What business are we in?
By on May 21, 2009
A few decades ago the Sony walkman solved the problem of music on the go and beat all competition with relative ease. However whilst they were king of the walk manthey were not kings of music on the go, and they eventually lost out to Discman and now ipod and Iphone. The important question for all organisations is to get a proper answer to the question - what business are we in?
So what business are we in? We are the Pharmaceutical industry but does this give us the right perspective on the business we are in. History is full of industries that paid a very heavy price for failing to answer this question. The challenge is to avoid a product oriented view i.e pharmaceutical pills andinstead to consider the problem we are tring to solve i.e saving, restoring and improving lives.
Customers are not and have never been interested in products, simply solutions. So the rail road industry eventually found out that we want to get from A to B. Faith healers, medical devices, healthy lifestyle and excercise are some of the routes that lead to the same solution. Is it time Pharma and med devices companies start merging? Do we need to continue to broaden the scope of our proposition?