Superdrug Digital Transformation - Research Paper

Introduction

Digital transformation is the integration of innovative technology into a different aspect of business with the purpose of delivering value for potential customers and enhancing the operational process of the organization. The research director of "Worldwide Digital Transformation Strategies" mentioned in his interview that IDC predicts that by 2020, 30 % of companies will spend at 10% of their revenue to fuel digital strategies (Triste n.d). The main reason is that business executives begin to understand that investment in digital transformation has long-term benefits. The Digital Transformation Portfolio for a health-related organization's main aim is to increase the customer value delivered by the specific company (Matt et al., 2015). This can be done by improving health and social care services. The focus is to use the digital platform to provide solutions that are tailored towards meeting the needs of emerging customers. This portfolio seeks to look at approaches that Superdrug can use to increase values for its customers.

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Superdrug is ranked second among the health and beauty retailers in the United Kingdom. Currently, they have 800 stores around the country and at least 200 in-stores pharmacies. Superdrug is committed to bringing the best quality and innovation in its services. Additionally, their mission is to be their customers' first choice for Healthy and Beauty products and service (Herrmann et al., 2018). In 2017 Superdrug opened additionally 22 stores around the UK and started to sponsor the TV show (Triste n.d). By this way, the company was able to increase its revenue by 2.3%, which makes it PS1.2 billion.

Another critical element, which brings success to the Superdrug, is highly educated employees and their specific way of working with customers. This dramatically increases the value for the customers. Additionally, Superdrug has many other strategies which allow them to keep their market positions. The policies are:

• Active promotion and order to collect services
• Integrated online services into the online experience
• Provide an attractive loyalty programme
• Information reach-store pages

Weaknesses

However, Superdrug at the moment has some areas of flaws, which impacts negatively on the customer service.

One of the challenges is the delay during Peak Hours. First of all, during the peak hours, there are lots of people inside of the store, and the ques are very long, so it is not always possible to buy for example a medicine for a headache during lunch hours. Many people would thus opt to go to a rival pharmacy as opposed to waiting on the long ques.

The other challenge is the Instore health check. The second area of weakness is the in-store health check service. Superdrug currently does not produce any instore health check services, which sometimes, might be useful for people with blood pressure (Bhavnani et al., 2017). Besides the drugstore is not stable or produce a quick eyesight check

The other challenge that the company seems to encounter is a limited parking space. One thing that clients would often look for in a store has enough space to packing their cars whenever they are shopping. The idea of being in a shop and having to worry about the safety of their cars or looking for a space to pack the car might be a big challenge (Gassmann et al., 2017). Therefore, the business needs to look for a way that can ensure that there is enough space for the customers to pack their cars

Retention of staff is also another challenge that seems to be affecting the business. The company appears to experience quite a high turnover. Without a permanent and efficient workforce, it becomes quite hard for a company to establish a good company culture. Without a corporate culture, the firm often finds it hard to develop an approach of dealing with its clients.

Digital Solutions

The digital space is providing various opportunities that the store can explore to deal with some of the challenges that it is exploring (Johri, 2017). The baby boomers and millennials are becoming the new consumers in the market, and they prefer digital solutions for most of their problems. The store can thus take advantage of the various digital solutions to help it have a cutting edge in the industry.

Data Analytics

Digital solutions such as data analysts can offer the best way to improve the delivery of services in Superdrug. For many drug businesses, the biggest challenge has always been on how to integrate pharmacy and medical data. With the use of such an approach, the company can predict who will be adherent to medication and match the patient to an intervention.

It would create a risk score around abuse and thus help to identify the patient that are risk and trigger and early intervention.

Develop a churn model that determines the likelihood of a customer changing pharmacies and thus offer insight on how to retain them.

Help in creating a one on one marketing approach that determines the right message in the right channel to the right person and thus goes beyond segmentation

Also, identify patients at risk for depression so that their treatment can be effectively managed.

The focus of this approach is to bring together, technology consumer and data.

Online Pharmaceutical Orders

Technology has advanced in various fields, and today people can order products online. However, the idea of ordering medications online has not yet taken shape. Superdrug can thus start offering its products using the online platform. A customer can make an order after placing the prescriptions and therefore have the products delivered to their location without any physical engagement (Belliger and Krieger, 2018). The advantage of using such an approach is that it would reduce the time required for the customers to go to the store. Besides, with the online platform, it is possible to reduce the idea of people crowding in the shops and thus deal with the issue of parking space. The convenience that comes with the online stores will also increase the value for the customers. The client will have more convenience ordering the drugs they want and having delivered at their homes.

Digital Diagnostics

The use of digital innovation labs is a revolution that might provide a solution to some of the current challenges that the business is facing. The world is quickly moving toward the telehealth. Telehealth is the remote health services that can be provided over the internet or through the use of mobile devices. The firm can use this technology to offer anything ranging from prescription management, content delivery, and access to doctors and remote diagnostics (Belliger and Krieger, 2018). The approach will not only allow the pharmacy to extend the market a more vibrant market especially in the remote areas but also focuses on the younger consumers to have digital on-demand services as they focus on new healthcare innovation. The approach, this will give the business a higher rich to the market and thus increase its profitability.

References

Belliger, A. and Krieger, D.J., 2018. The Digital Transformation of Healthcare. In Knowledge Management in Digital Change(pp. 311-326). Springer, Cham.

Bhavnani, S.P., Parakh, K., Atreja, A., Druz, R., Graham, G.N., Hayek, S.S., Krumholz, H.M., Maddox, T.M., Majmudar, M.D., Rumsfeld, J.S. and Shah, B.R., 2017. 2017 Roadmap for Innovation-ACC Health Policy Statement on Healthcare Transformation in the Era of Digital Health, Big Data, and Precision Health: A Report of the American College of Cardiology Task Force on Health Policy Statements and Systems of Care. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 70(21), pp.2696-2718.

Gassmann, O., Schuhmacher, A., von Zedtwitz, M. and Reepmeyer, G., 2018. The Industry Challenge: Who Would Want to Be in This Business?. In Leading Pharmaceutical Innovation (pp. 17-39). Springer, Cham.

Herrmann, M., Boehme, P., Mondritzki, T., Ehlers, J.P., Kavadias, S. and Truebel, H., 2018. Digital transformation and disruption of the health care sector: an internet-based observational study. Journal of medical internet research, 20(3).

Johri, P., Singh, T., Yadav, A. and Rajput, A.K., 2017, December. Advanced patient matching: Recognizable patient view for decision support in healthcare using big data analytics. In 2017 International Conference on Infocom Technologies and Unmanned Systems (Trends and Future Directions)(ICTUS) (pp. 652-656). IEEE.

Matt, C., Hess, T. and Benlian, A., 2015. Digital transformation strategies. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 57(5), pp.339-343.

Triste, T. (n.d.). 5 Footfall Driving Strategies You Can Learn From Superdrug. Retrieved from https://www.tecmark.co.uk/blog/superdrug-footfall-strategies

What is digital transformation? | The Enterprisers Project. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://enterprisersproject.com/what-is-digital-transformation#q2