A LEADING PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY

The challenge

A pharmaceutical company working in the animal health sector developed a new medicine (technology) that would disrupt the livestock faring and meat production market. To be able to sell the new technology to farmers, the company needed to ensure that value was delivered across the ecosystem, to customers (farmers), customers’ customers (retailers) and the end consumer.

The solution

The company used ecosystem mapping to visualise all of the relationships and value exchanges involved in bringing meat to the consumer.

Initial project

This new innovation met resistance within the ecosystem which limited its uptake, so the company used ecosystem mapping to identify problems and barriers, creating a strategy to overcome them.

Tailoring IfM tools and approaches

One recommendation of the process was that the pharmaceutical company should enter into strategic relationships with retailers, who are key influencers in defining how animals should be raised and how meat should be slaughtered.

The pharmaceutical company then needed to identify how to best develop the strategic relationship with the retailer. Through looking at value exchanges within the ecosystem, the team identified that, instead of talking to meat buying departments, the focus should be on the marketing. They were able to help the marketing departments understand the unique selling points for the technology (for example fewer antibiotics used in processing the meat, and less CO2 produced, hence environmental benefits), which they could then promote to the consumer, influencing demand.

Through considering the full value exchanged in the ecosystem, the pharmaceutical company was able to improve value capture across the ecosystem, overcome barriers including perceived risk, and increase the uptake of the new innovation.