Analysis of the Brazilian pharmaceutical retail market: main characteristics, players and successful practices / Análise do mercado farmacêutico brasileiro: principais características, atores e práticas de sucesso

Abstract

The Brazilian retail pharmaceutical market is going through an extremely important moment. The accelerated growth presented in recent years tends to remain, leading Brazil to become one of the five largest markets worldwide in the short term. In addition, although still very fragmented, the market is experiencing a gradual consolidation process. Such transformations and outlooks, along with the economic context of the country, create high level of interest from investors and other stakeholders. This chapter answer the following questions: What is the economic relevance of the Brazilian pharmaceutical retail market, its main characteristics and perspectives? Which are the players in this market? Which are the main brands, their characteristics, performances and successful practices? What would be the strategy recommendations for a player's success considering the current market momentum? The method was based on literature review and a semi-structure interview with a senior executive of a main player. Overall, the main players have been obtaining good operational and financial performance. These companies have different characteristics in regards to financial performance, footprint, positioning, number of stores, and operation of retail outlets, among others. They also feature numerous strategic initiatives, which are analyzed in order to identify good market practices and recommendations for success, touching on topics such as expansion, store format, customer service, management and growth mechanisms. The results of this chapter were partially presented before by Fernandes at al. (2016). Therefore, we believe this chapter is useful to business managers and investors in this market (generating better understanding and enabling more conscious strategic analysis) as well as academics studying it (as it serves as a reference for future studies).