The Study of the Key Successful Factors of the Chain Pharmacies
Date Issued
2004
Date
2004
Author(s)
Kuo, Pei-Wen
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
The chain pharmacies in Taiwan are now facing dramatic challenges in adapting themselves to several rapid changes, such as the implementation of National Health Insurance (NHI), the separation of dispensing practice from medical practice, the liberalization of drug importation, the internationalization and modernization of drug retailing, the increasing of consumers’ educational level, the changes of the consumers’ behaviors and habits, and etc. Some researchers believe that holding the key successful factors of management can help to build up the sustaining competitive advantages.
In this study, main focus would be the chain pharmacies that include specific aims listed as below,
1. To understand the key successful factors of the chain pharmacies in Taiwan.
2. To compare the cognition of key successful factors across different systems.
3. To compare the cognition of key successful factors across different management styles of chain pharmacies.
4. To compare the cognition of key successful factors across successful and failing chain pharmacies.
This is a survey research that discusses the key successful factors in chain pharmacies from the viewpoint of managers of all individual pharmacies. The definition of chain pharmacies is the servicing points of one system with 10 or more pharmacies in similar image, and management style. Success pharmacy is defined as the pharmacy has average monthly gross profit rate higher than 21 percent. The study generalized 23 factors that affect the management of chain pharmacies through the literature review and interviewing with one business manager. These factors were categorized into five groups including “headquarter”, “the attributes of products”, “marketing and promotions”, “human resources”, and “the condition of operations”. After inviting 3 scholars and one CEO to finish the expert validity questionnaire, this study selected two systems with purposive sampling. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied to select key successful factors for chain pharmacies. By mailing the questionnaires to 120 drugstores of the chain pharmacies within these two systems, sixty samples responded (50 percent response rate). The goodness of fit tests between the sample and population show that the sample represents the population well.
Data was analyzed by four subsets including all pharmacies, systems, management styles, and average monthly yield to serve the purposes. For all pharmacies, seven key successful factors to manage chain pharmacies with relative descending importance, such as “the decision of location”, “the degree of popularity of chain pharmaceutical system”, “product profitability”, “compensation policies”, “economic scale of chain pharmaceutical system”, “completeness in training programs”, and “stability of workforce”.
The key successful factors evaluated by two systems focus on “headquarter”, “the attributes of products”, “marketing and promotions”, and “human resources”. There are slight differences between the evaluations of two systems in key successful factors.
Among the evaluations of different management styles, the factors jointly evaluated as top five key successful factors by these two styles’ managers are ” the degree of popularity of chain pharmaceutical system”, product profitability”, “the decision of location”, and “compensation policies”. The regular chain managers believe that “the selection of market segmentation” is also important, and the franchise chain managers believe that the “uniqueness of products” can bring the pharmacies success.
Managers’ opinions comparison toward successful and failing pharmacies’ successful factors shows that they both believe that “the degree of popularity of chain pharmaceutical system”, “the uniqueness of products”, “product profitability”, “the decision of location”, and “compensation policies” are important factors in managing chain pharmacies. The result shows their cognitions of the key successful factors have no difference, but they might allocate different resources on these factors.
Based on the research findings, several suggestions are proposed for both the managers of chain pharmacies and in the headquarters of chain systems to provide some reference for developing strategies in the future. Recommendations to the managers of chain pharmacies include strengthen their management in product categories, the active attendance of training programs, and the collection of site related information. Recommendations to the managers in the headquarters of chain systems include the promotion for the degree of popularity of chain systems, the modification of their growth strategies, the integration of all the pharmacies and the industry related information, and the improvement of human resources system.
Subjects
連鎖藥局
分析層級程序法
關鍵成功因素
Chain Pharmacy
Analytic Hierarchy Process
Key Successful Factor
SDGs
Type
thesis