Pfizer company overview and business operations

Business Model Canvas

I found a lot of the techniques were valuable to helping me to perform my organizational diagnosis of Pfizer. The biggest thing was having a number of models that would help me to think about different things. Among the models used were financial analysis, the Porter's Five Forces analysis of the industry, the different type of competitive advantage, a SWOT analysis and an examination of the different forms of competition in the industry. By having a wide range of models, I was able to analyze the company from a number of different perspectives, and this allowed me to better understand Pfizer.

I think that understanding the profitability of the industry, as expressed in the Porter's Five Forces Model, is one of the most helpful things that was covered. It is important to understand how an industry works, because the way that different industries function often dictates what companies have to do to ensure that they are financial successful. This model in particular helped to really frame my understanding of Pfizer.

I like the overall holistic approach to the business model canvas. I feel that starting with the start -- understanding the basic business and mission of the company -- is an effective way to frame the exercise. Then you drill down to the specifics, and this technique seems to really help with the framing of the issues. For me, that is important and a big part of what I liked about this exercise, because it combines a higher level overarching assessment of the company but then there are a number of specifics that you get into as well. Understanding the macro and micro picture is very effective because of what flows from that -- knowing the strategy and then knowing what the company needs to do in order to implement that strategy.

That said, there remains some work to be done in order for me to raise my game with respect to being able to truly understand a company, and I think that will come with practice. The first things is that the models are basically just frameworks, and they are great for spurring thought but the models have an aspect of garbage in, garbage out to them. So in order to get the most out of these models, I think that I need to practice working with them in order that I always come up with the most important factors and the best understanding.

One thing I thought was perhaps the biggest struggle with the financial analysis. This is so different from all of the different qualitative analysis that is done as part of the business model canvas. It can be difficult to understand what all of the numbers mean from a strategic point-of-view. Even when the basic accounting is understood, I found that interpreting numbers to tell me something about strategy was probably the most difficult part of the entire business model canvas exercise. As such, I perhaps feel that the framework can be bolstered to provide greater hints as to what things a person needs to look for when examining financial statements. It is easy to crunch numbers -- the math is not complicated -- but interpreting meaning from this accurately is definitely tricky, so either the frameworks for doing so can be improved but also I can improve my own skills with respect to understanding the underlying meanings behind some of these numbers.