Strategic Management:
Introduction:
In 1998, the competition in the medical industry was at its peak, as a result of this many pharmaceutical companies merged with other companies and various pharmaceuticals giants acquired subsidiaries in same and different sectors to achieve economies of scale. AstraZeneca is also formed in that period with the merger of Astra AB Swedish Company and Zeneca a UK based company. The merger of these companies was undoubtedly the largest merger at that time. The combined company is managed by an enthusiastic CEO named David Brennan, the combined company headquarter is located in London, and the research centers of the company are located in various locations around the globe. The senior management always consults with the doctors in bringing new developments in their medicines. The company is keen regarding the developments of new drugs and continuous improvement in their products. AstraZeneca is owned 46.5% by the shareholders of Astra and remaining 53.5% is held by the shareholders of Zeneca. After the merger, the company explored the following core areas such as cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, oncology and local and general anesthesia.
Before 2000, the pharmaceutical industry is achieving good growth, after 2000, the global pharmaceutical industry has not grown rapidly, and the industry is achieving stable growth. Increased competition, stringent laws and regulations and global economic recession affected the pharmaceutical industry drastically. To improve the performance of the organization, the senior executives are considering various changes in the organizational structure and acquire further companies in the sector.AstraZeneca also increases the research and development expenditure to support the development of the products.Various health care reforms were also made by the government in that period which also decreases the profitability of the sector. In the year 2007, the company faced some terrible situations when many of its key drug patents wereabout to expire, to tackle this situation AstraZeneca acquired various companies and their pipelines.
Astrazeneca Harvard Case Solution & Analysis
SWOT Analysis:
Strengths:
AstraZeneca is considered a high-quality pharmaceutical company; it can be argued that AstraZeneca is relatively a young company as compared to its main rivals and it isstill competing with the industry giants such as GSK and Novartis. The main reason for this competitive advantage is the quality of the products and medicines of AstraZeneca. The customer considers the products of AstraZeneca are up to the mark regarding quality.
Another Strength of AstraZeneca is the management that is associated with them;it can be said that the management is very committed to their work and responsibilities. Not only this all the management is on the single platform to sustain and enhance the long-term growth prospects of the company.
As AstraZeneca is one of the biggest players in the pharmaceutical industry, it can be assumed that it has substantial reserves which can be sufficient for fulfilling the expansion requirements. Additionally, for the expansion of the operation AstraZeneca can quickly obtain new finance due to its lower gearing level and availability of high financial reserves.
Weaknesses:
By analyzing the performance of AstraZeneca, it can be said that the investors do nothave enough confidence on AstraZeneca. This can be due to the ambiguous and unclear policies of the management, in the past, the company has made several policies regarding the expansions of its operations, but the plans were unable to achieve the desired results. Despite the high growth prospects of the company, the company was unable to convince the market regarding the achievements of the growth aspects.................
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