Drug retail: strategic balance in the changing situation

Source: Murphy diaries 2016-9-26 pharmaceutical retail channel will usher in great changes in the next five years The improvement of industry integration has been a very clear direction, and the giants that exceed 3-5% of the market share will appear However, the real revolutionary change still needs to wait for the policy, and the outflow of hospital prescription is its core However, China's medical reform is still faced with many path choices in the process of advancing in depth, and the uncertainty of policy is still very large When drug retail companies formulate strategies, they must base on the short and medium term, at the same time look at the long term, and make an effective balance between the long-term interests and the short-term interests In short, the pharmaceutical retail giants need to maintain the rapid expansion of scale and strive to improve the floor efficiency, and at the same time, gradually change the operation mode from product centered to service-oriented The so-called "product as the core" refers to the operation orientation of the company based on product sales The logic behind this is that as long as the products are sold well, this logic lists drugs and other products, and more adopts price war and traditional sales methods to achieve the goal of revenue However, unlike other products, drugs are essentially part of a medical service solution, which is ultimately measured by efficacy Therefore, the user's demand for drugs is not only reflected in the price, but also in the efficacy The cost performance of drugs is the price competition under the premise of the same curative effect At present, China's drug retail market does not realize that its product oriented operation mode does not meet the internal needs of users, which reflects the necessity of service transformation For the drug retail channel, it is not the main direction to provide medical services, but it is the future competition core of the retail channel to provide out of hospital services around the treatment solutions For users, the hospital's pharmaceutical service is not complete, and it is difficult to cope with such a large volume of services every day The drugstore is a more appropriate scenario for obtaining pharmaceutical services At the same time, for the daily ailments that OTC drugs can solve, pharmaceutical service is also the key to improve user loyalty However, under the guidance of product thinking, the retail channel partially ignores these services and blindly promotes revenue with simple performance appraisal, which can not build a long-term development model For disease management such as chronic disease management, if we just want to add it to get more sales growth, it is very difficult for retail channels to really develop As a part of the treatment plan, chronic disease management makes up for the part that can not be achieved by in-hospital treatment, and drug sales are subordinate to medical services and chronic disease management to promote the improvement of curative effect Therefore, if the effect of chronic disease management is improved, drug sales will be restrained to some extent This may seem contradictory on the surface, but the retail channel has gained public praise by providing relevant services, which will drive the increase of the number of users and the overall volume Therefore, the transformation of drug retail channels is not easy, and the internal challenges mainly come from the change of operation mode, which is a self innovation that needs to be promoted by decision makers for a long time Due to the high dispersion of China's drug retail market, large chain giants can get opportunities in the future market integration But in the long run, once the market concentration is highly improved, the final competition is the operation mode and ability, which needs to start from now, and then the layout will fail when the market is in fierce competition Of course, the traditional operation mode is still dominant in the short and medium term, and the development path of making bigger and stronger first has not changed For drug retail giants, M & A is only the first step of integrating channels How to integrate services is the key to win the future In the long run, the value of drug integrated retail channels will really be highlighted, and omni-channel and strong service retail channels will occupy a long-term advantage and gain a dominant position in the market.