For the second part of the course project, you will perform a critical evaluation and comparison of two publicly-traded companies in the same health care segment. Your paper should apply the financial...

The organization which we have chosen for our analysis is Pfizer Incorporation and
Novartis. Both the organization works in the field of pharmaceuticals and over the years have
uilt in strong
ands in the healthcare segment. Leadership in supply chain is also defined by
the concept of patient care. Patient care places additional life-saving, life-sustaining and life-
improving responsibility on those in healthcare. Customer service and risk mitigation strategies
that may be sufficient for other industries would leave patients exposed to supply variability
and disruption. There is a high bar for healthcare supply chains.
Supply chain leadership in healthcare also includes the ability to reduce complexity from
the patient's perspective. The number of companies involved in the delivery and payment of
healthcare creates an often obscure process. This is at odds with patients' expectations of fast,
simple, transparent and cost-effective care. Organizations that reduce the complexity of
healthcare will win.
One of the most important aspects of leadership in supply chain is a willingness to share
successes and challenges. Thankfully, the nature of healthcare means that organizations
frequently aren't competing primarily based on the strength of their supply chains, as some
other industries do. This helps to foster the sharing of supply chain accomplishments in the
industry.
The core concept of patient driven and demand driven is the alignment of the supply chain to
the customer need that it ultimately fulfills. Simply stated, the customer defines what
constitutes success (or failure) of the supply chain.
One aspect of patient/demand driven is already universal in the industry — every player in the
value chain is aware that there is a patient requiring care at the end. Leading organizations
understand satisfying a customer is more than just treating a patient's disease or condition.
Patient expectations of treatment cost, location and convenience are an opportunity that
leaders from all industry segments are using to define their supply chains.
Leaders realize that a key component of being patient-/demand-driven is an obsession with the
cost-benefit paradigm, and necessary to stay competitive. This is more than just a single-
minded pursuit of lower cost. It requires understanding how your customer defines value, and
ensuring you have a profitable ability to deliver that value. Leading manufacturers em
ace
demonstrated value through clinical trials, portfolio optimization and new technologies.
Providers build analytics capabilities to understand, and solutions to control the variables, that
deliver the best care at optimal cost. Distributors reinvent themselves to establish new value
propositions to maintain their roles as the trusted partner of manufacturers and healthcare
providers. Retailers work with pharmaceutical companies to control prices for their customers
and redefine the concept of population health management.
As the location where healthcare is delivered continues to transition to more patient-friendly
places, leaders build supply chain organizations that can support this. Manufacturers add
capabilities, like agility and postponement, to manage geographically
oader customer bases.
Distributors and wholesalers complement their core businesses with solutions to help their
customers analyze and understand their business quickly and more deeply. Health systems are
investing in care delivery beyond hospitals, emergency rooms and doctor's offices.
Advances in technology also drive supply chain improvements. The development of new
products can drive co
esponding new developments in supply chain. For example, Amgen
couldn't leverage its existing supply chain for its new cancer therapy, Imlygic. Due to the
product's stringent low temperature requirements, Amgen had to build a new ordering,
shipping, logistics and customer infrastructure.
Channel Frustration with the Status Quo as a Catalyst for Action
John F. Kennedy famously noted, "In the Chinese language, the word 'crisis' is composed of two
characters, one representing danger and the other, opportunity." 1 The modern healthcare
industry faces a crisis. The cu
ent trajectory of costs isn't sustainable. This forces companies to
e-evaluate their place in the healthcare value chain and their costs of their contributions. The
cu
ent cost/outcome...