Pfizer: Strategy, Enterprise and Innovation - A Case Study Report

This case study report analyzes the key drivers of innovation contributing to the success of Pfizer, critically evaluates the different approaches undertaken by Pfizer to help shape its entrepreneurial vision and business model, and discusses the use of Blue Ocean Strategy and tools like strategy canvas and value curves to compare Pfizer and its competitor advantage.

Strategy ,Enterprise and
Innovation

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Identify and evaluate the key drivers of innovation contributing to the success of Pfizer..........3
Critically analyse the different approaches undertaken by Pfizer to help shape its
entrepreneurial vision and business model..................................................................................7
“Blue Ocean Strategy” and tools like strategy canvas and value curves to compare Pfizer and
its competitor advantage..............................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Pfizer is a company founded by two cousins Charlie Pfizer and Charles F. Erhart in 1849.
It is a company based on the biopharmaceutical company which has the work on research based.
Headquarter in New york. They are the leading company in science and global resource. Their
main objective is to provide premier high quality medicines and therapies to the people that helps
in improve their life through discovery, development and manufacturing medicines and vaccines.
They played an important role at the time of Covid- 19 global pandemic. Pfizer have never
compromised in their quality, standards, customer values and safety. They are one of the
companies who invented the Covid-19 vaccines. There are core areas where Pfizer focus further
will discuss in report. On report below using appropriate strategy and tools will identify some
key drivers of innovation which helped Pfizer towards success. Then are going to analyse the
different approaches which are undertaken by Pfizer which helps it in different ways to extend
the entrepreneurial vision and business models. Importance and negative points of “Blue ocean
strategy” and tools like buyer's experience cycle, strategy canvas and value chain, how Pfizer
face its competitors and what are the success factors.
MAIN BODY
Identify and evaluate the key drivers of innovation contributing to the success of Pfizer
Pfizer Inc. is one of the biggest American pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Company whose
headquarter is in New York City .this multinational company produces medicines for
immunology, oncology, cardiology, endocrinology and the last one is neurology. Innovation in
pharmaceutical industry is very important because it creates value to the customer by providing
best medicines for their recover with zero side effects .similarly the aim of Pfizer is to become
world’s most successful and valued company to their customers, investors and colleagues . For

the success of the Pfizer the company contributes to the value creation which is a substitute of
differentiation. The term differentiation allows the company to increase the cost of the product
and also increase the customer apparent value. Differentiation requires good quality medicines
with proper research and development which help the patient to recover easily without having
bad side-effects (Kratochvil, and Nell, 2019). For example in 2018 Pfizer spend almost eight
billion dollars for research and development of drugs or medicines. The business strategy used
by Pfizer for contributing to the success is termed as broad differentiation.it helps the company
to provide a large market by creating their value as well by differentiation. Pfizer chooses broad
differentiation strategy which means this company do not target only one segment. Rather than
this the company’s target market can be identified as the individuals who are in need of
medicines produced by the company. There are many innovations done by Pfizer for making the
company more successful. Some of them are as follows:
1. Biosimilars-
Pfizer is one of the most innovative pharmaceutical company, the company is in high
demand of producing, manufacturing and delivering good quality medicines to the customers
or patient’s .Biosimilars help the customers to increase their access to treatment and can
provide better health care system.it has almost ten years of experience in developing
biosimilars. This have the quality of providing better treatment with less cost and this
medicine is produced from living organism. The innovation of biosimilar shows that the
company is committed to scientific innovation and also provide a sense of urgency for
patients and this shows that how the company is taking innovative for the better health of
patients (Lipp, Marshall, and Dencik, 2021).
2. Oncology-
This innovation is used by Pfizer for the treatment of cancer.it provides a natural ability to
the body immune’s system to identify and fight with cancer. The company provide a support
to the patients suffering from cancer by organizing some programs like Pfizer oncology
together for providing therapies to the patients and also this is living with cancer which
helps the patients in providing tools for the treatment of cancer.
3. Clinical trials-

The most valued innovation done by Pfizer is to transforming their approach into clinical
trials. With the help of this they also diversify the clinical trials. They have set the strategy of
becoming the best in class and getting success in the pharmaceutical industry.
We can further understand the concept of innovation in pharmaceutical industries by min
mapping. Pfizer one of the most leading company uses mind mapping for creativity,
innovation and act with clarity. The innovation of pharmaceutical industry is divided into two
parts such as internal and external factors. The internal factors comprises of finance,
investors, stakeholders, corporate culture and the management part within the organization.
The external factors comprises of pricing, technology development, market demand, trust and
expectations and the last one in competition from generics. There are many other innovations
also taken by pharmaceutical industry for increasing the growth and productivity of the
organization like using artificial intelligence is accelerating the medicine discovery and
development (Rikap, 2019). Artificial intelligence helps in patient identification for the drug
discovery and also makes the identification process faster and cost efficient. Another
important innovation is using big data and analytics for data management. This makes the
data available at real time for making the work flow easier. This contain almost all types of
data like patient record books, invoices, hospital data and many more and making data
management a main area of focus. For example pryml use secure data collaboration platform
for data management and pomicell uses in-silico modelling for the same. We can further
understand this by the below mentioned mind mapping diagram for business strategies and
innovations done by Pfizer (Dierks, Bruyère, and Reginster, 2018).

Internal factors
External factorsPricing
Stakeholder
s
Corporate
culture
Finance
Trust and
expectations
Competition
from
generics
Market
demand
Technology
developme
nt
Managem
entInvestors

Critically analyse the different approaches undertaken by Pfizer to help shape its entrepreneurial
vision and business model.
The main entrepreneurial vision of Pfizer Company is to innovate therapies for patients that
significantly improve their wellbeing. The achievement of the company is to reach at its goal by
satisfying their customers in all aspects. The vision of the company mainly focus on two aspects
like innovation and benefits to patients. Pfizer focus on developing new medicines and drugs for
the patients(Hassanin, and Hamada, 2022).The core values of Pfizer for achieving their goals are
customer focus as the company focus on the customer needs, leadership ability, and quality
innovation as they produce products with good quality, collaboration, and respect for people,
integrity and performance. There are basically for types of approaches taken by Pfizer to help in
shaping its entrepreneurial vision more successful.
1. Sociological approach-the sociological approach in the company deals with the societal
and cultural factors of the organization which is responsible for the development and
growth of entrepreneur in the market.it affects the social culture of the organization.
2. Psychological approach- an entrepreneur is someone who is creative and innovative and
have the ability to solve any problem with minimum efforts. This type of people have
great motivation and dedication level. All these comes under psychological approach.
The psychological approach helps in finding out how the social structure is affecting the
nature of the people of the market.
3. Political approach-the role of political bodies is very important in deciding the nature
and rate of growth and development. The political approach is involved between the
relationship of entrepreneurial development and state. Democratic government are

comparatively more conductive to the economy which is used for the development of the
organization (Ferriani, Lazerson, and Lorenzoni 2020).
4. Composite approach-the composite approach is basically the combination of social,
culture, political and psychological approach as one single approach cannot make the
good outcome. All these approaches have been practised by Pfizer for shaping its
entrepreneurial vision more strong.
Pfizer is a global pharmaceutical company that develops and sells medicines to the patients in
order to have better lives for them. They sell drugs and medicines to prevent health. Just like
other companies Pfizer also works in intensely controlled environment and cannot sell the
medicines directly to the customers. Pfizer communicate and connect with their customers
through influencers and impacts (Tangour, and et.al 2019). There are three main factors which
affect the business model of Pfizer Company and they are as follows:
1. Medication approval authorities-the prescription of the medicine depends on the
approval authorities and they also support the medicines based on the security and safety
of the medicine for the customer’s health and well-being.
2. Payers- the next factor which affect the business model of Pfizer is payers. Payers help in
the endorsement of the prescribed medicines which depends on the resultant information.
3. Healthcare provider- the last factor in the business model of Pfizer Company is the
healthcare providers. All the prescriptions of the medicines suggested for the treatment of
patients are suggested by healthcare providers (Ventura, 2021).
Similarly the cost segment of Pfizer Company majorly depends on four factors which are as
follows research and development of new medicines, distribution and production price,
marketing and sales costing and the expenditure cost for acquiring new arrivals. There are some
common competitive strategies adopted by many pharmaceutical companies and by Pfizer
Company also. The first strategy is market and product development strategy in which company
develops new products and modify the existing products according to the need of the customers.
They do this through search engine optimization and from direct sales also (Ombrosi, Casprini
and Piccaluga, 2019). The other approach is revenue strategy which focuses on selling the
medicines and earning more revenue from that. This can be achieved by affiliate marketing,
email marketing. Targeting market strategy is also one of the best approach used by companies
for increasing the growth of the company. Targeting helps in focussing the aim the market value

and provide proper treatment to the patients as per their requirement. Positioning and
differentiation strategy is used by Pfizer Company in majority by dividing the market into
segments and sub segments. This can be achieved through the brand development and by offline
and online value proposal (Alnabhan, 2020). the last strategy used by Pfizer is customer
engagement strategy in which company encourages communications and contribution of
customers.
“Blue Ocean Strategy” and tools like strategy canvas and value curves to compare Pfizer and its
competitor advantage
Blue ocean strategy helps Pfizer to gain acknowledged market place different from other,
close businesses. It is coinciding activity of low cost and differentiation to open an innovative
market place and generate new demand (Kim., 2021). Pfizer always focus on innovating new
products or manufacture and development of health care products, their resent innovation is
COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. Blue ocean strategy is capturing and generate uncontested market
area, thereby creating competition irrelevant. It is built on the outlook of the industry structure
and market boundaries are not given and may be generated by actions of the company or industry
players. It required more research to identify unexplored market area, so this is deep, powerful
and vast in terms of successful growth. How a company can implement this strategy firstly they
choose the starting point and make a right team then company understand where they are now by
identify the current situation of the market and team includes weakness and strengths then
imagine where they could be, and then they develop different options and go head on renew
market boundaries and in last they make move for innovation. As Pfizer identify the need of
vaccine in the market, and they are ready to take new steps, and they make great research and
development team which help them in making vaccine that is mRNA vaccine. For blue ocean
strategy company considered four action that is raise, reduce, eliminate and create to make
demanding product in a market against company capacity to give value and be competitive day
by day so Pfizer have more success, litter risk and improve profit and growth in market. Some
characteristics of blue ocean strategy are new unknown market, seeking for customers, demand
development is need (Sabatinus and Utami., 2021).

Key action for innovation are it create values and generate industry factors which is never offer
before, eliminate factors related to competition in the industry and create innovative market.
Pfizer successful apply blue ocean strategic framework in launching Viagra take action in
functional orientation which shift their focus from industry to functional orientation and
emotional orientation to lifestyle improvement. Blue ocean strategy help business to compete
with major players in an industry at affordable price and reduce competition from big
organization by avoiding structure markets (Dick., 2019). It also develops growth potential if
product or services have potential to grab customer than it creates demand and help in growth.
Affordability and value are important in this strategy; organization generate innovation at good
price point to target individuals. This strategy has some negative points like it is too risky
because it creates new market area there are chances of failed in the market, may their unique
product have high price etc. Innovation cannot be permanent because many organizations copy
idea and create their new idea but it is possible in long term. Tools for blue ocean strategy are:
Strategy canvas
It is a tool by which company can create blue ocean strategy, is used to plot how current
challenger compete in the core market area, on what factor challenger compete and how pfizer’s
competed in the key areas (Khanmohammadi, and et.al., 2019). This allow company to look in a
simple picture with all the factors in industry that is competency, invests, strategy of big player
and buyers receive.
Figure 1Strategy Canvas, 2019

This is mainly focus on element such as competition, current company situation, offering factors
that buyers receive and cost structure of competitors. By knowing competitor price company
have advantage to compete or in simple words have to reduce and eliminate something in
addition to raise and create others.
Buyer Experience cycle
This is a tool by which company know how a customer purchase product, how delivery done,
how customer use the solution, how they identify supplements of it and how they scrap it. It
helps in knowing customer needs and know about what company offer is meet their requirement
or not. And areas that must be considers such as customer productivity, simplicity, more
convenient, less risk, adventure and environmentally.
Value curve
It is representation of strategy of industry or company segment review its performance across the
overall industry factors. These includes factor such as customer services, price and quick
delivery with how other competitor score these factors. This curve has two purpose first is it

result current competitive scenario in market space as exists. Second is it permit company to use
information to identify new market area. It helps Pfizer’s to understand the position of any
services or products. This helps in testing whether a company strategy is different from the
competitors or not to have a great impact.
By following blue ocean strategy, it leads Pfizer in cost advantages, first-mover, ability to set
prices etc. help in competitive market (Lima., 2019). Company also focus on innovation in
Oncology, inflammation, rare disease. They are also look for collaboration to strengthen their
position in the market. blue ocean strategy makes new factors to decrease competing factors at
low cost. Company provide product when there is no competitor or have less competition so it
benefits for organization to make profits because new product attract customer and between the
if competitor produce similar product then we reduce price at low and grab market which help in
growth. For these Pfizer focus on partnership, collaborates with governments, local communities
and healthcare providers to expand and affordable health care products.
CONCLUSION
Concluding this report as above discussed the appropriate framework and appropriate
tool like mind map, ClickUp, XMind has been discussed. Identified and evaluated the key
drivers of innovations such as inventors, entrepreneurs, super mentors, etc. that contributed
themselves to the success of it by designing the diagram, mini posters. Further, discussed
strategies which are appropriate to the company as broad differentiation business level strategy
and along with that shown the different approaches which are applied by organization. In the
above analysis shown some view points on “but it is not limited to” along with some example at
both corporate level and business unit level. It is successful company as it played important role
in Covid-19. By inventing vaccine. Then further discussed company's success using “Blue ocean
strategy” as above gained some knowledge that this strategy use to conduct activities at low cost
and differentiate to the widely open market place and generating new demand. Till this
understood that company focuses on the innovating new products in the market. As it also
innovated vaccine for Covid-19 named as mRNA vaccine. It has already discussed that by
implementing this Blue Ocean Strategy company has already made competition irrelevant. By
the process of identifying the unexplored market area. As understood that this strategy is deep,
powerful and wide in area to do researches. Tools on Blue Ocean Strategy which are discussed

above: Strategy canvas, buyer experience cycle and value curve. It is described that it is cost
advantages, price set, first-move and how it helps in competitive market. As above discussed
company also mainly focused on which competitors couldn't are Oncology, inflammation and
rare diseases. Company also looked for collaboration to strengthen its position in the market. It
also used low price strategy to make their position in the market.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Kratochvil, R. and Nell, P.C., 2019. Pfizer and the Challenges of the Global Pharmaceutical
Industry 2019-A.
Lipp, A., Marshall, A. and Dencik, J., 2021. Open innovation: a growth powerhouse when
integrated with dynamic digital technologies. Strategy & Leadership.
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competition in the transnational innovation networks of big pharma. Review of
International Political Economy, 26(5), pp.987-1021.
Dierks, R.M.L., Bruyère, O. and Reginster, J.Y., 2018. Critical analysis of valuation and
strategical orientation of merger and acquisition deals in the pharmaceutical
industry. Expert review of pharmacoeconomics & outcomes research, 18(2), pp.147-160.
Hassanin, M.E. and Hamada, M.A., 2022. A Big Data strategy to reinforce self-sustainability for
pharmaceutical companies in the digital transformation era: A case study of Egyptian
pharmaceutical companies. African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and
Development, pp.1-13.
Ferriani, S., Lazerson, M.H. and Lorenzoni, G., 2020. Anchor entrepreneurship and industry
catalysis: The rise of the Italian Biomedical Valley. Research policy, 49(8), p.104045.
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companies-a cluster analysis. In International Conference on Digital Economy (pp. 397-
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Ventura, J.D.L., 2021. Equity research-Pfizer Inc (Doctoral dissertation, Instituto Superior de
Economia e Gestão).
Ombrosi, N., Casprini, E. and Piccaluga, A., 2019. Designing and managing co-innovation: the
case of Loccioni and Pfizer. European Journal of Innovation Management.
Alnabhan, O., 2020.Strategic Marketing Recommendations for Lipitor Introduced by Pfizer.
Dick, A.C., 2019. Scenario planning for the 2035 cruise industry: a blue ocean strategy to create
new market space (Doctoral dissertation).

Khanmohammadi, and et.al., 2019. Drawing a strategy canvas using the fuzzy best–worst
method. Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 20(1). pp.57-75.
Kim, W.C., 2021. Blue_Ocean_Strategy.
Lima, D., 2019. Analysis of Competition and Market Positioning. Proceedings Book. p.174.
Sabatinus, S. and Utami, C., 2021. Innovation Strategy Analysis through a Blue Ocean Strategy
for Wear It. 7th International Conference on Entrepreneurship (7th ICOEN).
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