Marketing and the Health Care System (Walgreens Boots Alliance)
Walgreens Boots Alliance, abbreviated as WBA is an American company with its base in Illinois. WBA owns Boots, Walgreens, and several other pharmaceutical companies worldwide. The company was formed in 2014 when Walgreen bought Alliance Boots (Guinzoni, 2015). The merger dictates that WBA should have three Divisions namely: Retail Pharmacy USA, Pharmaceutical Wholesale, and Retail Pharmacy International, which includes Alliance Healthcare. Currently, the company provides multiple products, ranging from cosmetics to generic prescription drugs (Annabel and Scrymgeour, 2016). WBA serves more than twenty countries at the moment. This paper analyses various aspects of the marketing strategy of this company and comes up with recommendations for the future success of the enterprise.
The Impact of Marketing on the Company
The marketing strategy for WBA is quite elaborate, and so are its effects on the company. There are several ways in which marketing may affect an organization but for WBA, there are two distinctive impacts. First, the marketing strategy for this company includes a platform for customers to suggest the changes they would prefer. As a result, there are several instances where the company has changed the products being sold in the stores (Annabel and Scrymgeour, 2016). For instance, Almus, which is affiliated with the company, currently sells more than 700 products after pay attention to customers’ suggestions (Edgar-online.com, 2014). The other effect is sales. The marketing style of the company seems to be impressive, as sales tend to increase during the periods when the company indulges in many marketing activities.
Determining the Utilization of the Firm’s Products
The most efficient way of determining whether the company’s products are being utilized is through customer surveys. In this method, the customer would be required to provide their views regarding the enterprise’s products and give a reason for choosing or rejecting the products (Frushone, 2015).
Marketing Strategy
The current marketing strategy of Walgreens as the leading pharmaceutical retailer in the United States is to concentrate on its two main business activities. The first of these business activities is a pharmacy-led health and retail of cosmetic and medical wholesaling and supply (Guinzoni, 2015). The second one is the development and internationalization of the company’s product brands to develop a third dimension.
Market Penetration Strategy
Market penetration is an element of the Ansoff Matrix and focuses on selling a company’s existing products into the existing markets to achieve a greater market share. Walgreens uses this strategy as its core marketing strategy as it offers the least level of risk for the company (Guinzoni, 2015).
Market Segmentation Strategy
The term market segmentation is used to refer to the process of outlining and breaking down a wide market into distinct groups of consumers with common traits, wants and needs. It is often difficult to apply this strategy because many firms are compelled to divide the total demand into several segments and choose only those that they are best capable of handling (Guinzoni, 2015). Nonetheless, Walgreens is arguably broad enough to satisfy the needs of an entire market.
Walgreens uses this strategy particularly in Europe because the people and communities there are more diverse. Therefore, it is risky for Walgreens to offer a common marketing mix to both Italy and Portugal, for example. Thus, the company customizes the product, price, place and promotion for particular target markets (Guinzoni, 2015). The company was able to gain a significant increase in revenue in Alliance Healthcare Portugal in 2014 because of a successful commercial policy and the market segmentation strategy in a country where the pharmacy market faces countless challenges (Edgar-online.com, 2014).
Geographical Expansion Strategy
Recommendations
Ever since its creation, WBA has been deemed to be a leader in the pharmaceutical market, with thousands of locations in and out of the United States. However, given the fact that retail pharmacy is in a constant state of change, WBA must step up and change its business model accordingly to pave the way for future success. Today, there are machines designed for counting drugs and many patients prefer requesting refills online. Only a few lines of code are required for a computer to perform rudimentary tasks (Annabel and Scrymgeour, 2016). Thus, WBA should consider playing a larger role as health consultants. The company would be able to help in-store customers comprehend their medication, side effects, and probable drug interactions. Such a personal contact with clients is likely to create valuable company loyalty, and attract new customers by providing a proper in-person service.
Additionally, the company should aggressively market its most recent acquisitions, particularly drugstore.com. It has been found that, after its acquisition by WBA, drugstore.com did not change the branding of its website to demonstrate its new affiliation. As Mail-order pharmacy is still new in the industry, a show of affiliation with WBA would serve as a trigger for new customers (Annabel and Scrymgeour, 2016). Furthermore, WBA should also promote mail-order to customers who collect their prescriptions in-store and allow them to sign up for the service for free. If more customers use this service, it will ease the usual in-store traffic, thereby creating a better in-store experience for customers.
Conclusions
WBA is only two years old, but the constituent firms went back more than a hundred years ago. The marketing strategies used over the past few decades have proven to be effective, given the fact both of them are among the leaders in their respective countries. The three top marketing strategies being employed by the company worldwide including market penetration, market segmentation, and geographical expansion. Through these strategies, the company has been able to grow and improve its productivity every year since it was created. However, with the changes taking place in the pharmaceutical industry, WBA needs to make some adjustments in order to ensure future success. WBA should consider playing a larger role as health consultants. The increased personal contact would serve to gain loyalty from the current customers and attract new ones. Finally, the company should promote mail-order to ease the traffic in stores, thereby improving the customers’ shopping experience.
References
Annabel, B., & Scrymgeour, M. (2016). Retail matters: Customer-first always wins. AJP: The Australian Journal of Pharmacy, 97(1149), 36. Available at <http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=951739035876409;res=IELAPA>
Frushone, A. D. (2015). The benefits and pitfalls of participating in a corporate inversion: A case study of two companies on two different paths. Available at http://bibliotecadigital.fgv.br/dspace/bitstream/handle/10438/15056/Ashley.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y
Guinzoni, R. (2015). Walgreens Boots Alliance goes multi-lingual through e-learning: Challenging program brings many and significant benefits. Human Resource Management International Digest, 23(7), 5-8. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/HRMID-08-2015-0138
Edgar-online.com. (2014). Walgreen CO. Available at http://www.shareholderforum.com/wag/Library/20141112_WAG-SEC425.pdf
