger to evaluate the current situation of an organization in the pharmaceutical industry.
SWOT Analysis.SWOT Analysis stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It refers to a form of analysis or evaluation that entails scanning both the internal and external environments of an organization. Through SWOT analysis, an organization would be able to identify its strengths and weaknesses such as good financial position, competent workforce and limited access to resources. Similarly, the organization would identify various opportunities such as niche markets and unmet needs of customers and threats such as non-supportive government policies and stiff competition from new entrants into the pharmaceutical market.
In my view, SWOT Analysis would help the organization in identifying factors that may hinder its ability to achieve the set goals and objectives. According to Stahl (2009) and Swayne, Duncan and Ginter (2008), identification of factors in the internal and external environments would also help an organization in prioritizing its goals and objectives. SWOT Analysis also facilitates mobilization of resources required for attainment of organizational goals.
Porter’s Five Forces.Porter’s five forces refer to various factors that may affect the operations of an organization. The five forces include the bargaining power of customers, bargaining power of suppliers, power of competitors, threat of new entrants into the market and availability of substitute products and services (David, 2011).
In my view, considering the five forces of Porter during the evaluation would help in determining the impacts of each of the forces on the activities of the organization, for example, availability of close substitutes in the pharmaceuticals market would require the organization to develop new products with more distinguished features. An evaluation of Porter’s five forces would also assist in identifying negative factors that would thwart or hinder achievement of organizational goals. Moreover, Porter’s five forces would assist an organization in formulating appropriate strategic plans.
Balanced Scorecard.The balanced scorecard is a strategic evaluation tool that helps in communicating various aspects of strategic planning through provision of a visual format that indicates whether or not performance targets have been met. A balanced scorecard also indicates the extent to which the performance targets have been exactly met, exceeded or unmet. It compares actual performance against the desired results.
The balance scorecard is preferable in strategic evaluation because it depicts the level of accomplishment of tasks as well as measuring the actual performance. According to Sadler (2011), balanced scorecards also assist in identifying deviations in performance; hence, corrective measures may be undertaken to correct such deviations.
Benchmarking.Benchmarking entails comparing the performance of one organization against another organization within the same industry. Through benchmarking, the performance of an organization is weighed against the performances of other organizations operating under similar market environments.
In my view, benchmarking would help in identifying the weaknesses of the organization, hence strategic plans would be set to help in eliminating such weaknesses. Benchmarking also helps in developing tactical programs to counter the challenges faced by an organization. In my view, this case relates to my current organization because it presents similar situation and challenges that most organizations in the pharmaceuticals industry face today.
As a leader of an organization in the healthcare industry, my mission and vision would entails being the best provider of healthcare services, improving the accessibility of healthcare services as well as provision of high quality and affordable healthcare products and services. In order to achieve this mission and vision, I would lay down well-defined strategic plans to facilitate accomplishment of my organizational goals.
The key link between my mission, vision and goals and the strategic plans is that the mission, vision and goals would act as guidelines towards implementation of the strategic goals. The mission, vision and goals shall lay foundations for development of strategic goals as well as provide visionary leadership towards achievement of such plans. In my view, the mission, vision and goals would also assist in determining the most appropriate processes to be executed in order to attain the goals and implement the strategic plans of the organization. The goals to achieve would also assist in pre-establishing or predetermining standards for performance.